The RTO Show "Let's talk Rent to Own"
Ever wondered how a $8.5 billion industry keeps millions of Americans lounging in style? Step into "The RTO Show Podcast" – where the mysterious world of Rent to Own furniture finally spills its secrets! Your host Pete Shau isn't just any industry veteran – he's spent 20 years in the trenches, collecting the kind of stories that'll make you laugh, gasp, and maybe even rethink everything you knew about that couch you're sitting on.
From wild customer tales to industry shake-ups that'll knock your rented socks off, Pete brings the seemingly mundane world of furniture financing to vibrant life. Warning: This isn't your typical business podcast – expect real talk, unexpected laughs, and "aha!" moments that'll have you looking at every lease agreement in a whole new light.
Whether you're an RTO pro who knows your depreciation schedules by heart, or you're just curious about how that fancy sectional ended up in your living room, Pete's got the inside scoop you never knew you needed. Tune in and discover why the furniture business is anything but boring!
The RTO Show "Let's talk Rent to Own"
Rethinking the RTO Experience with Living Essentials Brandon Jin
Unlock the future of the rent-to-own market with our special guest, Brandon Jin from Living Essentials. Discover groundbreaking innovations like USB ports in headboards and massive soundbars integrated into fireplace TV consoles. Dive into the realities of navigating shifting demographics, inflation, and the unknowns of an election year, all while exploring how Living Essentials is strategically maneuvering through potential tariffs and the logistical challenges of the Chinese New Year.
Journey with us through the evolution of rent-to-own furniture and the fascinating transition from technical roles to customer-facing positions. Brandon shares his personal growth story, highlighting the role of mentorship and collaboration in shaping his career. From the novel concept of "Unfold Assembly" to the latest trends in home decor aimed at younger consumers, our discussion sheds light on how style meets functionality in modern living spaces.
In a landscape marked by unique challenges, hear about Living Essentials' strategic plans to enhance customer satisfaction and operational efficiency. From shifting warehouse locations to embrace flexible solutions, to navigating business dynamics in high-tax states like California and the burgeoning markets of Texas and Florida, Brandon reveals the innovative approaches that keep Living Essentials at the forefront of the industry. We wrap up with heartfelt appreciation for our listeners, celebrating community growth and the promising path ahead.
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Hello and welcome to the RTO Show. I'm your host, pete Hsiao, and today we're doing a vendor spotlight on Living Essentials, brandon Jin, and how they're doing in the 2024-2025 year concepts what's coming up, what's going on and, better yet, how the heck are you doing, brandon? It's so great to have you on the show. How are you doing today, man?
Speaker 2:Hey, pete, thanks for having me on. We're getting through 2024. That's the biggest thing I think everyone's going through right now and we have a lot planned and it's making sure that we have those plans come to life. And that's what 2024, what 2024 has been about. You know we want to make sure that we're getting products out to you guys and you know, kind of going into this further, where we have a lot of product development.
Speaker 2:And you know one thing I don't know if it's been stressed enough, but we product develop specifically for run to out. You know we don't just make product just so that it can be made and it goes to the masses on e-commerce. No, we really want to focus on developing products that work for run-to-own. Whether it's adding small, little kinks, like USBs in your headboards, the good stuff, it's the good stuff. It's small kinks, like, you know, usbs in your headboards. Recently we just it's the good stuff, you know it's things, little, small things that people like. But you know like recently we just did a 62 inch sound bar on all of our TV consoles and it's a fireplace. So we're looking at doing a lot of those things and you know we there's a lot in the pipeline. So 2025 is going to turn out to be very exciting, but 2025 baby.
Speaker 1:Listen, let me tell you, 2025 is where it's at. 2024 is rough. It's been rough here. I'm not going to lie. Rentone has been going through it. Some people want to talk about it. Some people are a little shy to talk about it. I can tell you right now that the sales haven't really slowed. They've changed. There's a lot more online than there used to be, but that means that our demographics are changing. You know the older people are starting to tap out. The younger generation is coming in. We've got inflation that's kicking our butt all over the way.
