AI Is Rewriting Rent-to-Own Marketing Now

Google search is quietly turning into a no-click world, and rent-to-own marketing feels the impact first. When AI Overviews answer the question on the results page, fewer shoppers ever land on an RTO website, which means the old playbook of “rank and convert” stops working the way it used to. We sit down with Ryan Krass of WoW Brands to unpack what’s changing, why it changed so fast, and how rent-to-own dealers can stay visible when the buyer journey starts inside AI.

We connect the dots between macroeconomics and consumer search behavior, including how gas price shocks and inflation reduce discretionary spend and push customers to trade down. That shift shows up in real keyword demand: cheap appliances, used washer and dryer, washer repair, furniture payment plans, same-day delivery, and other “do more with less” phrases. We also talk about buy now pay later growth and what it pulls away from traditional RTO, plus where VRTO and VLTO models may struggle when the pickup and refurbishment reality hits.

Then we get practical: what it means to “feed the machine” with clean, structured data, accurate inventory, strong product pages, and clear availability. Ryan lays out his five pillars for AI visibility and local SEO: relevance, proximity, trust, clarity, and authority, with a blunt takeaway that reviews are the trust proxy AI uses to decide who gets recommended. Subscribe, share this with a dealer who needs it, and leave a rating and review so more operators can find the show.

Transcript

Welcome And Newsletter Plug

Pete Shau 0:07

Hello and welcome to the RTO Show podcast. Guys, it is Pete Chow here, going over with you everything rent to own, and I have an immediately amazing guest here, somebody who's best friends with the podcast. I gotta say, because they really help us out a lot. While brands Ryan Krass takes care of us very well. But I want you guys to know before we do this, you guys need to listen to what's going on on the newsletter. You need to read it, you need to check it out because there's a lot going on on there. Go on to the website, the rtoshowpodcast.com, check that out. Make sure you subscribe and make sure you subscribe to the newsletter. Ryan, my man, how are you doing today? How's everything over there? And most importantly, how's the doctorates going?

SPEAKER_02 0:47

Thanks for having me on again, Pete. This is always a fun conversation. I enjoy our talks. Absolutely. It is going good, man. We are uh it is uh it is an interesting year to say in the least. Um a lot of things are changing, and we are doing our damn just to try to keep up with it and make sure we're on top of it. But uh it's been an interesting six months, that is for sure.

Pete Shau 1:06

Well, just so you guys know, while brands takes a takes care of a lot of things when it comes to rent to own, they basically control the online space of how you're gonna get seen, what your website looks like, the traffic that gets to it, and what you're gonna do with that, how he can dissect that information is amazing. One of the things that happened the other day is so we're going over, I'm going over my reports as I normally do. I check online spaces, I check what's going on in the news, and Ryan puts out some information because he knows that, like you said, in the last six months, there's been huge changes in the traffic on what's going on, rent to own, how people look things up, the retail buying space, how you're going to get things sold, and more importantly, how it affects you in the financial space, because there are everything is changing in the way people are looking for products, the way they're looking for retail sales and what they're looking for. Ryan, tell me, like, when did you start first noticing these changes, these ripples that are starting to come out, and then what caused you to dive into it?

SPEAKER_02 2:03

I would say that I don't I guess I think about marketing probably a different way than most other people do. Uh I don't perceive marketing as well, let me say it this way. I perceive marketing as being a lagging indicator, meaning what you see in the marketing data is a a reflection of behavior.

Marketing Data As Rearview Mirror

SPEAKER_02 2:20

And that behavior had already been changed three or six months ago. So what you see in marketing data is really not a um it's a it's a it's a rear view mirror perspective. And there are times which I believe uh 2026 is one of those, that you can't look in the rear view mirror. You can't look in the rearview mirror anymore. Uh things changed, in my opinion. In first off, they started they started changing in November, December-ish with the a the way in which AI took off, uh really in, let's say, December 2025. But the thing that I really saw coming, I think, was was related to how I thought rent-to-own consumer search was going to change as we started to get into the new year. Um and this was a really a byproduct of what I noticed or what I saw going on um specifically with the Iran war. And I'm not trying to get political on this, but there are aspects to there are aspects to marketing that let that's not the right way to say it. Macroeconomics and what's going on with the economy determines what's going to happen with the consumer. Those are things that no matter what you're trying to sell or what you're trying to do with the consumer doesn't have money, it's a relevant statement. And that's really what we saw happening in February-ish. So February, March, when the Iran war started, to me it was it was completely obvious. This was going to, without a question, spike gas prices. It did, right? So it did. We're up 60% year over year in gas prices. But that doesn't hit all consumers equally at all. Um if you're in the in the in the bottom, let's say 40% of the economic ladder, it hit you in a very disproportionate way. So at the end of the month, historically, if you had, let's say, $300 left over after you've paid all your fixed cost bills, you would then have $300 of discretionary spend to put wherever you want. But that's not what happens with oil prices or gas prices. You have these times in which things change and you have step changes. And what we saw then is a step change of a 50% price increase in gas. And we're we're about four months later, and that there's no indication of that coming back down. So what that meant for me was that's going to change marketing over the next six months. It's going to change marketing very drastically. Trying to rely on the old sales practice and then try to rely on the old marketing practices aren't going to work for lots of reasons. One is the consumer is changing as a byproduct of AI. But number two, and the much larger point is that consumers are going to be changing in in so much as what they have the ability to spend.

Pete Shau 4:47

Let's tackle that. When you say that consumer spending changes because of AI, and I know that you've said a lot about the AI versus what the way it used to be searched as a just a plain online Google search. Now there's the AI search. Now there's different ways that people are shopping. Can you explain that to me? Explain that. How does how is it different now than it was six, seven months ago? And you know, where I was reading with some of the stuff that you guys were talking about, some stuff you were talking about, was the click ratios of where they're going to as opposed to where it is right now, it's completely different. Can you explain that?

SPEAKER_02 5:26

Yeah, so let's go back to let's go back to the beginning of the year. At that point of time, it was somewhere around 50% of searches that took place did not result in a click. So what does that mean? Somebody's going to Google, they're typing in a phrase or search, and right on that page at the top of the page, they're getting their answer. So if you're asking a question to Google, you go search, you get your answer in that AI overview section of the website. Sorry, at the section of Google, and the byproduct of that is consumers never click that link and go to

Gas Prices And Discretionary Spend

SPEAKER_02 6:00

the end website anymore. So what this is going to do, what it already has done, and really what it's going to do over the next 24 months, is change the way in which consumers and shopping takes place. The first part of that is less consumers are going to go from Google to a website. That's just a fact. That's what's already happening. That's that's kind of a known known. If you're um, this is also why you see so many news organizations going out of business right now, or anybody that's in the content world really struggling. And the reason you're struggling is because historically, prior to really to this year, or as you get into early, sometime last year, if you needed to search something, you you searched, you went to Google, you asked a question, and you then went and clicked on 10 links on the website, tried to synthesize your answer. You went, looked at 10 different rent-to-one websites, decided who you're gonna buy from, what you're gonna buy, what you're gonna do, and then you came up with a decision, you made your choice. That doesn't happen anymore, at least not nearly as much as it used to. And it and all indications are that's not gonna stop at all. So what's happening now is you're asking a question and you're getting an answer, but you're not getting that answer from the retailer website, you're getting that answer from Google. Or if you're using any form of like a chat GPT or a claude or whatever, these I those are all really the same thing. AI overview is is almost the same thing as Cloud, which is almost the same thing as Gemini. Um but as you search on any of those platforms or any of those topics, um, you do a search, you get your answer right there. You do not have to click and go anywhere to get an answer.

