The Aaron’s Company, Inc. (NYSE:AAN) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Joe Chalhoub: And then just shifting gears a little bit. Just wanted to ask about the seasonal dynamics at play as we think about the write-offs from 3Q to 4Q. If you could just give any color on those?

Kelly Wall: Yes, absolutely. So typically, what you’d see is Q3 would be the kind of our weakest quarter from a write-off perspective. We did end Q3 of this year at 6.1%. We’ve mentioned pretty nice improvement in the same quarter over last year. I think as we move into the fourth quarter of this year, we might not see the same seasonal improvement, that we have in prior periods, we might, but it will be kind of close whether it’s kind of, just above or just below. One of the dynamics that’s impacting that is, we talked, Douglas talked and Steve talked about enhancements that we’re making to our lease decisioning. And with that, we are expecting an increase in applications through our e-comm channel. And so, with the growth in e-comm as a percentage of the total portfolio, we’ve talked in the past how those customers that come to that channel tend to have a higher, kind of write-off profile.

And so, we’d expect to see that kind of materialize as we move through the quarter and into kind of the fourth quarter of next year.

Joe Chalhoub: And then just one last question. Just talking about the trade-down sort of trade-in dynamics. Can you guys talk about the higher credit quality customers coming in, where you think they’re coming from, and if it’s from above your funnel or customers coming in from other peer LTOs? Thanks.

Kelly Wall: Yes. I think we’ve said before, we sort of have expected with credit tightening that there’s been this trade across going on from peers. As everybody in the space has been tightening, we are seeing, as I said, slightly higher incomes and slightly higher credit scores. The only data we have on that, we don’t know where they were before us, but we do have data at BrandsMart and we are seeing tightening within the waterfall at BrandsMart. So that would indicate to me if BrandsMart is a proxy for other retail tightening that that may be occurring.

Operator: [Operator Instructions]. Our next question comes from Jason Haas from Bank of America. Jason your line is now open. Please proceed.

Jason Haas: Hi, good morning, and thanks for taking my questions. So, you mentioned that you’ve seen, I guess stronger demand for the weekly payment options. Is that a function of the macro environment? Does that signal that the consumer’s under pressure and they’re looking more for that weekly payment option? And if things were to improve in the macro environment, do you think you would see that reverse and consumers go back to looking for that monthly payment?

Steve Olsen: Hey Jason, it’s Steve. Great question. I’ll start off by saying we’re definitely pleased with one the progress we’re making with it and how customers are responding to our new weekly payment options, which now give them weekly, biweekly, and monthly payment frequencies depending on their needs. We’re seeing, obviously more weekly customers, more customers taking our weekly payment option both in-store and our e-commerce channel, but still it’s a small portion of our overall mix of deliveries. We think weekly really gives us the chance to demonstrate our competitive lease rates on a weekly basis across all of our major categories. So, while we’re pleased with it, we’re getting good feedback from our customers, tough to really say, what happens in the future. We just see it as another way to give our customers more flexibility to really set up a payment that meets their needs.