Right in the Mid of August, Wal-Mart Starts its Christmas Sale
Christmas is still four months away but our retail giant is all set to give its competitors a tough time by launching its Layaway program Mid August and two week earlier than it did in 2014.
On Thursday, the retail giant announced that this year it will be launching its annual layaway holiday season sale program two weeks earlier than last year. The additions to this year’s program are that the customers will be able to make the payments within 90 days instead of 60 days and for individual eligible items the prices will be as lower as $10 to $15 at the Wal-Mart Stores.
On September 4, 2015, the store is launching its “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” merchandise which is clashing with the launch of its layaway program as well. This will coincide with the “Toy Week” event that the company is having for the launch of the merchandise so everyone will be able to get a sneak peak of the toys that will be available.
Wal-Mart’s Vice President of Toys, Anne Marie Kehoe said in a statement that the company might be looking at the largest week of 2015 for the toys, apart from the holiday sale. She further added that this service made available earlier will help the shoppers not to miss out on the popular toys that they can put under the tress for their kids this Christmas. The VP added that Wal-Mart puts more of its toys on this sale program than item from the other departments as it’s a trend that the company follows. This service will also include more than 4500 items which weren’t added in the list last year.
The holiday season items can be picked up by December 14, 2015 and the program will have no cost associated with it to set up the layaway account. In addition to all this, the company will hold its Force Friday event which will be held at over 2500 of its outlets, where the company has said to give away Topp’s limited edition disc game. The day after the Force Friday event the firm is planning on holding an event for families at the same 2500 outlets where the retail company will give away a children’s activity sheet and poster collectibles.
The U.S. giant grew by 6.5 per cent in the first half of 2015 and according to Market Research Company NPD Group, the “Star Wars” merchandise and the “Minions” merchandise is expected to grow the sales of toys in the second half of the year. In 2014, the toy industry was at $18,08 billion and according to the research firms it is likely to grow by another 6.2 per cent in 2015.
Wal-Mart Stock went up by 1.96% at a share price of $66.10 with a market capital of 208.8 billion and a P/E ratio of 13.82.
