Aarons 2007 Annual Report Download - page 19

“ The population of Farmington is about 45,000, and
we are the biggest town within a two-hour drive in
any direction. Farmington is in the Four Corners
region — about 45 minutes from where Utah, Arizona,
New Mexico and Colorado meet. It is really a rural
market, and we draw our customers from quite a
distance — up to an hour and a half away. It is an
hour to the Arizona border, for example, and we
still can offer next-day or two-day delivery.
T h e energy business is big here. There is a fair
amount of oil and gas interests, coal mining and
power plants. Most of the big energy companies have
operations in this region. The economy is in good
shape, and this store is still growing in its sixth year.
I became general manager of this store about five
years ago when the store had 1,056 customers.
Now the customer count is over 2,275.
Our customer base is 60% Native American. The
largest Navaho reservation is about 30 miles away,
but many of our Native American customers do
not live on a reservation. Interestingly, many Native
Americans operate on a cash basis and do not use
the banking system. We do quite a bit of business
under our 90 Day Same as Cash program.
We compete with Rent-a-Center and several locally
owned rental stores, but there are also two Wal-Mart
stores in our region. We have been very successful
in converting rent-to-own customers to our sales
and lease ownership program by showing the price
advantage. We actually compete with Wal-Mart, and
our customers choose Aaron’s because they can
spread out their product cost over three months
with our 90 Day Same as Cash program.”
— Kevin Woods, General Manager, Store FO284
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