Speaker 1:You know I mean going into this and I know this is a little bit of a sidebar the election years. I've had conversations with people about the election years. The election years are rough because you don't know what's coming in. You're sure of what's leaving, but you don't know what's coming in. You don't know how it affects your business. Now, living Essentials does a lot of things overseas, right, so that you bring it over. How does that affect the business when you have? You know you're stationed overseas and then somebody goes hey, you know what, we appreciate your business, but we might start adding some tariffs or there might be something that you ship in. How does that affect you and your customers?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think for us right now you know that's one of the biggest things that's been kind of kicking my butt right now is you know kind of how we're going to combat this tariff that's coming in, whether it happens or not. Or you know, because there's rumors that are going around that they're saying it's very, it's used as a negotiation tool, right, but you know, on our side, whether or not it happens, we want to make sure we're being reactive and we're not. We're not reactive, we're proactive. That's the right word there. But you know it's, you know we're just trying to make sure you know. The other thing is is, along with the tariffs, we have Chinese New Year's coming up. So during Chinese New Year's in the overseas they kind of halt everything for like two weeks.
Speaker 1:I was going to say it's a long thing.
Speaker 2:Right, it's not like a little timeframe, it's like man, everybody's getting up and we're parting, we're going to we're trying to make sure that we have, make sure we have adequate inventory, and also what we're trying to do is as well is, you know, come up with a lot of different solutions, a lot of different game plans to see how we can kind of reduce the tariff, you know. And so there's a lot of background work going on, a lot of talks with partners overseas, and it just kind of sums up my last two months.
Speaker 1:So yeah, I mean you got a lot going on. Here's a question, though You're getting ramped up for the tariffs Impossible, because, you're right, they did say it was a negotiation tool, so it doesn't mean that it's happening, but you do have to prepare, like you said. I mean, god only knows it's going to affect the rest of the rental home industry. So I agree with you. And then you have everything going on with the Chinese new year. You're coming out of 2024. It's an election year. There's a lot going on. So what happened with trips? You just came back from a trip show.
Speaker 2:How was that Well, it's not a trip show, it was a trip meeting.
Speaker 1:I'm sorry I phrased that Trip meeting. That's what I meant to say.
Speaker 2:Trip meeting. I think it went great. You know, something that Trib had mentioned to us last year was Living Essentials. We kind of started doing everything. You know, I think primarily before we were known as like kind of your fireplace one-stop shop type place, but we really wanted to change that, and so, but one thing I think we did while we did that change was we lost our identity within Rent2Own as a whole for even one of our customers, and this year that kind of really solidified our identity, where you know, what we are at a core is, you know, coming up with innovative products and that's specifically manufactured for rent to own. And so, you know, during that meeting I had a chance to kind of sit in front of the board and just go over our 2025 pipeline, and you know, I've been to that meeting three times now, which is about three years, so it's probably the best reaction I got out of that meeting. So it helps me because it goes in 20.5 and I'm really excited, I'm piped up and I'm excited for the next show that's coming up.
Speaker 1:So the next show what it's in February.
Speaker 2:It's at the end of February in Georgia.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and you ready for that?
Speaker 2:Ready as can be, of course. And then we have, you know, we're actually doing our first showroom in vegas for the vegas market that's coming up too. So, um, that's something else we discussed during the meeting um, kind of an opportunity for us to showcase all of the new 2025 things we're bringing in. Um, and really, from there it's, you know, creating creating the hype, creating, you know, some of the items that we're looking at here, where it's things that people have talked to us about, where they said, hey, I'm looking for this. Do you guys have something like this? No, we don't, but hey, give us some time, we can work on something.
Speaker 2:So how does it work?
