What's happening in Tampa Bay Tech... the Sun Coast of Florida has a burgeoning tech community, that seems invisible.

Monday, June 16, 2008

Lay-a-way Online?

Tallahassee, Florida-based eLayaway offers debt-free online lay-a-way payments. Remember, Lay-a-way? Before credit cards were issued to every man, woman and child in the US, people would actually have to pay for stuff BEFORE they got it.

So Christmas clubs were a way to save up for 11 months to pay for holiday gifts. Of course, this was before saying Christmas became a punishable social offense.

Lay-a-way was a payment method at the store. So you go to K-Mart or Bradlees or Sears, bring your item(s) to the lay-a-way desk in the back of the store and make a cash down payment. Then you had 90 days to finish paying for it before it was put back on the shelf. There was a lay-away fee but it was tiny. With the popularity of credit cards, there wasn't a need for lay-away, plus stores were making 15-25% on interest with store issued charge cards (different from a credit card. AMEX is a charge card. VISA/Mastercard are credit cards).

eLayaway is ready to take its RubyOnRails platform big time and is seeking some VC. [tjs]

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