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Home Furnishings: Multiple Check is More Profitable than Layaway

Posted by Tom Lombardo | Mon, May 12, 2014 @ 10:00 AM

Furniture Layaway PlanYou’ve seen it a hundred times. Your customer lingers over a particular item, clearly imagining where she would place it in her home and how her family and guests would admire it. Then she wanders away, browses some more… and returns to the item again… and then again…

You know you should have a sale, but when she looks at the price tag she sadly concludes that it is outside of her budget, and turns to leave.

I’d Like to Take Credit, but …

Times have changed, haven’t they? Back before the crisis, when 179 million Americans had at least one credit card, often with an open balance, she might have charged that item without a second thought. But since then the prevalence of credit cards has dropped by nearly 64% and Americans have reduced their outstanding debt by $1.3 trillion. People don’t want to take on debt anymore, so even if you offered to finance the item, chances are your customer wouldn’t take you up on it.

Layaway – New Furniture in 60 Days

However, she might jump at the chance to put it on a layaway plan. With layaway though, her biggest concern now is that she can’t take the product home today, in time to: Entertain guests for a big party, have relatives over for an extended stay, or replace that old couch that desperately needs a landfill. With a multiple check service, that problem can also be solved. Keep reading.

Home Furnishings Layaway PlanSeventy-one percent of all shoppers are open to using layaway, according to a 2013 survey done by Consumer Research, and that includes shoppers at every income level – wealthy people are just as pleased with the idea as are people of modest means. And when asked what they would use layaway for, home furnishings topped the list.

These shoppers see layaway plans that are either free or offered for a nominal fee as a great way to budget for expensive or unique items. And with the average credit card charging an interest rate between 13% and 15%, the absence of interest makes layaway especially appealing.

Merchants offering layaway do take some risks. If you remove a unique, expensive item from your showroom you may risk missing a sale to someone willing to pay full price immediately. If you remove an item that is trending well and the layaway customer falls through after the trend has peaked, you may end up putting the item back on the floor at a discounted price. 

Multiple Check – New Furniture Today

By offering Multiple Check as an alternative to your layaway plan you make it even easier for your customer to say “Yes!” Our Multiple Check service lets your customer write two to four checks to be deposited over as many as thirty days, typically timed to meet her cash flow. When CrossCheck approves those checks you are guaranteed payment – even if one or more bounces. Here’s the wind beneath your customer satisfaction wings… they get to take the furniture home TODAY!

Multiple Check puts you in the perfect position to approach that customer lingering by something she loves and to have a substantial conversation about how she can make it hers. Learn more here about how multiple check can be more profitable to merchants and more satisfying to customers than layaway.

 

Multiple Check Insider's Guide

Topics: Home Furnishings, Multiple Check

Written by Tom Lombardo