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RTO Training Series
The Physics of Improving Sales and Rentals: Apply the Inverse Zeno Effect
In a difficult economy, the rules of the game change, but often our actions don't. We continue to beat the same drums and hope for different results. We work harder, and yet it feels like we're spinning our wheels...more

Credit Reporting Agencies Expanding Reach Into Unbanked Arena
According to recent statistics released by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., there are an estimated 28 million no-file and 44.7 million thin-file consumers in the United States, representing 19.4 percent of all households...more

Almo 2008 Expo Schedule Released; Product Training and Technology Showcase Expanded to Five Regions
Almo Corporation, a leading U.S. distributor of consumer electronics and appliances to the retail and rent-to-own channels, announced their 2008 Almo Consumer Electronics & Appliance Expo schedule...more

Electronic House Expo Spring 2008 Expected to Draw 10,000
Sponsored by the Consumer Electronics Association's TechHome Division, EHX Spring runs March 11-15 at the Orange County Convention Center in Orlando, Florida...more

Survey; Corporate Training Leaders Feeling The Heat To Reduce Costs
According to those surveyed, the single greatest area to cut costs and improve efficiency is in administration (46%)...more

EPA Recognizes Nationwide Marketing Group as Energy Star 2008 Partner of the Year
"Nationwide Marketing Group believes in the value and benefits of energy efficiency, the energy star message and the importance of sharing its benefits with our customers." - Richard Weinberg, National Merchandise Manager of Appliances, Nationwide Marketing Group...more

03-10-08
U.S. Retail Gasoline Price Table By Region, City
U.S. Retail Gasoline Prices, Regular Grade, Dollars per gallon, including all taxes...more

Update: Elliot Spitzer; Ethics King Involved In Prostitution Ring
New York Governor Elliot Spitzer, pride of the consumer advocate community and the man behind many attacks on the Rent to Own industry, is alleged to have been involved in a prostitution ring...more

Payday Loan Association Elects Lynn DeVault President
Ms. DeVault, a past president of CFSA, takes over from Darrin Andersen of QC Holdings who held the post for two years...more

Almo to Carry GPS Leader Garmin
Garmin's highly versatile line of GPS-enabled Electronics brings new customer segment opportunities to Almo Dealers...more

Video
Rent to Own In Minnesota; Interview With Bob Freitag, Owner of T.G.I. Freitags Rent to Own
Bob Freitag, Owner of T. G. I. Freitags Rent to Own, operates multiple stores in Minnesota and explains how he is able to successfully operate in a state where he says the transaction is considered by regulators to be both a rental transaction and also a sale...more

Video
What RTO Dealers Are Looking For In CE; Interview With Marc Shapiro, ALMO
arc Shapiro, Vice President of ALMO’s Electronics Division, lets us know what the most successful rental dealers are looking for in home electronics...more

Video

Furniture Buying Index Drops
Consumers planning to spend money are thinking more about home improvement projects around the house and yard than the furniture inside their home...more

Trust and Payment Options Key To Selling Online
Consumers value payment security and payment choice more than rewards when making purchases online according to a just release survey by Jupiter Research...more

RentDirect Nationwide Meeting Wraps; RTO Online Sends 15 Live Streaming Video Interviews Direct From Show Floor
RTO Online streamed 15 live video interviews from the show floor, giving vendors, dealers and RentDirect Nationwide staff the opportunity to discuss the events of the past few days and also to provide viewers with some insight into their companies and/or their products...more
 

Convention Coverage
RentDirect Nationwide Vendor Show Begins; Bud Gates' Presentation Seen Live By Viewers on Every Continent
RentDirect Nationwide conducted a two hour Member 2 Member meeting before the opening of its semi-annual vendor show that featured a keynote address by Bud Gates, former President of Rent-a-Center and current Master Franchisor for Canada's easyhome rental concept in the U.S. Gates discussed how historical trends in the rental purchase industry can help predict what the future of the sector will look like. See the replay of Bud Gates' live video presentation here.