Pete Shau 7:26

Yeah, let me ask you a quick question, because I understand that I was reading some of the work. Why does and when we do that, I'm gonna tell you right now, every single time that I go to Google, I'm you like 99%, I go with the top part, right? It does give me that thing, and I really don't click to anything else, and that's why it resonated with me. But I want to stop right there because that isn't the case a year ago.

SPEAKER_02 7:45

That's the difference. You normally would have clicked on a site and you would have gone to the retailer website or to the customer website or the company website. That is not there anymore. The the the trick, the marketing job has changed from trying to get the consumer to the website, which is still a goal. Don't get me wrong, that's still always the goal. But you have to feed the machine because if you're not feeding it the right data in the right location in the right way, you're never showing up in that overview. And if you don't show up in that overview, you're not a consideration. Then you're dead.

Pete Shau 8:14

You're dead. So let me ask you a question. Then why does Gemini not get used? Because Gemini is the Google's AI. Why does Gemini not get used as much as Chat GPT, as not much as you know, anthropic or claw or whatever? Why is that the case, even though we're using Google and we're getting that? How is that not correlating? I am very curious to understand that.

SPEAKER_02 8:35

There's a couple answers to that, and it is getting used, it's just not getting used in the way that you perceive it. So you just said you go to Google and you do an AI, you do a search, and the top block there is uh an answer. That is Gemini. So even though you may not be using it directly, you are using it. Um so that's part one. But part two is uh they just signed a contract with Apple that they're gonna replace the backbone of Siri with Gemini. So that's coming. Um and I think that's I'm not actually sure if that's rolled out or that's coming this year, but so that will replace the reliance of Chat GPT on Apple product to Gemini. And secondary, or I guess third, it's already installed native on your phones, so 50% of the population has an Android phone. Um so it is getting used and it is it is there. The model itself is behind. They're trying to catch up on that, but it is getting used, it's not as if it's not going to go anywhere. It just doesn't have the let's say the same depth of consumer consumers' understanding that that's what they're using, because you're using it every time you're using Google.

Pete Shau 9:37

Well, when you say feed the machine, I want to peel that back a little bit because I understand what you're saying, but I want to make sure that I understand fully. When you say feed the machine, you're saying that Google needs to scrub your website for whatever information it needs, because if it doesn't, you don't get put. Your information does not get put in that little box when you Google something. It doesn't get put in that box. In other words, so if it if it does send them somewhere or they do go somewhere, it's not even going to be close to what you have because even though your website could look amazing, it could be new, it could be wonderful, it could operate quickly. If it doesn't have the information that it needs, you won't even make it to what they're looking for, and that's it. Basically, it's dead.

SPEAKER_02 10:14

Yeah, I would as much as I I would say I dislike this, the where this is heading is it's moving closer and it's moving further and further away from the retailer website and closer and closer to the consumer's end device. So historically, you were going to the website to collect that information. You're generally not going to go well, in many cases, you're not going to go to the website to collect that information anymore. You're going to rely on an AI or an AI synthesis of some fashion to go to the website, extract that data, and get the answer for you. There's a video that I like to play from, uh I believe it was Larry Page from uh from early 2000, who is the CEO of Google. And in that video uh from 2000, Larry Page says he's talking about what the future of Google is going to be. And he says, the future of Google is effectively I want to ask it a question and it give me an answer because that's what AI is. AI is the ability to ask a question and get an answer. No consumer really wants to go to Google, type in a phrase, and click on 10 different links, go find the website, go find what they're looking for, synthesize the data, make an educated decision and try to try to go based off that. That's just not the objective of any person. What they want is to be able to ask a question to get an answer, and they're going to do that. Now, how you present your information to the AI tools that are going to be the ones that are really crawling and searching the web, that's going to be the determining factor over the next couple of years. And I to add on to that, Cloudflare came out

AI Overviews And The Zero-Click World

SPEAKER_02 11:40

with a uh, which is a popular internet backbone, it came out with some data a couple months ago that said 50% of all web traffic at this point is AI agents. So it's when you go to ChatGPT and ask a question, well, it doesn't just ask a question. It's still got to go to the websites, try to collect data, extract that data, give it something that's up to date and recent, because uh it doesn't have anything that's up to date or recent inherently. Uh the AI models you're using were rendered nine months ago, not something that were rendered in the last couple months.

Pete Shau 12:05

You know, I want to I want to ask about something directly related to RTO and what you're saying, but I want to so every time that I do I talk to my AI, right? Every time that I talk to Cloud, because I have Cloud Pro and I do it, it'll give me a box of like, depending on what I type in, like 10 different websites that is checking. But it doesn't go one, two, three. It's like boom, there's like 10 and it's searching 10, and then it comes back and gives me whatever answer that I'm looking for. Is that why the traffic is so different? Because you ask one question and it doesn't click one at a time. I mean, it's gonna go check 10 different websites for all these answers, come back, compile it, and put it in within five seconds or less, and then give you this answer. So now all this wedge traffic, this web traffic is not really somebody clicking through. How does that relate to our RTO websites? Because I'm gonna be real honest, and I'm just just telling you guys, our websites have never been on the cutting forefront of what web traffic should be. And now that you're saying the way AI is built, it could be almost dead last.

SPEAKER_02 13:07

Absolutely. I mean, the what's gonna come next on this is I think extremely interesting. Um, it's uh we're in a we're in an interesting industry with a lot of, let's say, different websites that are argued, some of them are organized, some of them are not. Some of the data is structured, some of it is not. But what will happen over the next couple of years is more and more of your discovery process and your consumer and how consumers find you are just going to come through the AI tools. They're dumping trillions of dollars a year into this, and they're trying to make it so that they can own the entire process. I would point you to uh Google, it was Google I.O. conference, which is their annual developer conference. Um, and there's about a 15-minute section in there uh from earlier this year. And in that process, what they announced is what they are trying to do is move the checkout process, the buying process further away from the retailer website and closer to the Google process. So the end objective of what Google is trying to accomplish is you'll be able to build a shopping cart out on Google from all the different websites and be able to check out one on one shopping cart for 10 different websites.

unknown 14:20

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 14:21

That that's what they announced in, I think whatever, March or February, March of this year. Um, and they called uh Universal Commerce is the name for it. And they're they're really heading in that direction. Will they get there? I don't know. But when the industry leader is telling you this is where we're going, you kind of have to listen to what they're doing.