Speaker 1:Do you guys take a whole let's say, there's a list of things. You guys write it down somewhere it's an input box, right Then you go okay, enough, people have asked me for this LED. You know fireplace with screaming speakers everywhere and somebody in the back cooking, something like everything's going on. And then you take all that. And then how does that work? How do you, where do you go and say, hey, I think this is a great idea, I want to implement this without being able to charge too much and still being able to get it within the right timeframes, where I'm not saying I want it today and I get it six to 10 months down the road. Like how does that work?
Speaker 2:Really it just comes down to a lot of the conversations I have with, whether you know they're my customers or they're not my customers.
Speaker 2:They haven't really purchased from me, but you know it's. It's just a lot of the conversations I have with um when I go to these shows, also these one-on-ones like this, and you know I just spend the time to, you know kind of discuss what are some of the needs that they're looking for and you know product specific needs, and sometimes they'll just throw out a random idea and we're kind of we look at, we hear it and we're like, oh, that could be interesting. And then we kind of start doing a little bit of homework, kind of just some quick R&D, and then we kind of start seeing where pricing comes in and from there, you know, if we think there's life in it, we'll kind of start pitching it to some of our really close customers that we have really good relationships with. And if they believe in it and they give us some kind of preorder, you know we're full steam, we won't step on the brakes, we're just going to continue producing and just continue to manufacture products for people that need them and ask for them.
Speaker 1:So you know, here's the thing that rent-to-own has always had right. They always people have an idea that when furniture comes into rent-to-own, we sell it and it's a sit and stay. Nothing that we have is a sit and stay right. You rent it, it goes out. Whether somebody keeps it, whether they're moving, whether it's short-term, whether they, you know, at the point where they want to, you know they want to upgrade, downgrade, can't afford it. They want to get a lifetime reinstatement. That goes into. I'm taking it out there Now I'm bringing it back. I'm taking it out there and I'm bringing it back. I know that some of the stuff that you guys carry is that you know you got to make it ons site and then you've gotten into the to the unit, the unibody kind of thing right, where it's kind of already prebuilt. Yeah, cause I mean that's that's a huge step for for rent to own, like. Not only does it help us snap it together, but when we're doing deliveries and bringing it back it holds together better.
Speaker 2:So I mean, yeah, really, that's the whole idea of that, the, the, what we call it, is our unfold assembly. Now, um, we used to just refer to it as our easy assembly. But easy assembly is a term that's so generically used between everyone. Now, or someone they can, their tv console, can come in a thousand pieces and say, hey, it's easy assembly, we got you there. We're like man, like I don't know, it took me an hour to put it together. I mean, so we, we kind of moved away from that name because we just tell you got to tell them easy and quick, ain't the?
Speaker 2:same. Okay, exactly Easy and quick is not the same, but it's so misused in the furniture world where we just said we had to find out a name that can really kind of tell someone what this is like, straight to the point, right. And so that's how Unfold Assembly came about, and really it's again what you just said delivering it out. And really it's again you know what you just said, you know delivering it. For us it was not just the delivering aspect, but it was mainly focusing on how can we help you guys when you guys go to pick up product. And so we know, we hear it all the time because we get all these part requests and you know, especially for TV consoles, we know if they have to disassemble it, bolts get lost, remotes- get lost.
Speaker 1:Now you're talking my lingo man bolts get lost, remotes get lost.
Speaker 2:Now you're talking my lingo, man, so we know, you know, we know that the lot of these little tiny parts, like in the moving parts, they all just get lost, and so what we really tried to do is minimize all of that um. And so that's how unfold assembly came about, and yeah, that's. You know, that's kind of the bread and butter of us and we're trying to expand on that now.
Speaker 1:So and you know we have a, we have a market too.
Speaker 2:So.
Speaker 1:I can't tell you how many times that there's probably like this, this nice looking stand that we have. It might've been pre-leased, but it still looks good, it's got a life, a lot of life, left into it. And then we go to sell it and there's a piece missing. They were like oh man, it does have this great feature. Give me a minute while I call a rep, you know and and get it and get the remote. So that definitely plays a big part in it. Now I want to go back just a minute because, man, I'm going to be real honest with you. I love to see a brandon jen and a and a sea of non-brandon jens. Where are you from? Where's your origin? How the heck did you get into this man? I am curious to know. I want to know your story.