Convention Coverage
RentDirect Nationwide Officially Kicks Off Conference With Michael Israel Performance
Nearly 3,000 Nationwide Marketing Group members gathered at the Hilton Anatole in Dallas, Texas for the PrimeTime! Vendor Exhibition and Buying Show kick off. The evening featured artist Michael Israel, who was billed as part rock star and part Picasso, and keynote speaker Nibo R. Qubein...more
 

easyhome US Master Franchisor Bud Gates to Address RentDirect Dealers
Gates' speech, titled, Industry Insights: An Insider's Look at RTO; Past, Present and Future - will focus on the RTO Industry from the early seventies through present day and beyond as well as Industry Trends...more
 

Payday Lenders Launch Payday Pundit Blog
In response to continued misinformation in the press, the Community Financial Services Association of America, a national trade association of payday lenders, today launched a new blog, Payday Pundit...more

Long Time Rent Way Exec Jim Violi Passes Away
James M. Violi, former vice president of purchasing for Rent Way, died at his residence very suddenly on Thursday, February 28, 2008. He was 59 years old. Violi served Rent Way for 10 years before leaving the company in 2001...more

Ohio Association Strongly Opposes Mandatory Paid Sick Leave Act
The Ohio Healthy Families Act would require businesses with 25 or more employees to provide at least seven days of paid sick leave to full time employees, and a pro-rated amount of sick leave to part-time employees...more

Mattress Research By Oklahoma State University Published
Mattress research from Oklahoma State University will be published in the Journal of Applied Ergonomics in March...more

dPi Teleconnect Announces New Product; The Inmate Advantage Calling Plan
dPi Teleconnect, LLC, a leading provider of prepaid services credit and cash constrained consumers, today announced it has developed a new prepaid calling product that will be marketed and sold through its Agent Sales Network...more

RentDirect Now Offering MBA Turnaround Team; Members Head To Dallas For Industry's Largest Buying Show
RTO Online will cover the show from Dallas, publishing daily updates, photo galleries, interviews and for the first time, LIVE streaming video of events. RTO Online will stream presentations, including the much anticipated RentDirect keynote presentation by former Rent-A-Center CEO Bud Gates, live on the company's homepage...more

Rental Purchase Agreement Act Gets Seven New Cosponsors
Seven new U.S. Representatives, six Republicans and one Democrat, announced their support of the Consumer Rental Purchase Agreement Act of 2007 (H.R. 1767) Thursday...more

Amcase Rolls Out New RTO Store Fixtures for 2008
Our newest fixtures, Modular Gondolas and MiniTowers will help integrate TV electronics throughout store...more
 

D&H Adds HE-Experienced Sales Personnel to Serve Growing Rent-to-Own Industry Base
"We recognize the extraordinary potential that the home entertainment market continues to offer. Opportunities for dealers, installers and retailers are still growing there." - Jeff Davis, senior vice president of sales at D&H...more

Choosing The Right Media For Your Ad Campaign
Newspaper inserts were very influential on electronics purchases, with more than three out of ten respondents saying inserts had affected their buys. Only word of mouth and reading articles were cited by more consumers...more

Low Income Americans Attitudes Toward Online Shopping Differ From Upper Income
Among internet users in homes with annual incomes below $25,000 annually, 44% strongly agree that they don't like sending credit card information online, twice the share (22%) that strongly agrees that online shopping is convenient...more

Rent-A-Center Provides 400 New York Families With Heating Bill Credit; Rolls Out RAC in State
Continuing their rollout of the RAC - Random Acts of Caring - program that began in Ohio yesterday, Rent-A-Center today launched the statewide community initiative in New York. Rent-A-Center coworkers from around the state and the company's home office went door-to-door in Elmira neighborhoods providing 400 families with a $50 credit on their home heating bills...more