Pete Shau 14:38

Okay, so but but I would almost find that counterintuitive because I've seen the ad spend for Google last year. People are paying a ton of money for Google to say, I'm gonna put your ad first, I'm gonna put it here, and I'm gonna put it there. But if the amount of searching gets done through AI versus me clicking all over the place, I'm spending a whole lot of money for people maybe to possibly never see the ad that I just spent a ton of money on. So how does that work for an RTO retailer? Not only do I not probably have the most up-to-date website, because I mean, there's I mean, let's just be honest, there is a lot of mom and pop guys out there, whether it be two store or 20 stores, it's still expensive to run a very, very nice website and to make sure that it's all up to date and inventory is fresh and all that case. So that's what usually stamps it down. It's just that it's hard to invest that money. Okay, so I don't have the Amazon version of an RTO website. So that kind of puts me a little bit behind. Now I have AI, and if somebody puts in, I want that leather sofa, they might not come to my website at all, right? They might they might be bypassed because they're gonna they're gonna see different aspects of it. And if you do go a little lower, there's these little boxes that tell you, hey, you can get one at Wayfair for $7.99, you can get one at Ashley for $649, you can get one on eBay for $340, whatever the case is, right? So, like in those situations, RTO dealers can't go to Google and say, hey, I want to spend more money on my advertising because I want to be seen more and then not get seen. So how does how does that work?

SPEAKER_02 16:09

So of course Google's not gonna just totally shoot themselves in the foot on this. Um they've introduced new ad concepts or new ad stuff that they're testing related to AI. So there's AI search ads that are gonna be part of that. Um so that's the big product that they're they've been pushing. And uh somebody who runs a decent amount of RTO ads, we get calls about this from Google on a daily basis. Where they're trying to get you to move over to their updated bidding platform that handles AI bidding. But to the larger, the larger point, what it will do is reduce the number of competitors. That that's going to happen because AI uh ad space is is a lot more limited than traditional search ad spaces. So that's simply gonna mean that the cost per lead is going to go up a hell of a lot, and the number of leads are probably going to be unevenly distributed, meaning the person that can afford to pay the most is the person that's gonna get the leads.

Pete Shau 17:01

In that sense, is it possible that we're going to get, and I'm I'm only throwing these names around because this is the way the hierarchy works in the RTO world. But does that mean that RT, you know, RTO is going to be basically run by, let's say, Renaissance, Aaron's, and buddies because they have the bigger ad spin, and then the normal guys who have 20 to 40 stores are really going to be trying to figure out how to be seen?

SPEAKER_02 17:23

Uh I mean, it's a good question. I would tell you that we do do tracking on this. So we do have stats where we track like, and it's

Gemini, Siri, And AI Agent Traffic

SPEAKER_02 17:30

not official data because you can't get official, but I do track Aaron's ad spin, and I track um Renaissance ad spin and I track um specifically as it specifically as it relates to paid ads on Google. So we do track that stuff, and I can tell you definitively, around November-ish of last year, they all massively ramped up their ad spend. How do I know that? Because, well, I got the data. Number one, I can cross-reference see how many times they showed up, where they showed up, what they showed up for. So we have that. But number two, I also see it in the auxiliary data as it relates to what we're spending money on. So I can tell you that the cost per lead for things like furniture has skyrocketed in the last 60 to 80 days, 60 to 90 days. Um the cost per lead. So not only do I see it on the estimated traffic flow, I see it in the real life data of the ad spend and the money that we're managing, in so much as you can tell when cost per lead is going up or cost per click is going up, you can tell that there's new advertisers that have come in. Um and there is also a decent amount of data that will show you who your direct competitors are uh on ad targeting. So you can tell, am I showing up ahead of my competition? Is my uh are my competition showing up in places that I'm not showing up, type of um type of scenarios. But yes, I do think that it does run a risk there of creating a duopoly or a uh, you know, I would guess probably duopoly in this case, um, of that type of business. Uh what I would say though is that just means that you have to change where you're competing at. Don't try to compete on that necessarily. First off, there's a lot of places where Aaron's and Renison are not at, a lot of places where buddies aren't at, and those are the places, those are very easy, low dollar value conversions in most scenarios. But number two is the the algos are still rigged for local businesses, and there are massive, massive opportunities to beat the larger players in this industry just by focusing on what you're really, really good at, which is things that they can't be good at.

Pete Shau 19:18

Let me ask you something. Are you getting everything out of your rent-to-owned business? If you're not an APRO member, then the answer is probably no. Look, advocacy is April's bread and butter. This is why they were created and what they do best. But here's the thing April membership is about way more than advocacy. April connects you to the movers and the shakers of the industry, people who've been there, done that, and they can help you do it even better. APRO's monthly webinars give you expert insights and actionable takeaways. It's like having a masterclass for your business every single month. Got questions about complex regulations or sticky situations? No problem. April's legal hotline gives you direct access to experts who have got the answers. That's a peace of mind that you can't put a price on. And let's not forget the resources, news, updates, and tools that keep you ahead of the curve. Scholarships for your team? Check. Disaster relief when you need it most? Double check. APRO is your ultimate support system in the rent-to-own world. So stop settling for less. With APRO members, get more. More support, more connections, and more success. Head over to rtohq.org and join the APRO family today. Because in this business, more isn't just better. It's essential. See you at the top with APRO. Okay. I mean, as much as I listen to this, I mean my thought process is are we eventually going to start sending out mail because we can't compete on an online space? I mean, we're going to be, I mean, we're going to be literally yard bombing everybody because we don't, I mean, that's the only way we can guarantee that they're going to see our front page news and rent to own. I mean, it just seems like it seems overwhelming and insurmountable. Now, I know that you do this on a every on a daily basis. And so that if there is a place to go for online information, how do you show up? How do you get regulated? How do you be at seen and turn an RTO lead into a sale? WoW Brands doesn't want to do it. But it's scary because a lot of what you're saying is there is something out there that is fundamentally changing not only the way we've done things, and it's, you know, it could be 10-year cycles. You just said six months ago, and it has completely fundamentally changed a lot of the way I do things. Now Google's getting behind Siri and the way that AI is. You know, you know, I mean, you almost, it's almost like, you know, we talked a little bit about politics, but it seems like almost like nowadays it's like, hey, are you a chat? No, I'm I'm a I'm a Claude. Or no, I'm a Gronk. No, I'm a you know, I mean it's like, are you are you serious? Like we talk about those things, you know, and it's like, well, you know, this one does this because I'm, you know, businessy and all, well, chat makes me great look at pictures, and that's what I like. You know, and it's just like, wait a minute. It it's it's fundamentally changed everything. Now, kind of starting back where we uh in in the beginning coming through here, we were talking, you know, before about some of the phrases. Some of the things that started changing and coming up, right? It wasn't necessarily retail. Now it's almost like the relevance behind fixing, repairing, changing the search terms that are really coming up because of the fundamental change, like you said, where there's more going out. We don't have as much discretionary income. We don't have as much that we can really. I mean, even Netflix is going up again, so I heard. So it's one of those things like even my everyday is going up. For whatever reason,

Universal Commerce And The New Ad Game

Pete Shau 22:30

it's moving on up. Whether it's even fighting for ad space and look they, you know, they can't get as many clicks. You know what? Somebody's gonna pay for it. Okay. So then what are the terms that are really popping up now and what you know, in your mindset, why are they changing to these and how this how is this affecting rent home? Sure.