Speaker 2:Man. I came into Living Essentials pretty much straight out of high school. I came on as an intern. I started in the operations side, kind of just being an assistant, and then I started really functioning with Andrew Perez, who's now our VP of sales, and I kind of worked under him and then we became this yin and yang duo kind of thing that's how we kind of call it at the office here, where he's a sales guy straight to the core.
Speaker 2:I'm I'm not too much of a sales guy, but you know I do love talking to people. You know I do love creating solutions for things that they might have issues with. And that kind of plays into the part. Where I came to this role too is I kind of helped Andrew with the whole technical side. You know, setting up with some customers. You have to be able to do the APIs, the EDIs, you know all the automation parts of that, um, order processing, you know, kind of coming up with a better process, all of that. I kind of that's when I kind of started Um and then from there I started helping Andrew a lot more and then, you know, kind of throughout there I just got into this position and you know wait, wait.
Speaker 1:You said right out of high school man, like, like, like was, was he just waiting outside the doors for you to graduate and go? Hey, man, let's make this happen. Like, what, like, how do you come right into this? This is, this is a hard business to come into man oh, no, no and now you're a national sales manager.
Speaker 1:I mean this is not just one spot or other. I mean you, you've got a lot to do and kudos to you for that. But how do you like? Come on, tell me the truth. You want to be like a cop or a lawyer or a doctor or something. Right? What happened? I mean, where did it go? Where did it all go?
Speaker 2:No, no, I, you know I I did not know exactly what I wanted to do. Um, for me, a huge passion of mine was gaming and you know I got pretty good and you know, out of high school I had, you know, in high school I was I had the opportunity to run our eSports club. So you know I was like I was managing that club where it's pretty much high school competitive gaming. I had gotten some offers to go play Collegiate Wait you say high school competitive playing on eSports.
Speaker 1:What do you play?
Speaker 2:Any game you can kind of think about there right now has an eSports like a professional high school scene, a college scene and some amateur scene and then a professional league as well.
Speaker 1:What do you play? Don't you tell me League of Legends or something like that. It better be like Madden or something. Yeah, no, League of.
Speaker 2:Legends was actually one of the games that I got as a scholarship. See, I knew it, I knew it, I knew it.
Speaker 1:I think it brings everybody in. So you're in that and you're doing this. And how did that transition to Andrew? Because it sounds like you had your mind set on more of a technical factor, a more computer side, and then you're literally into the physical side.
Speaker 2:Yeah, quite honestly, it just kind of happened. I don't know exactly when it happened, but I just started playing more of a role to assist Andrew and I came to a point where I started to communicate with customers. I was doing it quite often and I was, you know. They kind of were like, hey, you know, we think you might be able to do it, and they gave me the opportunity to go ahead and try for it and after about a year and a half of really trying, I ended up getting the position and we're here now. So it's just again. There's no like. You know. He's like oh, go into sales. No, it was just again. There's no like. He's like, oh, going to sales. No, it was just like. I just kind of woke up one day and it happened.
Speaker 1:There's no like story behind it or anything, man, he had you following the yellow brick road. So how old are you then? I'm 23. Really, wow, good for you, man. I'm an old buck man, you're a new guy in the system, but I mean, I'm telling you when I, when I look out there, there's a. There's a lot of different people and I love seeing what you bring to the table with you. Know, the way you, the way you talk to people. I've always noticed that when I come over, it's always like a. It's never like, always on the business tip, it's always like hey, man, how are you doing? And then getting to know your customers and the relationships that we build, just like Rent-A-Home does. I mean, it is a relationship business, but I guess, where are you from? Where is your family?
Speaker 2:from. I'm born and raised in California and my parents are first-generation immigrants out of Korea, korea, awesome.