Anxious Consumers File Taxes Returns Early; One Third Filed By Mid February
61.2 percent of consumers have already filed their tax returns or will file a return by the end of the month. Consumers filed earlier this year than they did last year; nearly one-third (28.5%) of Americans filed by mid-February...more
 

RentDirect Preview
Denis Rosen Asks Rent to Own Dealers; Have You Got Game?
Further driving the gaming category to record-setting sales is the fact that there is now a video game console available for everyone, regardless of any economic threshold...more

RentDirect Preview
Get the Big RTO Picture From Mitsubishi
DeMartin added that all DLP televisions come with full-depth matching stands, which means any kind of audio or video components will actually fit in the stand, without hanging over the edge...more

RentDirect Preview
SED International RTO Consumer Electronics
SED International provides RentDirect members with both consumer electronics and computer equipment - two important categories with a special new incentive – the SED Rewards program...more

RentDirect Preview
Toshiba – Leading Innovation With Five New Series
Toshiba America Consumer Products, L.L.C. has rolled out its Spring 2008 LCD TV introductions, including 20 new LCD TV models in five distinct series, creating a robust line-up with something for every lifestyle...more

RentDirect Preview
Mow Down the RTO Competition With Poulan Pro
For years, consumer lawn care equipment remained firmly entrenched as a retail-only category. Sure, you could rent some equipment from the local rental yard, but never from the same store where you'd go to rent a sofa...more

RentDirect Preview
SEADRA Drives Profits For RentDirect Members
Scan the merchandise at a typical rental industry trade show, and you'll see furniture, appliances, electronics, computers and, wait – automobiles? Well why shouldn't there be?...more

RentDirect Preview
RTO Pro Software Launches new Version
RTO Pro is a complete point of sale software system for Rent to Own and Retail stores. RTO Pro was the first commercially available, 32bit Windows-based software package...more

RentDirect Preview
RSSS – The Power of Rent to Own Information
One of the biggest recent developments for RSSS is the implementation of a web-based payment system that allows a customer to access a website and make payments on their rental account...more

RentDirect Preview
Rental Information Systems; The Name Says it All For RTO Dealers
Not only does the Windows environment make understanding the functionality simple, it also makes it easy to integrate store level and back office data into other Microsoft applications...more

RentDirect Preview
The Ideal Situation; Ideal Software Systems
Because TIRM is specifically designed for ease of use at the store level, new employees feel comfortable with the POS system right from the start. They learn TIRM quickly, are up-to-speed faster and your store reaps the benefits sooner...more

RentDirect Preview
High Touch Rent to Own Software Solutions
High Touch provides POS, back office and accounting software solutions to 4,000 rental locations. Their client list ranges from one-store operations to the biggest names in the rental business...more

LG and GE Announce Appliance Licensing Deal
LG and GE made their licensing agreement announcement at a ceremony held today at LG's R&D Campus in the Gasan area of Seoul, Korea...more

Rent-A-Center Launches RAC - Random Acts of Caring
Through its Random Acts of Caring initiative, Rent-A-Center will show up in communities around the state and donate needed merchandise – from appliances to home furnishings to electronics to computers – to organizations that make a difference in people's lives...more

Consumer Confidence at 15 Year Low
The Consumer Confidence Index continues losing ground and, with the exception of the Iraqi War in 2003, is now at its lowest level in nearly fifteen years...more

Ralph Nader Seeks To Influence Obama, Clinton on Rent-to-Own, Payday
With the Democratic convention shaping up to be a bar room brawl, Nader hopes to use his celebrity among Democrats to push Obama and Clinton further to the left on specific issues like Payday Lending and Rent to Own that he views as "economic crimes"...more

Small Business Owners Say Stimulus Package Will Have No Significant Impact
The general rent-to-own industry consensus is that the stimulus package rebate checks may increase pay-outs. But with every retailer in the country competing for those dollars, the impact is impossible to predict...more