SPEAKER_02 22:47

So I would say starting at the beginning, uh when we get into, I would say it was late February, early March, knowing that the consumer that we deal with or in general is going to have less money to deal with. The first thing that I wanted to do was go back and look at what are the historical analogs to this. Because it's not the first time we've had an inflation shock. And maybe the first time in my lifetime, it's probably the first time in your lifetime, but it's not the first time this has happened. This has happened twice in the 70s, it happened, um, it happened in the 50s. I mean, we've had shocks like this before. So the real question is, what happens? What happens? And so we modeled it out, and the first three months after a shock like this, you see a cut. And what does that mean? Well, first off, they just stop spending. They just completely stopped spending. And I we could track this along with where we see the leads data coming from. So as you went into March, April, May, that the trend was down. I mean, we're still comping from what we're doing. We're still comping up year over year, but the trend was clearly heading down, and it was heading down pretty fast. After about three months, though, the consumer can't just not spend. The washer that broke has to be fixed. The the TV that stopped working, you need to replace. The laptop that you were using for work, you can't get by with it anymore. So as you get into month three, four, five, so I should say four, five, and six, what you start to see, sorry, I should say in the first three months, what you see is complete stop of spending and then the trade down. How do I get things for cheaper? How do I start to find things for cheaper? Cheap appliances, used appliances, those types of phrases. And really, as you get into month four and five, that's when we saw uh the change just started skyrocketing. So what I mean by skyrocketing is if you go and look right now, first off, rent-to-owned phrases are still at their all-time high, meaning they are higher today than they were in COVID, which is a big number. So that's still the case. But number two, what is really, really skyrocketed in the last 90 to 120 days is cheap appliances, used appliances, cheap, just the word cheap, the word used, any place they can save money, those terms are at an all-time high. It is everything related to trading down and how do I, how do I do more with less? The other data point that I would correlate this with is buy now, pay later. Klarna reported 44% increase year over year in Q1 after pay, did I think it was 33, 35%? Like these are insane numbers year over year. It's the same thing. So as you really get into Q1, Q2 this year. The spending had been cut. The question from our standpoint was we have to move. We started moving our we started moving ad spend in in March because we knew this was coming. We knew the focus had to be on cheap. We knew that there are things that are going to get kicked off as down the road, you know. We're hitting that window right now where you should really start to see some of the durables come back. Things like washers and dryers really are going to start coming back, in my opinion, just because you can only push those purchases off so long. And we're hitting in that window right now where that's starting to starting to turn, or let's say roll over again. And that is uh, you know, it's rolling over in a positive direction, which is is a change of pace. Um, and we're hitting that phase where there's probably a couple more months here of positive, uh positive comps. Uh but if things don't change by month 10 or 12, start to head back down again. That's kind of historically how these things play out.

Pete Shau 26:05

So if I'm an RTO dealer, how do I knowing what you know, and and I know that you're, you know, the people that you work with, they're gonna call you. I'm pretty sure that they have your phone number and they're probably dialing you at all times of night. But like if that's the situation and I and you see it come and you're explaining it to me, I'm gonna sit back and the first thing I'm gonna think, if besides oh my God, I've got to really reshape things, the second thing would be, okay, there's a re there's there's a reaction to this. I need to react to what is going on and make it as well to write as I possibly can. What does a rent-to-owned dealer do in this sense? Because you're right, if these search terms are getting bigger and we're talking about, you know, repairing cheapest, lowest priced, budget, whatever the case is, how do I get in front of that to be a part of at least whatever traffic I am going to get or part of the AI model to reflect that I have these terms that people might be interested in?

SPEAKER_02 26:59

Yeah, I would say, I mean, the for the first part of it is making you got to change the narrative a little bit of what you're pushing. You got to change the narrative, you got to change the messaging, you got to try to change the story around what you're doing. I'm not a I'm a kind of of the mindset that you want to be focusing more on durable goods right now, more than probably anything else. That's the, to me, the low-hanging fruit. Um you also have a hell of a lot of used inventory that you could probably start to offload here. Um some of the things that we've been working on are building things out like clearance corners where some of our customers can just dump, not dump, but start to list and sell their used uh or slightly used or cheap inventory, quote unquote, direct to consumer. Um so I think all of those kind of play into that. And part of it is just

Trade-Down Searches And BNPL Surge

SPEAKER_02 27:40

understanding what the economic landscape that you're in is right now. Um there's no indication that this is going to slow. Historically, these are the types of times when rent-own really, really, really accelerates, but they don't accelerate in month four, five, and six. They accelerate as you start to get into month 10 or 12, where buy now, pay later is out, they're tapped out. You're starting to get defaults in these things. And once you start to get default in those things, they're going to cut back on lending standards, which that's where RTO accelerates at.

Pete Shau 28:06

Right. So, and I agree with you, right? We need to start selling, we need to start off selling some of the things that have been pre-leased and pre-loved. We've we fixed it up, but we can take less margins on that and whatever the case is. But if I have a website, right, I don't want to, I don't want to change the face of that website to start advertising mom's released washing machine. So, you know, you mentioned before, local is still there. Is that where you start off? You know, you leave your your regular website as is my RTO, you know, love you.com. And then what I do is I go and start advertising in in where? And in like, is this a great time to talk about Facebook marketplaces? Is this a good time to talk about you know different areas that you might say, you know, offer up or whatever the case is and start pushing those?

SPEAKER_02 28:52

Well, I like having it as a section on your website, first off, because that does allow you to trigger and go after things like cheap appliances or youth appliances. So you do want to have it on the site. It's not you don't want to not have it there. So that is part one. You do want it there. But yes, I think these are times where social, I mean, that these are times where you either this will very much depend on your market. If you're in a rural market, just having it on your website is almost going to be enough to show up number one or number two on Google. If you're in larger cities where there's going to be lots of appliance stores and you've got a lot of competition, that's a much different conversation. But just having that on your site for most, at least for the dealers that we manage, the sites are structurally sound enough that you can you can generally still rank for things like cheap appliances, um, especially in the rural markets. The cities are a little bit different of a story. And any off-site marketing you can do, such as Facebook Marketplace or Craigslist or any of those things are are positive um positive developments because unlike the way that search used to operate, um, the way that AI operates, all those data sources talking about you is a positive thing. It doesn't matter if you're just on Craigslist, if you're on Facebook or if you're on Twitter or you're on whatever, all of those are still telling you a story about the company that we're that we're that we care about here. Um and all of those do play into the same thing. So if Facebook, for example, Facebook's a bad example because it's it's it's walled off. But uh let's say Twitter, if you had it, if you're posting about it on Twitter or something like that that was publicly available, well, they're making the association with rent-to-owned company A and cheap appliances. Those are two positive associations you want to have anyways.

