Furniture accounts for roughly half of all rent-to-own industry revenue. But most U.S. consumers don't even consider renting furniture - it's simply not on the average furniture or appliance consumer's radar as an acceptable means of buying.

Jim Schebler, President, Premier Home Furnishings.

Even as interest rates drop, credit-declines for bigticket home goods like furniture and appliances remain very high. Some furniture retailers report that nearly two thirds of all sales cannot be closed due to insufficient credit. Add to this the evaporation of new homes to furnish due to the sub-prime mortgage crunch and retailers, already in a slump, are looking at a bleak 2008 that a one time stimulus won't fix.

Furniture accounts for roughly half of all rent-to-own industry revenue. But most U.S. consumers don't even consider renting furniture - it's simply not on the average furniture or appliance consumer's radar as an acceptable means of buying. Replacing the word "rent" with "lease" on your sign will help some, but to attract retail customers, you have to look, act and market yourself like a retailer.

Jim Schebler, president of Premier Home Furnishings, thinks he has the answer - a retail franchise with an unlimited range of purchase options from cash to credit to rent-to-own. Schebler believes that his model can not only solve the retail problem of losing 60% of sales due to lack of credit, but also greatly broaden the rent-to-own/leasing customer base. He envisions a store that never turns away any consumer for lack of finance options.

RTO Online interviewed Schebler recently in San Antonio, Texas. Watch the interview here. Excerpts below:

Jim Schebler:
We opened three new locations in 2007, including our 18,000 square foot flagship store in Davenport Iowa. My vision is to have a financing program that serves everyone that walks in the door. Unfortunately, there is a large segment of consumers that won't walk through a rent-to-own door. My goal was to create an environment that draws traditional retail and rent-to-own customer and has the ability to provide a finance program that meets the needs of both groups.

Premier is primarily an Ashley Signature Design store. Signature Design is Ashley's line that caters to independent retailers.

Premier currently has six stores operating. Our target franchisee is mom and pop furniture retailers and independent rent-to-own operators. Rent-to-own operators can expand into retail and retailers to greatly expand their selling opportunities by never having to turn a customer away for bad credit. This is an opportunity for retailers to increase revenue and be competitive with anyone out there.

Our goal is to balance the revenue 50-50 rent to own and retail sales.

Premier also offers advantages to the consumer because there are so many options - Lease to own, lay away. retail, traditional financing - we have systems for every possible purchase option.

Watch full the interview here.