Aarons 1999 Annual Report Download - page 13

“This is primarily residential furnish-
ings for corporate housing,” said
Blades. “A third party provider
contracts with the Company for the
furniture, and we partner with that
provider. The corporation also rented
a lot of office furniture from us.”
differentiates us
from competitors.
Our customers come
in, select what they
need, pay the first month’s rent and
after 12 months they own it.”
Keith Blades began his rental career with Aaron Rents in Phoenix and
moved to Tucson in 1995. His store
has benefited from a strong local
economy and the influx of new
people being transferred in by major
corporations. Serving such reloca-
tions is the forté of Aaron Rents.
Blades said the focus now is on
lease ownership, new in the Tucson
market, which is showing a favorable
response. In addition, the rent-to-
rent store always has a busy spring
providing furniture for three baseball
teams in spring training at Tucson —
the Arizona Diamondbacks, the
Chicago White Sox and the Colorado
Rockies.
David Culley was an office furniture
rental store manager before
becoming the Florida regional man-
ager in 1999. He now has responsi-
bility for seven office furniture rental
stores in the strong Florida market.
The division’s Web page is becoming
an important marketing tool that
brings in new business, he said. “It
gets us out in front of the customers,
and we literally have people looking
at the Web page while they’re on the
telephone with us.”
“Our Lease Plus program is very
strong for us,” Culley said. “It has
become very popular.” Lease Plus
tailors a plan allowing the customer
12 to 18 months or longer to own
the furniture. Also popular are work-
station environment systems with
built-in modular components.
— Keith Blades, Store Manager,Rent-to-Rent,
Tucson, Arizona
— David Culley, Regional
Manager, Florida Rent-to-Rent
“Our lease
ownership
and we are getting a lot
of activity from our
Web page.”
“Our office systems have been
very successful,