# lay-away plan



## martin_shooter (Sep 27, 2008)

well folks it has come to my attention that the scheels here in minot will no longer do new layaway plans starting on april 30. their reasoning for this is that they end up losing to much money on people who cancel or return their items. they want to push their credit cards (have people put the entire gun on a new scheels card). this upsets me greatly. if it werent for the layaway plan, i can easily add up 10,000 of merchandise they would NOT have sold to my family. for a 20 year old kid with very little credit to my name, i would be paying REDICULOUS interest if i were to go out and buy a new gun. they say that they used the sioux falls store as a test store. they stopped doing layaways there before christmas and didnt notice a large reduction in sales. after talking with some of the gun salesmen at scheels, they dont like this idea at all. the problem i see with this is that sioux falls population and surrounding communities is much larger than that of the minot area. i dont know whether this is a scheels wide change or just here in minot. i understand that they want to make as much as they can off people who buy guns (interest on credit cards), but with so many americans in credit card debt up to their eyeballs as it is, it just dosent seem like a good idea to me. i guess i might be the only one who feels this way, but i am more than just slightly with this. well, sportsmans loft in minot might see a little jump in business, since as far as i know they still offer a layaway plan. anyone else not like this idea???


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## tango6 (Jan 29, 2003)

Scheels simply puts their name on a Visa card issued by a financial institution. They make no money off the interest you pay to that financial(credit card) company.

In fact, retailers actually have to pay a fee (often 3% or so) to accept your credit card. So they actually lose money on a credit card transaction.

I'm guessing scheels has figured out that they lose money (potential sales)when they pull a piece of merchandise off the shelf to hold for 3 months for a customer. And _really_ lose money if that customer doesnt complete the layaway transaction.

My advice, get piggy bank save up the money ..when you have enough go to the store and buy what you want. Problem solved. :wink:


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## Bustem36 (Feb 5, 2008)

I agree with martin_shooter....buy the items when you have the money. Guns and actually all merchandise should be free shipping to the store its not like they are going to sell out of a gun and never get it again. Can't blame a store for wanting to move inventory and not pay credit card processing fees.


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## ac700wildcat (Oct 30, 2006)

Maybe a stupid question, but how are they losing money if someone doesn't pay to get an item off layaway? Say someone puts a $600 gun on layway, pays $300 on it and then cannot afford the payment. Scheels gets to keep the $300, keep the gun, and then re-sell it for the original cost again. I understand that maybe that gun will sit for possibly a month or two before it sells again, but with the amount of guns that they do keep in stock that really shouldn't be a big deal. I don't think they would lose anything on anything that was put on layaway and paid off either. It might take a little longer to get the full amount, but they are still getting it, probably along with the sale of some ammo, a gun case, mounts, scope, etc.

I know I was going to probably be putting a gun on layaway with them a couple times a year to add to my collection. I've always bought other stuff there at the same time that I've bought any guns too. Usually a case, holster, speed loaders, or whatever accessories I might want for whatever I bought. This might make a lot of people shop around for a better deal if they have to pay all at once. I usually go to the Grand Forks store and not the Minot one, but I'm sure if they are doing this at one they doing it at the others.


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## bandman (Feb 13, 2006)

ac700wildcat said:


> Maybe a stupid question, but how are they losing money if someone doesn't pay to get an item off layaway? Say someone puts a $600 gun on layway, pays $300 on it and then cannot afford the payment. Scheels gets to keep the $300, keep the gun, and then re-sell it for the original cost again.


Under their current given terms; if you opt out of the layaway plan at any given time you get all your invested money back; no questions asked. :wink: Maybe they should create a clause where they keep a certain percentage of invested money from the opt-outs which would make a guy think twice about jumping ship. I guess that just makes too much sense though.

i.e: charge interest percentage to the ones that don't hold up their end of the bargain. :idea:

I may be wrong, but didn't they just recently raise the percentage of first payment from 10% to 15%?


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## ac700wildcat (Oct 30, 2006)

Thanks Bandman, that makes a bit more sense. Like you said if they made it so they keep a percentage, if someone backs out of the sale, then they would make out ok. I put a kahr cw9 on layaway in March and had to put 20% down. They explained to me its 20% on items under $500 and 10% down on things over $500.


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## NDTerminator (Aug 20, 2003)

On a related note in January I was looking at trading in something on something else at the GF Scheels. They told me with they weren't taking any gun trade-ins, and any cash sales to them would be substantially below Blue Book. In effect, guns were now cash or credit card on the barrel head only. Don't know if they are still doing this as I haven't asked since...

Kevin at Gerrell's here in DL is doing trade-ins so I did my deal with him.
He's selling guns like hotcakes. Gotta admit the Dear Leader actually did stimulate that part of the economy!


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## shooteminthelips (Jun 13, 2007)

Scheels in Grand Forks will be right back to normal now. From December to now, they are more worried about inventory and keeping costs down. They would do the deal now I am sure.


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