Speaker 1:My grandfather was born, was born well, born and raised in Hong Kong and my grandmother was born in Puerto Rico, and I have no idea how in God's name that they ever met and had a relationship. But those are two probably the farthest speaking languages that you can come up with and they made it work. But you know, I always love seeing the diversity.
Speaker 1:It's hard sometimes because I got a lot of family over there, I mean a lot that I probably don't even know of. I found out like three years ago I'm related to Genghis Khan, but then I think the third of the world is related to Genghis Khan, right? So, uncle Genghis. But I mean, it's one of those things where I just love seeing that. I love seeing the diversity, I love seeing the difference, because we all bring something different to the table, and I think that with Living Essentials I mean that's what I've seen that you guys have been a little bit on the edge of implementing new things. Now I saw some the last show that we had, where it was like a wall and you had the stand there and it was a lot going on. Can you explain to me? That was one of the newest ones, right?
Speaker 2:Yeah, that was our 2024 Trib Show Spotlight product. It was also a product that we had in the Hot Show. Something that I focus a lot on right now, too, is seeing what my age group is looking to start buying and what even friends of mine talk about. Um, you know, they really you know a lot of the apartments nowadays. They're tiny, they're small, but the biggest thing about our group is, you know, we want to host, we want to have parties, we want to have friends over, we always want to have friends over like, we want to like show off that we have our own apartment and then, you know, we always want to have furniture here and you know, and those LED lights, like the whole video live tracking that was so popular with products like the, the Govee, and you know, um.
Speaker 1:Govee's actually. Yeah, they've, they've, they've come up quite a bit in the last couple of years. So, matter of fact, my wife wants to put some Gobi lights in the outside permanent outside lights and I'm just like, is that where we come? But it's true though it's so popular.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, everyone does, even like you know, the biggest thing is right now is like TikTok, instagram Reels, like all these short form contents. They, everyone in the background has some like satisfying setup where personal to their characteristic, and we thought like, hey, wouldn't that be a great opportunity for us to kind of solve three things at once. One, it's giving you that unfold TV console that we just talked about earlier. Two, it's giving you the backboard where we're not telling you to go and nail the customer's house and mount a TV up there. We, we give you the backboard. In that backboard we give you the tv mounting kit as well, and so now you're able to go and offer your customer a the look, the look of a hanging tv.
Speaker 2:Um, because we know there's some, there's properties out there that are very strict on those things. And you know one thing, one thing you see a lot is on social media. Everyone really likes this hanging TV, mounted TV aesthetic. So that's kind of what the biggest purpose of it was. But you know one thing I will say is, with that product we might have jumped a little too far ahead. We don't think one. We didn't educate Trib enough, essentially, on how the product exactly works and how it does, and you know we're still giving it some life. We're still going to continue trying it out. One thing is, you know it just creates a solution for problems that we've been hearing about. You know, and I know, tvs used to be a huge rental thing for rent-to-own back in the days, and now I'm like, well, black Friday just happened. I was in Costco and I saw an 86-inch TV for $799. And I'm like holy crap, it's so cheap. And 65-inch TVs are $200, $300.
Speaker 1:I saw a 75-inch. I want to say I saw a 75-inch TCL for $338, and it almost fell out of my chair. Now I can't tell you to the quality of the model. I can tell you it's still 4K. It still had either Roku or Considered Smart. It still had four HDMIs. It's thin as all get-out, so it's not like you're talking about a thicker product.
Speaker 1:Back in the day it was like LCD versus plasma. They're all LEDs right now, so they weigh half to what they used to, if not a quarter what they used to weigh. And so I was like, I was like wow, you know, and I think with, with rent to own, the situation has been more. We're carrying TVs because people still want them, but we have to carry them so much bigger because, like you said, the smaller ones I mean even now the bigger ones, but the smaller ones on a regular basis are between $200 and $300. Maybe a great model at Walmart is like $350 for a 55-inch. I mean you're talking about every single bell and whistle. So if somebody's just going in looking for a TV to either game or watch Netflix on or something for the kids' room, it isn't expensive. So I think that we've seen. You know, 55 used to be the biggest model, the most popular model. Now it's gone up to well, it was 65. Now it's like turning into 75 is turning into like the average one, and it's because for the price you have to go up, because the truth is, for the price of a 55, you might as well just buy it. So that's where we're trying to get into.