Pete Shau 30:24

So if I have a if I have a website, I have an RTO store, and I'm going, Ryan, you you guys handle my stuff, Wow Brands has handled my stuff for a while. How do I make my cheap stuff look sexy? Right? I don't want to I don't want it to look like I'm putting the uh 1969 caddy uh you know El Deville, is that what it is, the Deville, on there, you know, with with you know spinner imms. I mean, how do you make that look sexy in a world where you know people expect their websites to look like you can make it look sexy? I mean, is it is it is it in the wording? And that's why that's why I'm asking, like, is it in the wording? I mean, because pictures are are pictures not a big play, right? Well the pictures matter.

SPEAKER_02 31:03

You want to have some I mean, people do still shop primarily off photos, so they're gonna shop primarily off photos. You want to have good photos, you want to have I mean, but you can stage and get good photos. Um and you need to have good content explaining what the washer is, what kind of condition it is in, is it bad, has it been sitting for 20 years? I mean, you need to have all of those types of bases uh covered in this process. But remember that especially as it relates to AI, they're not coming to the site anyways. They're coming to their AI tool, which is asking the question, which determines whether or not your website's even valid enough to send traffic to.

Pete Shau 31:37

Well, I mean, I guess that's what I'm what I'm saying. I mean, I know that pictures matter, but like I guess the descriptions and where you have it and what you have it is really what's feeding the engine. Not necessarily the picture. The picture is like an end result of when I finally get there, I get to look at it. But it's the AI saying, I'm scrubbing all this, and I found a couple of keywords over here on their website that says cheap, pre-leased, pre-loved, reduced price, whatever the case is. Yeah. And so what exactly are these key words that people are now looking up that somebody would say in the RTO world, I better start thinking about using these terms if I'm not with wild brands right now?

SPEAKER_02 32:12

Uh, sure. I can just walk through the list like uh washer repair, used washer and dryer, cheap washer and dryer, washer dryer rental, washer dryer payment plans, rent-to-owned washer and dryer, same-day delivery washer and dryer. And that's that's washers, furniture, cheap furniture, used furniture, furniture payment plans, lease-to-owned furniture, rent-to-owned furniture. It's all these same batch of phrases. It's just with a heck of a lot of cheap payment plans type of uh word association that goes along with it. And then it's also you having a price tag on there. Having a price tag that's listed at a retail price, which is different than a rent-to-owned price, but listing it at a retail price and advertising and marketing it.

Pete Shau 32:47

Do you see uh like on those phrases alone? Do you see the demographics of those phrases coming from younger, a younger generation? You know, is it is it mid, let's say, you know, you can't answer that.

SPEAKER_02 33:02

Like I don't you're not able to extract that type of data set from it. You can kind of get to I can tell you what the age demographics of a RTO website is, but I can't tell you the age demographics of a search phrase. I gotcha. Okay.

Pete Shau 33:13

Because I'm I'm just I mean, I'm just curious, like, is is that is it being flooded because there are young people who are predominantly on in their the internet all day, every day? I mean, in one shape or form, usually it's a mobile device, usually they're on it for you know two or three minutes, they find what they want, they put it in their pocket, another two, three minutes, they're on it again, another two, three. You know, I mean, it's it's very secular. They get in there, they find it, they get off, they get in. And to me, that would build up the traffic for those terms. But, you know, is it them? Is it somebody that's older and really who needs it, or is it some young kid sitting there searching five different ways? Because I'm always curious about that, like who are we attracting now? Because I I feel like, and and I've got so much that I want to talk about on this, but I'm not gonna do it on this one. But like, I feel like we are not getting new customers. We have a lot of customers that we're dealing

Dealer Moves For Cheap And Used Demand

Pete Shau 34:00

with right now that have already been in Rent2Own, and so we we we kind of cycle through it, we use them, we get them, they fall off, they come back on, or they go to another, you know, they could be at Aaron's today and then buddies tomorrow, and then Rent a Center and then Rent to Own or whatever the case is. But the attraction of brand new customers, customers who have who can say, in a real sense, brand new, not I'm new because I wasn't on the books two months ago and now I'm on the books again. Okay, I I get that, but you've seen Rent to Own, you've experienced it. But new customers, somebody who's never used rent rent zone before, is falling off for the exact reasons that you said. Number one, we're not showing up the same way because now people are looking at that little box. Number two, you have the VRTO or these online guys that can really they're taking a big chunk of the market share, you know, Asema itself, you know, Clarna, all these guys. The BL, the buy now pay later is a part of, you know, somewhere where it's like, hey, you can divide this up into four payments. I mean, I got credit card bills that come in, I go buy a pair of shoes and I turn around and I got email. Split this into four payments. I don't I don't want to do that. But there are people out there who are very much like, that sounds great. If I only got to pay $25 a month for my brand new shoes so that I can go to work, I can go to school, I can do whatever. That's great. How in God's name are we comparing with that? How are we competing with that in our RTO world? Great question.

SPEAKER_02 35:20

I I mean I'm of the mindset, and this is where the I think the RTO book was helpful to me in the sense that I was able to go through the discovery process and learn about the history in ways that I didn't understand before. And for me, the takeaway of of the of doing the book was understanding the cultural or societal role that RTO has historically played, um, where it has fit in the larger, the larger socioeconomic structure of society. So I would chall, I would I would push back and say that to some regards, yes, there aren't a lot of new customers coming in, but I would attribute most of that to there's a significant amount of demographics that would traditionally be RTO that are just getting peeled off by buy now, pay later. I mean we can't we can't argue about how insane their that rise has been. Something like $30 billion of revenue has peeled off that, let's call it that historic top 25% of the RTO customer base. That's a reality. That's a societal change. Society has changed as a it's and you go back and you look. So lay away did the same thing. That was something that happened in the past. After layaway was credit cards. So credit cards started doing that. And I'm sorry, there maybe there's credit unions before that, and then to credit cards. But it's the same thing. There's always been somebody or something that pulls apart, pulls away part of the market. The thing about that is RTO has to adapt to find where their new place and that societal structure is. And I think that's arguably the place that we are at now. What are the opportunities inside of Renton? Because the reality is it's not as if demographic has gone away. Arguably the demographic has gotten more and more prevalent over the past couple years, and the fact that buy now pay later has taken as much market share as it has. Not only that there's demand, but there's more demand for this than anyone ever imagined.

