BIG W Backflips On $15 Layby Fee

BIG W has reversed its decision to charge customers a $15 non-refundable service fee on lay-bys, reducing the unpopular charge to just $3.

In June last year, the retailers quietly hiked its lay-by service fee from $5 to $15, not long before its popular Toy Mania Sale. The cancellation fee also leapt from $12 to $20, raising the ire of lay-by regulars.

A post detailing the changes last year attracted hundreds of comments in the BIG W MUMS AUSTRALIA Facebook group, with the move labelled as ‘pure profit greed’.

“Holy shomoses that’s ludicrous, I definitely won’t be making any lay-bys.”

“Wow, that’s a huge service fee just to place a lay-by!”

“That’s bloody ridiculous. I’ll be thinking twice about doing a lay-by now. Might just put money aside and do a big shop when another decent sale comes on.”

BIG W Lay-By Fee changes

Irate shoppers have also taken to the BIG W Facebook page to voice their concern.

“When was BIG W going to post the lay-by changes absolutely ridiculous increase $5. to $15.00? Not everyone has finance and the elderly who use it a lot. Shame BIG W.”

“Elderly don’t have Zip or Afterpay and every BIG W near myself store all Xmas lay-by etc on site. Absolutely ridiculous.”

However, there are also plenty of shoppers who support the fee increases.

“I feel like it’s to stop people lay-bying and then constantly cancelling them to get better deals.”

“See I agree with it. So many people lay by a ridiculous amount of items that they won’t pay off / collect. This may deter a few of those people. They store the lay by for 6 months so it works out $2.50 a month for the convenience of being able to pay it off and having somewhere to store it.”

A BIG W spokesperson told Mouths of Mums at the time that there are several reasons behind the fee increases.

“Whilst we try our best to avoid any increase in administration and cancellation fees, this has come into effect due to an increase in the costs of managing and storing goods for Lay-by, as well as a rise in the number of orders that are later cancelled.

“These changes will ensure we can maintain our ability to continue to offer Lay-by as an option. For those looking for alternatives to Lay-by, we offer buy now, pay later options including Afterpay and Zip Pay.”

However, it now appears BIG W has reversed this decision, with its lay-by page confirming each lay-by will now attract a one-off, non-refundable $3 service fee. The $20 cancellation fee remains.

Did the fee increases put you off lay-bys at BIG W? Let us know in the comments below.

88 Comments

- - sars_angelchik said
  - 03 Jun 2022
    8:54 pm
Surprise surprise. I can understand charging for cancelling, but don’t see why you should have to pay anything just for the privilege- you don’t pay anything for AfterPay and the like.

- - Mumof3boyos said
  - 03 Jun 2022
    8:19 pm
I don’t really care… it’s not the staffs fault so don’t be nasty to them (I’m a former staff member)

- - mom462038 said
  - 03 Jun 2022
    7:05 pm
I’m so confused at all the price hikes. Companies that make millions of dollars in profit every year claiming they need to
Increase prices

- - cassy26 said
  - 03 Jun 2022
    9:29 am
I don’t use lay buy. I’ve always been oof the mindset that if I can’t afford it, I don’t buy it but that it is huge jump. I think it’ll turn a lot of people off.
- Ellen replied
  
  04 Jun 2022 , 4:20 am
  Yes, I’m the same, simply don’t buy it when you can’t afford it.
  - mom486446 replied
    
    04 Jun 2022 , 11:18 am
    
    Why is it so difficult for some people to understand that lay-by is an excellent notion for people of fixed or lower income to be able to buy things they *need*, often while those items are on sale.
    
    “Can’t afford it, dont buy it, dont layby it” is such a classists catch-cry and completely rags on the elderly, or fixed or lower income people. Do they not deserve to have nice items, often while they are on special? When exactly are they supposed to be able to buy anything? After saving up for 8 weeks when the item is no longer on sale, so they have to save up another 8weeks? And what do they do in the meantime?
    
    These comments really say at lot about a person.
- - mom487937 said
  - 03 Jun 2022
    8:38 am
Everything is going up at the.moment, it’s ridiculous. It is a pretty steep rise in the layby Brice, I wonder if they have had more people cancelling lately due to the higher cost of living.

- - sharna_booth_weinrowski said
  - 03 Jun 2022
    8:37 am
That is just utterly disgusting increase in fees

- - Ellen said
  - 03 Jun 2022
    7:51 am
I never buy anything on lay by. I don’t want to buy anything what I can’t pay yet. Just save up your money yourself and buy it when you have the sufficient amount.
I can imagine they do this when people are cancelling their items in search for better deals.

- - Jessica said
  - 03 Jun 2022
    7:24 am
Isn’t the point of lay-by to make the purchase more affordable? How does this do that?

- - yahoo_lou said
  - 02 Jun 2022
    10:44 pm
That is such a huge increase! How can they justify such a huge jump?

- - Frankiielot said
  - 02 Jun 2022
    9:37 pm
I don’t use lay-by so had no idea it even had fees!
That’s quite a significant jump though. Everything is rising in price and it’s really unfortunate as wages aren’t going up!!!

- - TraceyGail said
  - 02 Jun 2022
    8:19 pm
I can understand as storage of these items, many of which can be large, must be hard to find room for. Then there are all the cancellations. This might see the end of the mid year toy sales.

- - mom400215 said
  - 02 Jun 2022
    8:19 pm
$15 for layby is a bit high. Fair enough with cancellation fees being high but just $15 to place a layby when most people layby Because they don’t have the money to start with is a bit steep. I was going to layby for Christmas but not sure I will now.

- - HelenP5 said
  - 02 Jun 2022
    8:14 pm
I don’t use lay-by, but my MIL does & I know she will not be happy to hear about these changes

- - mom465683 said
  - 02 Jun 2022
    7:24 pm
I never used lay-by. And I probably never will. But that’s a big increase.

- - BellaB said
  - 02 Jun 2022
    7:01 pm
I don’t use layby, but that is a big jump.

- - Mom466555 said
  - 02 Jun 2022
    6:46 pm
I didn’t even know it had fees.

- - Forgetful Mumma said
  - 02 Jun 2022
    6:34 pm
It’s been so long since I have done a lay by as my husband thinks it’s a waste of money with the fees. So I’m really surprised by a lot here! I thought lay-by fees were still around $2.50 and had no clue that you have to pay a collection fee! I understand the lay by to hold/admin fees, but paying for the collection of items that you own is highly questionable!

- - mumof3 said
  - 02 Jun 2022
    5:31 pm
This doesn’t affect me since I don’t lay by, but I am so over the cost of everything increasing!

- - Myrlie said
  - 02 Jun 2022
    5:27 pm
I’ll probably still do a layby despite the hike. It is a decent increase and if it was on a normal 2 month layby I wouldn’t, but on their layby to Christmas it’s not so bad.

- - Mumoftwo said
  - 02 Jun 2022
    5:03 pm
That’s a pretty decent jump on the fee, with all the extra costs happening at the moment $10 can make big difference to a lot of people