Speaker 1:I need some living essentials right, cause I'm not only selling a TV. I need to sell a TV and a stand and everything that comes with it, cause I'm. I really want to sell the ambience. I want to sell not only the product itself but, like you said, I want to. I want to sell the situation. I want to sell the party. I want to sell the get together. I want to sell the moment. I want to sell the moment that you can get into right. If you're in there and you want to be by yourself, you want to just turn up the music and kick on the lights. You know, at least you have that and that's why you know Living Essentials is so cool, because you guys have really gotten it well. But you've got into this. You've got the look of the hanging TV. That that's so 2024, homie.
Speaker 2:What are we doing for 2025? What's down the pipe, man? Oh, 2025. Um, one thing we're doing is you know, I guess this is an exclusive for you um, so anyone who's listening to this will be the ones that know first before all right so, um it's, we're calling it our all-season TV console, and that TV console is coming with a heater and fan, and so we're doing a lot of the littlest things.
Speaker 2:We're coming with everything from the start, and so we know there's one out there right now, but the price point is just a little bit too high. So you know, what we're trying to do is kind of bring it back. How can we make it more accessible for rent to own? How can we make this a thing for you guys? Because you know, we know that fireplace and you know you're talking about products, that we want them to go out and you want them to stay out. You don't want them to come back, right, and we know fireplaces kind of run into that situation where kind of once, like, the summertime starts rolling around and you know everyone kind of just like, do I really need this fireplace anymore? No, I'd rather just kind of return it. And you know, go use that rental rate for the PS5 or Xbox, like we know things like that happen.
Speaker 2:So we're trying to come up with a solution for you guys where that TV console now has a heater but now also has a fan, and it's an oscillating fan, so it's not just a fan that just stays in one motion and it just lets out air. We're having it go up and down, so that way you can position that fan to circulate the whole room. Oh, really, yeah, so that's something we're working on. Two big things that we're also working on. They're kind of the I call it the living essential special, where we kind of just do the most uh, obnoxious thing that you can probably possibly think of um, we're doing a tv mounted bed, um, so it's a tv mount in the footboard of a bed and so that way it rises up and rises down, and so if that, if that fan's their boat, you know, that's something we we're working on right now too, um, and then we have a, a modular sofa that's coming. Um, we know right now there's a lot of popularity with modular sofa.
Speaker 1:They're huge see, the thing with the modular sofa is if we can get the price point right, because right now it's still got that retail price point on our end, so we get that expensive thing and we got to pass that along, obviously for reasons you know free delivery, free setup and all that stuff and it goes into the well, now you're in a higher bracket. But, man, I can tell you, right now even I want a modular sofa. I don't think my wife wants one, but just the idea of being able to change that around, you know what I mean? Because I can take a modular sofa, put it on my floor and display it three different ways, and I think that's, I think that's a win-win.
Speaker 2:And that's the plan too. It's we. You know our modular sofa. We're coming up with six core components of it and with those six core components in my head, like a a couple weeks ago before the trip meeting, I was kind of just doing how many configurations we can think of doing. It's literally endless. You know, we, you can do a u-shape, you can do the l-shape, you can do a sofa love. You can do an l-shape sectional with the left facing chase or a right facing chase. Um, if you, if you have a room that's big enough, you can. You can stack that whole thing up with making a huge square with just a sofa.
Speaker 1:Um, I keep on thinking of, like the kid ball pit, where you just make it square.
Speaker 2:You just jump in the middle.