Pete Shau 37:11

I mean, I got four letters that have been rolling around in my mind, and every time I say it, everybody acts like it's the four-letter word, but these four letters are not BNPL, it's V R T O. And it is, I feel like it is come to stay. I mean, progressive is growing, Asema is going through its steps, but it's still growing. Yeah. Is it in a world that Ryan Crass is watching as you're looking through your screen? Is that a possibility that there is a chunk of RTO that is just gonna have to go that route in order to be relevant?

SPEAKER_02 37:47

Good question. Uh not gonna say I have the answer. What I would say is it is clear that the demand is there. So let's start with that. It's clear that there's a consumer demand. You're seeing it skyrocket. I think you can look and understand. Now we're talking about playing the players. So now we're talking about playing the players. Aaron's in Renaissance. Aaron's reverse merger with Catapol, clearly heading the exact direction you just specified. You knew where I was going with this then. Yeah, of course. If you look at Rack's earnings over the last four years, five years, whatever it is, you can just, if you do nothing other than look at the position of where they put a SEMA on their earnings reports, it tells you what their priorities are. Oh, it's you you look at Ayers and Rena Center and you see two companies who have shed, I think Rack shed a hundred stores last year, and I think Aaron's did 80, give or take, somewhere in that ballpark. And I think buddies, you know, buddies did their thing, and I believe 70-ish stores peeled off or something like that. I don't know the exact numbers, but somewhere else. Very close to that, yes. Yeah. So you've got these three players that are all shedding stores, which is where uh now we're talking my personal belief. It's both an opportunity and a problem. The the opportunity is VRTO or VLTO doesn't work if you can't pick up the product.

Pete Shau 39:02

I I I feel like that's what that's the precipice we're on right now. That it is a new thing, and people are going, this is a new way for me to get it. It's easy to get. I don't have to talk to anybody. I can literally be on my phone, do everything that I have to do because they make a mobile-friendly version that actually really works. They get somebody to deliver it, which is easy. Getting somebody to deliver it is easy. There are literally industries out there to deliver. Yes. The question now is, and this is the biggest part of the VRTO or the VLTO question, because in regular rent-to-own, you get to call somebody and say, hey, I don't want it anymore. And they come and get it, and there's no credit situation left on the table. It is a done deal. Now, VLTO, VRTO, they say, hey, we're going to have it delivered, and you can have it delivered from anywhere because it doesn't have to be one particular person. It could be anybody in delivery saying, Hey, I it's Bob's delivery. Well, Bob, we're going to, you know, include this in a price. We're going to give you the set price. You do you go to the second floor, first floor, this is a set price. Boom, done. Nobody that I know of that does any type of deliveries also has it set to do pickups because that is its that's in a nutshell is its own thing. I mean, you've got a whole different situation when you're picking up something that's been preleased before. You have to know what you're doing. Number one. You know, it's a different ballgame when somebody wants you to come in versus somebody who is like very iffy about this transaction now. And then when you finally get it back, now the real big elephant in the room. What do you do with that? Because

VRTO Pressure And Where RTO Still Fits

Pete Shau 40:30

not only do you have to bring it back, you have to refurbish and you have to resell. You have to get it back. The basic economics, depreciation, how much you sold it for, whether it's $20 a week, $40 a week, it doesn't matter. If they only kept it a month or two months, you didn't get all your money back. You've got the advertising, you've got delivery, you've got the storage, you've got the first order, you've got everything that goes along with that. I don't know how they're gonna fix that. I don't know where it goes from here. But is it another cyclical thing where it's on the uprise now for the first 18 months, let's say 20 months? Then things start happening. People go, I can't afford it anymore. This is the situation. I I either have credit available to me now and I want to go through this means, or I don't have enough expendable income because inflation has just kept going to a point where everything that I've had stored up is gone, and now I have $50 left over and it's not enough to make the payment, and I'm being a I'm being a responsible person to come pick it up. And the VLTO crowd is going, okay, I can't handle 30 pickups a week because I have no place to store this. Is it do you possibly see that as a this is the rise and it could be a meteoric fall because it doesn't really follow the norms of how RTO works?

SPEAKER_02 41:43

I I I mean my personal opinion is yes, but uh what I would say is what we have not seen is we have not gone through an actual recession or credit cycle with buy now, pay later, and or VLTOs. Klarna has their default rate modeled at like 50 basis points. So less than 1% is what they're estimating a default rate is. I can't imagine a real recession or a real economic calamity, which we haven't had in 20 years. We haven't had in our adult lives for all intents and purposes. What happens in that scenario? To me, that's the real determining factor. I I and you're seeing the first indications. It's just the first indications that they're starting to tighten. Like the when I look at this, I look at uh I like looking at buy now pay later car companies because they do have some public information and they'll tell you if they're if they tighten credit standards or loosen them. So buy now pay later cars have started to tighten credit standards in the past couple months. There's been no indication that Klarna or for uh a firm have done that yet. I guess we're gonna find out. I think it's uh sometime mid next month. We'll know if they've remotely had any type of default or increase in default. But um the buy now pay later guys, the buy now pay later car people have absolutely modeled in higher default rates. Um and we're talking like going from like 30 to 40 percent default rates, which is crazy. Right, right. But you know, uh Klarna at 50 basis points of a default rate is just insane to me. But maybe they have that good of a data set that they can do that. So no, I'm of the mindset you go through you gotta go through one of these, you gotta go through one recession, and a lot of these guys are gonna get zeroed out.

Pete Shau 43:16

Hey everyone, it's Pete Chao here from the RTO Show podcast, and I want to tell you about a company that's making a real difference in the rent-to-owned space. WoW brands. I've seen firsthand how they approach marketing. Let me tell you, it's not just about ads. WoW brands build complete digital ecosystems designed specifically for the rent-to-owned industry. Their e-commerce and lead generation strategies are built to bring qualified leads. And did I mention that they are actively working with the rent-town industry while also being members of April and Trib? These folks are passionate problem solvers. They don't just slap something together, they design, build, and scale the kind of digital retail tools you'll business need. Your customers actually want it. So if you're serious about growing, reach out to Wildbrand. At wildbrands.com. I trust them, and I think you will too. Well, it's it's it's mind-boggling to me because going through the book that I have been, and we're talking about the RTO revolution, and this is basically the history of RTO from day one all the way till current. So as I'm going through this and I'm reading a lot of it, the ability to even be able to do rent to own was fundamentally based on the fact that you can say, you know what? I can't afford it. This is not a credit-based transaction. You get to take your stuff, and I'll never have to worry about you bothering me again. As long as you walk in and got the same sofa that I you delivered, there's nothing left, whether it's a washer and dryer, whether it's a TV, whether it's needs or not needs, you come and get it, it's over. And then as the RTO business model evolved, it was like, okay, I'm gonna take that. I'm gonna do everything I can to make it right, you know, make sure it's refurbished, make sure it's clean, make sure it's good, price it accordingly, and then put it back out. Now, that whole situation, and I and I don't have the answer. And listen, if you are part of VRTO or VLTO, please reach out to the RTO show podcast because I want to talk to you. I want to know where it goes, how are they taking care of it? And the biggest part is this, and this is where RTO has always faltered because it's very difficult. If you get a pre-leased item back, are you putting it back on the website? Or are you taking a picture of it after it's been refurbished, after it's been cleaned, taken care of, parts, you know, checked, moved, fixed, whatever the case is, and put it back out there? And usually the answer is no. Usually you have a static picture of the first brand new item it is, and then otherwise you'd have to contact the store and they'll send you pictures and you kind of work it out that way. Okay, do you have somebody at the warehouse that's doing it when you're no, because VLTO, VRTO covers way more area than a single store, right? A single store, primary area is five miles, and now it's getting a little bit bigger because of obviously we have to, right? That's just like you said, there's hundreds of stores that close down. I don't want to add another store because it's gonna be very expensive. But if I could take some of that territory, I'll absolutely do seven miles, ten miles, whatever, and extend my delivery area out to 15. Okay, perfect, but it still comes back to one location. Now, on the RTO side, it's I might need a bigger warehouse, I might need to get storages because now I'm covering a bigger area, which means more stuff comes back. If you're in VRTO or VLTO, you could cover 30 to 50 square miles from one, you know, the delivery center. Wait a minute, where do you put 50 miles worth of inventory if it comes? That's the part that I'm like, I don't understand. Because when people are looking for things and they're going through the websites, this is a great opportunity for them. But it's also a logistical nightmare if you don't know how to handle that.

