Australians! What is this buying on layby or lay away or whatever?

[ElizabethHoover]

do normal shops really do it?

Mostly just for Christmas but essentially pick your stuff now, spread the payments over 3 or 4 months, then you get your stuff. Bit like a Christmas club I guess. Not everywhere does it - Big W and Target for sure.

All the big stores do lay buy. Target, kmart, bigw etc. The principle is simple, go shopping, take what you want to the lay buy desk (customer service)
Sometimes you need to make a deposit payment (10% of purchase roughly) sometimes no deposit.
Then you leave the stuff at the store and go in and pay it off every week or two weeks..monthly etc. Agreed on the terms of the lay buy.
You don't pay interest so just purchase price.
I like it for birthdays and Christmas stuff I don't want hanging round the house. Buying next size clothes on sale.. Big items on sale.

At Christmas you can get lay buy online too now. Just shop in August payoff till December. Easy

HOW WEIRD!

I do it here in New Zealand for some Christmas presents at a nationwide toy store. I find it really useful, lets me split the payments over 3 months without any interest, and if I didn't want the goods I could swap them for something else or get a refund. The shop stores them for me and I pick them up a couple of weeks before Christmas which is one of the main reasons I like it! Lots of stores do it, some let you take up to 6 months to pay. I don't think it's weird, although I'd never seen it in the UK before we moved here, it's actually a really old way of paying for things, it's what people did before credit cards I think it's a great way to shop within your means and not get into debt whilst still being able to split payment. There a lot of sales here though, so you'd have to be careful to make sure you were getting a good deal and not paying full price.

But the stores literally hold the stuff? Terrible stock management.

What are fly-bys? I used to get asked about those at the supermarket. Is that the same thing?

Flybuys are a loyalty points system. You get a card, when you make purchases at certain shops you swipe your flybuys card to get points, you can redeem the points on products or travel.

Oh thank you. I always wondered, should have just asked really but I didn't want to come across as a dumb foreigner any more than I already was by talking about peppers and aubergines and counting out the money really slowly!

Flybys = Tesco club card points/Nectar card points but not nearly as good!

storm I've been here 3 and a half years and I still can't get my head round calling peppers capsicums, my DC use both! I haven't ever really used my fly buys as shop in supermarkets that don't use them, but we had our booklet through the other day and we couldn't believe how many points you needed to get anything!! I have 46 so only a few thousand to go... There is a show here at the moment called "my first home" which is sponsored by flybuys so they are constantly plugging it, they said they had earn something the other day which i think realistically would have taken them several years to save up for

Elizabeth I'm not sure if they store the stock on site, they parcel it up and then I have to ring the day before when I want to pick it up.

Lay buy is brilliant for big purchases, and Christmas. They even send you a letter if you forget a payment. The only shop that's really crap for it is toys r us, as there's a really huge minimum spend, with a deposit of about $100 which defeats the purpose if you're skint. I also have fly bys, and usually build up $150ish by each Christmas, which I put towards my big food shop.

My biggest strange thing when we moved here at first was when the dcs were going to a school disco. I asked my neighbour (who was also a school mum), how much the ticket was. She said it was $7 but for that they got a bag of chips and a bag of lollies. I couldn't for the life of me fathom why they would serve that at a disco, and why they would need a whole bag of lollies. My neighbour was amused when she explained that chips = crisps, and lollies = sweets. Made much more sense!

Bring a plate to a bbq.. That I found strange.. Till I was told the plate was meant to have food on it
But layout I love.
Flybuys get you good discount on coles car insurance. Also over a year we get 2 gold class cinema tickets.. For nothing. Don't shop in coles k mart often so slow to add up.

Oh yes! The plate! Haha, forgot about that - I first got asked to bring a plate to mothers group, was very befuddled!!

How do you get the gold class tickets? That's news to me.

I still call them capsicums, egg plant, chips and lollies. I have been in the UK for over 20 years

Don't get me started on thongs and pants... although I love it that the kids have picked up on wobblies.

Gold class tickets you redeem in exchange for flybuys.. It's on the website ?? or family movie pass etc.
Things... Yes a young drunken error that was.. On walking into a golf club, big Sign no singlets or thongs.. I asked...how do they know you have a thong on?

But the stores literally hold the stuff? Terrible stock management.

It's not terrible stock management. They usually keep it in their store room, named & packed up ready to collect at any time, once you pay it all off.

At Christmas many places have warehouses & you have to give them a bit of notice in order to collect.

WhereTheFuckIsMyFuckingCoat Yeah, TrUs are a $250 minimum spend, which is fecking ridiculous.

You can now convert your flyby points into gift cards, or an immediate in store discount. I think you need quite a lot still for $10, but every little helps!