Speaker 1:But I think the great, I think a great idea with it. And every time I think of modular, I think wouldn't it be crazy to have like a four basic setup? Right, you have four or five or whatever the basic setup is, and then you're like, if you want an extra one of that color boom, I'll throw it in for $10 or 12, 15 or whatever it is you know a week and add to it. So if you want that nine piece, I can get you a nine piece. If you want a four piece, I can get you a four piece. And so you know, you've got people that are like no-transcript, let's just add that on and make a bigger package. I really think it's a good idea.
Speaker 2:I mean, here I am pitching it to you but telling me I love the idea yeah, and you know you mentioned that the whole the price point thing, um, you know we've been working on this module so far now for about a year and a half, um, and this is our third iteration of it. But you know what they say, the third one, we're hoping it hits three times a charm. Exactly, the third time is a charm, and it's. We got the price point right this time and I think that's the biggest point. We haven't done all the numbers calculations quite yet, but we know our price point is just far lower than what our second iteration was, and already we're having positive feedback.
Speaker 2:So the greatest thing about us, too, is our modular sofa. If you really just need one, you need an L shape. We can ship you an L shape, one piece at a time. You don't need to order a three L shapes or three extra sofas to go along with that. And then, on top of that, what we're also doing is we're adding this customizable factor to it, where we're giving you three different fabrics. One's going to be your typical Chanel kind of your everyday sofa everyone carries right now. We know cord is really hot right now. And then there's this Sherpa teddy material that's getting really popular again right now. Um, and then there's this sherpa teddy material that people are.
Speaker 1:That's getting really popular again right now my god, everybody has a version of that on their floor. Man, let me tell you it's like. It's like falling into a towel exactly, and you know.
Speaker 2:But the thing is is everyone has it on the floor. But then when you walk, when you see it on the floor, it's your brown, it's your grace, there's no, you know, you don't have that fun twist to it.
Speaker 2:And so our covers, they're going to be removable and customizable, so let's say yeah, so we're trying to make it so that way each fabric has three to four different colors that we're offering. And from there you know, let's say, one day you're turning your shirt over and you, you want a red sofa out sitting in there and just be the eyesore. Right, I'm not an eyesore, I'd say more, it's like eye candy.
Speaker 1:Sorry, um, you could do that, and then let's say potato, potato, because that doesn't mean everybody wants it right, exactly. But I can tell you right now that's going to be a hit. If you have something that you can not only move around, add to and subtract from and you can change the color, living essentials is going to be like here.
Speaker 2:I'm telling you that's the next level yeah, pete, let me add on to it's also change. You can change the color, but all the fabrics are machine washable. Um, we can replace one seat at a time, if that's something you need. Um, because we know people have favorite seats and some of those favorite seats they get beat up my grandpa had a favorite seat, man I know exactly so, exactly so.
Speaker 2:We're thinking ahead, we're trying to make sure again, it just goes back to what we're trying to do is it's product development for rent-to-home, and we're putting you guys first. And so some of these products, we may have life in them in the e-commerce marketplaces, but we're giving it to rental first, because we know right now, the competition for you guys is the Amazon, the TikTok shops. These are just getting far more popular between Gen Z especially, and why are they going to those places? One price point. But the second one is the functionalities, the small things that they add, you know, and the biggest thing right now is that it's LEDs. It's that aesthetic, that ambiance that they really want to create. So that's what we're really focusing on and, you know, I think 2025 product line is really speaks to that.
Speaker 1:Well, I can tell you right now, resale factor is huge in the rental home business. If we can put it out there and let's say, on the other side of that, instead of using it just to change the color, but if we're using it to give it life again, to rejuvenate this piece and put it back out there. That's the bread and butter of rent-to-own. You put something out one time and it stays. Hey, it's great and I'm not going to, I would never knock it. I appreciate every customer that comes in and goes from beginning to end, but that's not the world we live in. All right, so you know, there's going to be customers that have to bring it back. They're going to be customers that move. They're going to be customers that change their mind and they want something else. And being able to to rejuvenate that piece, be able to to give it that life, is really something that's going to speak volumes to where we're getting it from. If Living Essentials has the ability to do that, I'm telling you right now that's the way to go and you guys heard it here first. Okay, but I'm just telling you I think it's a great idea. I'd love to see that because, I mean, that's something we don't have, and a lot of times that a lot of the things that I spend talking to people about is like what's new and what's going on? Right, you always want to talk about what's in the industry.