SPEAKER_02 46:37

Well, it is. And I I would take a I would make the statement that the majority of the VLTO are just modeled on the assumption that you're going to keep the product. That's the inherent assumption built into the product because you're going to, let's say, an Ashley home store and then using a SEMA to finance the product while you're there. It's not in this type of scenario, I believe the rule is like for the it's whatever the manufacturer, or sorry, whatever the retailer, if it's a 30 to 60 day warranty, is honored by the store. My understanding is after 60 days or whatever that default time period is, like in the case of a SEMA, RAC's going to come pick it up. They're going to pick it up and do whatever they need to do with their with that inventory. Aaron's is clearly heading in that same direction. That's why they are, at least apparently that is why they're doing the reverse merger with Catapult to be able to have access to that same type of distribution network. There seems to be, you know, there's another I got an article coming out about this. There's another couple, I'd say another seven of those that are, let's say, relatively high dollar value that have all worked out their own form of logistics and how they're going to pick the product up and what they're going to do is and how they're going to dispose of it. But I mean their models are all built on the assumption that somebody's going to keep the product. It is when they don't keep the product that it starts to fall apart.

Pete Shau 47:49

Well, I can tell you, RTO's been through this, guys. It's it's going to get rough. It's you're going to be on a bumpy ride, just let you know it's coming. Uh, you know, as you were going through and you said you were feeding the machine, you said there were five pillars. The five pillars of you know. Can you can you tell me what the five pillars are and what are those, what's the relevance of those five pillars?

SPEAKER_02 48:13

Yeah, so as we uh we we did a presentation for all of our customers um, I believe last month or two months ago, and we'll probably actually cover this

The Pickup Problem And Recession Risk

SPEAKER_02 48:20

at uh shameless plug at the APRO uh show next month. Charles and I are going to be talking about this. Um but for me, there's really five core pillars to this. Uh the first one is relevance. And this is how does the store match what the customer is searching for? And does it match what the customer's need is? And relevance is really determined by the question that's been asked inside of the AI tool or chat tool, whatever it is. And then what is on your website? What does your website say about it? If you are a website that is focused on if 99% of your content is about appliances, you're probably not going to rank for PS5s. Just simple as that. So it's relevant. Is the stuff, is the content, is the information on the website relevant to what the consumer is looking at? Website information, product pages, product descriptions, titles, all of those things. It also includes things like inventory and product data. And inventory is something that has become uh not it was not as as important two years ago, but as you get into 2026, uh, especially as AI is relying more and more on product inventory levels, is becoming higher and higher importance. It wants to know that can you is what you have on your website available? Can I have it within a week? Can I have it within two weeks? Is it going to take me six months to get it? That part becomes more and more important. And then the third part about relevance is what does the rest of the world say about you? How does, how do other people talk about you? What do what are the reviews say? And this is when I was talking earlier about what is the opportunity for the mom and pop, smaller guys, this is where you have the opportunity to win locally in ways in which an Aryans and a rent center can never compete with you. That is, you have to provide better service and you've got to get reviews. You do those two things. Reviews are simply the number one determining factor in who is going to be shown and returned back for a local business. So if you're in Tampa, Florida, and you're doing rent-to-owned and you have no reviews, you're not showing up. Simple as that. And if you've got, you know, I I think both uh Rent King and uh and Happy's are down there, and both of those have a hell of a lot of reviews in Tampa. They're going to show up over Aaron's Render Center almost every time. Why? Because they have better review data. So that's the next thing. Um and then the last part of this is really what are the other directories saying about you? Relevance is really determined of not necessarily so much about what you say about yourself, but what do other people say about you? So as part of this, things like Apple Maps become more and more important. Yelp, Better Business Bureau, Facebook, VRTO, category directories, local chamber of commerce sites, data aggregators, all of those things are going to be the determining factor of. And throughout these pillars, these are these are truly the determining factors of is a business considered a winner or a loser in the AI specs? Because what AI tools are trying to do is give you back the right answer always. If they don't give you the right answer back, you're not going to use them ever again. So the the the worse results you get, the the more inclined somebody isn't to use it. So the real the real goal of this is how do I make sure that the first off, the first pillar is how do I make sure it's relevant. The second pillar is proximity. And these are all kind of related to the same thing. This is a dumbed-down version of the first one. Um I don't want to return. If I'm in uh if I'm in Columbus, Ohio, the last thing I want to do is return back a plumber in Waco, Texas. Makes absolutely no sense. Or a rent-a-owned store in California. It makes no sense at all. So the second part of this is proximity. And this is just having your Google Maps set up, which you should everybody should already have at this point. Um you need to have pages on your website for every one of the markets that you're in. So not markets, but every city that you're in. You've got to be able to show that you're a real local company. Service areas, what are the areas that you're going to deliver to? Are you going to go five miles out or are you going to go 50 miles out? That's pretty basic, but these are these are, let's just say, core pillars to showing up or ever ranking in AI. Third one is trust. Does the market know that you're a real company? That's one of the big things about AI. There's no concept of truth. It has to rely on all these third-party data sources to know is the business real? Is it reliable? Have the last 50 people that we've sent to this rent-to-owned store given us zero-star reviews or one-star reviews and said they ripped us off? Because if they're going to do that, why are we ever going to put somebody there? So again, I'm going to keep going back to throughout this process reviews, reviews, reviews, reviews, reviews. Because the reviews are the trust proxy or the authority inside of AI and inside of Google. They have no way of knowing who is a clue, who's a real business and what is a real business. And are they good or bad or whatever? That is a rely, that is truly relying on reviews in most scenarios to determine if somebody good or bad. The fourth pillar I got is clarity. Does AI and can AI know who you are and does it understand what you're doing? If you're a plumber that is talking about rent-to-own, probably not relevant. If you're a rent-to-owned talking about plumbing, probably not relevant. But if you're a rent-to-owned who has a ton of good information about watchers and dryers and cheap appliances in your market, you're probably going to dominate that market. There's this whole concept in Google of zero gain. And the logic behind this is if I've got five different websites that are all showing a PS5, if there's nothing new gained from any of those five websites, then they're all the same thing. What do I care? That's how Google perceives it. There has to be new information gained from going to the website of whatever RTO dealer. And if there's not, they're not relevant. So it's got to be able to show what is going on, clearly determine what it is, have good FAQs on the website, have inventory, have availability. You just have to be able to clearly articulate who you are and what you're doing. And then the last part of this is authority. Arguably the, I would say probably second most important pillar here. And authority is how do you know what's important? And this is this goes back to just the foundation of how Google was who Google was built. The way that you know what is important is based off of how many other people are talking about what's important. Truth or trust or authority is really a byproduct of how many other people are talking about this. So rent-to-owned store with 20 reviews or rent-to-owned store with a thousand reviews, or rent-to-owned store with 10,000 reviews. Well, what with 10,000 reviews, probably the authority and the the lead, probably the leader here. Um and that includes it's not just Google reviews, it's what are the other other websites talking about you. Things like local press becomes more important today than it has in 10 years, 20 years. If your local newspaper is talking about you, you're relevant all of a sudden again. So it's a weird way, you