The Family Business; Bob Serina and Family Open South Carolina Premier Rental-Purchase
Serina began his RTO career in 1981. With his children grown, Serina can now involve them and his wife in a family business. The only to do that was to go into business for himself...more

dPi Teleconnect Acquires Family-Tel
dPi Teleconnect, a leading provider of prepaid services to credit and cash constrained consumers, has acquired Family-Tel, a competitor in the prepaid services industry. A former division of Rent Way, dPi is now majority owned by Rent-A-Center (Nasdaq: RCII)...more

Internet's Influence on Consumer Purchases Doubles; Traditional Media Down 15%
Not only is influence of new media growing, it is much more influential among minority groups. Influence of new media is higher for Hispanics and African Americans across all new media forms compared to all adults...more

International Trade Commission Begin Formal Investigation of LG Electronics
Whirlpool Corporation confirmed today that on Feb. 21, 2008, the ITC initiated an investigation of LG Electronics Inc., of South Korea and its U.S. and Mexican affiliates...more

RTO Training Series
Marketing To Women; The Root of All Profit
So much has been written about the powerful female consumer you would think the "men folk" in your organization would realize women are the root of all profits. Yet, still so many companies live in denial that women account for over 80 percent of all consumer purchases...more

Video Preview of Next Seasons Hot Home Furnishings Looks
During the times when the diversity of looks is great and no single style dominates, the trend-tracker lens focuses on performance and, thanks to green initiatives, origin, as much as it does color, pattern and finish...more
 

RentDirect Nationwide Rolls Out Enhanced Website
The buying group's latest addition to Member Net is a user-friendly "site within a site." According to RentDirect Executive Director, James MacAlpine...more

easyhome Same Store Sales Up 13.5%; Announces New Management Structure
easyhome, Canada's largest rent-to-own company, reported same store revenue growth of 13.5%. The company also announced the streamlining of responsibilities at head office, combining the responsibility for merchandise, marketing and operations into a single Senior Vice President position filled by Dave Maries...more

Flash; Payday Lending Industry Targets Military, Women, Hispanics, Elderly, African Americans, Immigrants, Young people, Native Americans, Social Security Recipients, Veterans, the Poor and the Affluent
"Our industry has been accused of 'targeting' the military, minorities, women, immigrants, the elderly, the poor, the middle-class and now conservative Christians," said Darrin Andersen, president of the Community Financial Services Association of America. "Who's left? This is preposterous."...more

Iowa Rent to Own Bill Copies West Virginia; DOA in Iowa House
The Iowa Association of Business and Industry opposes HF 2308. The group has received assurances from House leadership that the bill would be stopped...more

Indiana Senate Takes First Look At Rent-to-Own Property Legislation
Since the sub-prime housing crunch began in early 2007, rent-to-own agreements for property have grown in popularity. The no-debt nature of a rent-to-own or rental-purchase agreement allows for the lease with option to purchase...more

Rent-A-Center Promotes Becky Crawford To VP Field Human Resources
Crawford joined Rent-A-Center in May 2005. She most recently served as senior director – field human resources. Her previous experience includes more than 20 years in store operations and human resources at retail organizations from Target to Footstar/Footaction...more

Recession Unlikely; Housing Sector Correction Nearly Over
While the U.S. economy has weakened, business activity and corporate profits continue to rise. Consumer spending is continuing at a rate of 2 to 2.5 percent a year, and with the exception of the auto industry, the economy is showing gains virtually across the board...more

Eleven Term Tennessee Republican John Duncan Supports Rental Purchase Agreement Act
Eleven term Tennessee Republican Representative John Duncan (R-TN-2nd) is the 68th member of Congress to announced support of the Consumer Rental Purchase Agreement Act of 2007 (H.R. 1767)...more

Payday Loan Association Corrects Wall Street Journal Inaccuracies
The Community Financial Services Association (CFSA), the national payday loan trade association, is looking to correct inaccuracies in the February 12th front-page Wall Street Journal story...more