A NEW STORE CONCEPT AND CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE

Aaron’s had experienced 44 consecutive quarters of double digit revenue growth. Then, in early 2013, there was a sudden and dramatic fall off in traffic and sales. Many retailers experienced similar declines due to the consumers’ increasing preference for the convenience of online shopping. In Aaron’s case there was no such shift. There we were no national-scale online lease to own retailers. The assumption at the time was that it was a store ops poor execution-driven problem. Two years later the problem persisted and the operations hypothesis could not account for the continued decline. 

We had to answer the question of where did all the business go. The hypothesis was that there were many factors that converged to create the change in business patterns. So, we set out to put a lot of fresh information on the table. We dissected the company performance by geography, customer demo, and product category. We revisited the customer path to purchase. We did a national quant survey to ask low income consumers (experienced and inexperienced in the category) what they value most in the retail shopping experience, and another survey to define their perception of and use of consumer credit. We analyzed census data and other third party data to identify macroeconomic trends that were connected to our business, the product categories and low income consumers. 

We quantified the problem and the opportunity moving forward. Low income consumers incomes and credit scores were up, which removed 2+ million prospects from the market. Millennials were uninformed about rent to own and were choosing to do without some durable goods purchases - and they were turned off by the shopping experience of RTO - representing another 1 million out of the market. 

• If we retool the shopping experience, we can grow the market and share... significantly. 
• Be more relevant with Millennials. If they love it, everyone else will, too.
• Make the Aaron’s customer experience simpler and easier 
• Revise the product selection - brands, features and fashions
• Stay true to Aaron’s DNA as a RTO retailer, but interject the feelings and experiences of traditional retailers into the Aaron’s experience 

We designed a new, beautiful, well lit store. We automated the lease approval process and shortened it from 45 minutes down to 7 minutes. We retrained the store staff to segment how they help people based upon generation.  We launched a new ad campaign setting new expectation, called "Rediscover Aaron's" 

120 days after the re-grand opening of the prototype remodel the store was experiencing 130% comps. Additional prototypes of varying sizes and markets experienced 120% to 200% comps.  13 months later, average 130% comps continued.  The company is rolling out the value engineered versions fo the prototype nationwide.