Five Pillars For AI Visibility

SPEAKER_02 54:50

know, we we spent 20 years of going to uh uh an online only type of world just to slowly start heading back the other direction now because we need real people to tell us what's author, you know, where the authority is at, who's the right place to go to.

Pete Shau 55:02

Wow. I mean, God, there's so much, there's so much to unpack on that. I mean, going into the last leg of this, you there's so there's so many things I want to ask. If you when you said you said something that really kind of stuck out with me, if it's not new, right? If if there's five PS5s and you're kind of all really saying the same thing, it's all the same thing, then there's really nothing new there for it to go off of. Does that mean that the website needs to be revamped or re-worded or re- you know, something added, subtracted, and tweaked on a regular basis? Is that like a three-month cycle? Is that a six-month cycle? Like what is what is the way to get around that?

SPEAKER_02 55:38

Well, part of it is so you in the case of PS5s, the reality is how many different companies next to you are really renting a PS5? The answer is maybe three of them, maybe two of them, maybe one. Doesn't you don't know. Um, but it's not a it's not a large number. The first thing is you gotta have just product information is is more and more important today than it has been in a long time. If you're probably if you don't have good product information, specs, details, photos, descriptions, all of that stuff, AI cannot recommend you to a consumer without knowing that the PS5 or the product that you have is actually what the consumer is looking for. Generally means you can't make up your own SKUs anymore. I mean, I know that's an art I know that that's one of the problems we have in the furniture appliance world, but you can't make up your own SKUs anymore because these are no longer, you need to be able to show clearly, this is the product that I have, this is all the details and specs on it. It is the same product as these other 10 people have, and I know there's there's there's parts of that we don't want to do, but you've got to have clear and articulate information. You've got to have good photos, you've got to have good descriptions. Some of the best product sales that we have seen are when our dealers go through and we'll do a YouTube video of their product and just show here's what the product is, here's the video of how it works, this is how the couch reclines, this is how you use the electric uh foot rest. Those types of things, those have impacts because that's new incremental information that Google didn't have before. And and you don't need to do that across all your products, but the reality is I could probably tell you there are 20 products that represent 70% of your business, anyways. So do those 20.

Pete Shau 57:10

Yeah. Well, so I'm gonna ask you this, and I'm gonna ask you for two, not just one. I want to throw it a little, I want to make it a little bit harder than normal. Okay, two things. If somebody is in the rent-to-owned space right now, thinking about getting into the rent to own space, or they are a legend in the rent to own space, with this AI information, with the online information, with the search information, what are the two most important things that they can do to stand out from the competition that they have online?

SPEAKER_02 57:39

I'm gonna say one that is just comp to me, it's completely obvious. Good data. And what does that mean? Good data. Your objective is no longer to get them to your website. It's still part of the goal. It's not the only thing. You your job is to feed the machine because when we're sitting here in 12 months, the discovery process is going to most likely exist at a level before your website. And if you are not feeding the right information and the right data to the right places at the right time, you're invisible. And I think that's probably the just the biggest mind shift that has to happen in marketing and arguably in, I guess, technology in general. And I think that's if you feed AI tools the right data and that data in the right structure, the output you're going to get is phenomenal. But if you don't feed the right data in the right structure, the output you're going to get is chaotic and hallucinate. You know, it'll be a hallu uh hallucination in most cases. You're going to get just drunk data because you're not feeding the right data to the right place at the right time. So for me, data is without a question the number one most important thing as you think about the next 12 months inside of not just RTO and any retail type of company. I would say that's probably without a question uh for me, the number one and number two. I'm not sure if that's a cop-out, but it is without a question. Feeding the right data to the right place is all that really matters for the next 12 months.

Pete Shau 59:02

Okay. Well, listen, guys, that is the information that you guys want to follow. Because let me tell you, there's a lot going on in that space. If you don't know what's going on, you need to hit up Ryan Crass at Wild Brands. They've got a lot for you. He's the CEO, the CFO, or CTO, right? It's the CTO now. Whatever you want. Whatever he is, he's got the answers. You want to follow him also on LinkedIn, please do. He's got a lot of things on there that is uh is amazing things. It's kind of where I found some of this at. If you guys want to have any uh discussion about what's going on, please hit me up at the you know at the RTO show on any social media or Pete at the RTO Showpodcast.com. Feel free to email me at any time, any part of the day. I will get back to you as soon as possible because I love talking to you guys. I love receiving mail. Also, make sure that you go on the website, therto showpodcast.com. Make sure you subscribe to the newsletter. And I want to take something out of Ryan's book. If you guys are seeing this, if you guys are listening to this on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, go rate us. Just go into the rating and then say, you know what? Rate me on there, let me know how I'm doing. Say, listen, man, this guy's everything RTO, and we love that. We want to hear more of it. Put that on there. Also, if you want to be a sponsor and you're not an industry sponsor, you can also do individual sponsorships, $3, $5 a month. Hit up me, hit me up on the website. We'll make sure that happens. Ryan, I appreciate you. Listen, knowledge drops like every five seconds, man. I appreciate that. I love talking to you because, you know, I don't get to nerd out with everybody like I do with you. We got to talk some really good stuff about things that I don't get to talk about on a regular basis. You are killing it, and Wild Brands is too. So I appreciate it. Listen, guys, thank you so much. And remember, get your collections low to get your sales high. Have a great one.