The past year has deeply impacted the finances of many families across South Africa. As the opening of schools has been delayed until February 15, parents who are struggling are afforded more time to pay for their children’s’ uniforms. For many families who are struggling financially, buying these clothes on lay-by is the best option.
As one of the cheapest stores for good school uniforms, PEP Stores sees thousands of customers purchasing uniforms on credit. They allow the person to pay a purchase off over a period of time before they are able to take it home when it is fully paid.
Many social media users are encouraging their fellow citizens to get involved and do what they can to help those in need. A Facebook post in the Basically Bedfordview group has requested that those who are financially able to help struggling parents do so by contributing even a small amount to paying off a school uniform lay-by.
“If you have some spare change, pop into your nearest PEP stores and ask the cashiers to show you any lay-bys of school uniforms they have waiting for payment,” the post reads. “People who take out these lay-bys are usually so desperate and would be grateful if they found their purchase paid for in full.”
PEP has a “Lay-By Buddy” system in place, which works in the following way:
- You can make a payment towards settling randomly selected customers’ PEP lay-by’s on their behalf
- Contribute as little as R2 in-store or R20 on the PEP website
- Any payment made gets deposited into the PEP lay-by fund for the purpose of settling lay-by customers’ purchases
- Each month randomly selected beneficiaries will receive a voucher via SMS that they can then redeem against the outstanding balance of their PEP lay-by
- Beneficiaries are selected randomly by the system each week and beneficiaries cannot be specified or selected
To access the “Lay-By Buddy” page, click here.
Picture: PEP Stores