Speaker 1:Now, who's the new guy? What are their ideas? How are things going? We've had everybody from Adam Ball. He had this idea when he came on and he was just fresh and new to the idea that a renter own and I can make a difference. We love that and we have the guys that have been doing it for a long time. Mike Tissett's been on the show and he gives so much great advice because he's been doing it for a long time. He's a generational person. But we also need what's new. Right, we've got what's now. We've got what's new. I think the newness of this man it's going to kill it. I think Living Essentials is going to do a great job.
Speaker 2:And kind of just backtracking there you were talking about. You want a customer. If they change their mind, specifically right, and you know it could be that they just want a different color of a sofa. And now you guys have another sell point, you guys have another opportunity to save that cell, keep it out there and not have to go pick it up. You just, you know, order a cover from us, we'll get it shipped to you and you guys can get to the customer's house, change out the covers and damn a whole new sofa, a whole new look right, right, and that that that does happen.
Speaker 1:And you know we've had people, you know I've just changed the color of my house, this brown isn't going to work, this gray isn't going to work, whatever. And being able to say, you know what, you didn't lose your investment, let me, you know, let me go out there and change this, and I'm sure there's going to be a small price point to that. But to say I got to go there, I got to pick it all the way back up, you've got to start on a brand new product or whatever. The case is to just say, yeah, man, you know, let me know, and in 10 days or seven days or whatever the ship value time is, you know, we can get that taken care of for you. That can be huge, really huge.
Speaker 1:Leaving the product in somebody's house is the utmost importance in rent to own. I do not want to pick it up. If I could service it there, I want to keep it there. The only thing that I ever want to do is deliver you something else. So if you can do that, man, kudos to you guys for kind of coming up with and implementing that idea, because every time I talk to somebody I say what's new? We talk about a lot of things that I've already heard, but what's new? And the new man? It fills the vacuum of the room because everybody wants it, everybody needs it, and no matter if you're with Eagle Rents, if you're with Buddies, if you're with, you know, rent to Own, everybody would love to get something on the shroom that nobody has, and as quick as you can get that, I guarantee you. Now, does Living Essential? Do containers?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so we are able to do containers. But you know one thing we've kind of we've gotten really popular now for like the one piece minimum, but you know we're kind of rolling back that. We're rolling that back now where we're still going to offer that one piece minimum, but we're also going to start offering the FOB out of our Georgia location Because we know FOB doesn't work for everyone. At first we thought it would, but turns out no. So we're kind of making those little changes. But containers are definitely possible. If you need a container we can definitely get that sorted for you. We just haven't had any container orders like that.
Speaker 1:Where are the ship points at? Where are the ship points from in the US? Because you say you're stationed out of California, so obviously stuff is coming from there, but where else is the ship from?
Speaker 2:No, so we actually closed up our California warehouse earlier this year in May. We actually had to move our facility and we actually did a complete change in the direction of who we are too, where we no longer operate a warehouse operator warehouse we're just a firm and corporate office in California, but our warehouses we have two locations in Texas one in Dallas, one in Austin. We have Chicago, illinois, we have Georgia out of Savannah, and the thing is, if we need a warehouse somewhere else, we can easily get one. We have a very tight connection with our partners and they're able to get us warehouses where we need them.
Speaker 1:Now talking and talking about that because you know California is a beautiful state, but they're making it quite difficult to run a company from in any way, shape or form. Run a company from in any way, shape or form? I mean right now, I think. Recently, I just heard that they're about to introduce another gas tax and it's like to the highest gas in the country and you want to tax it. That's probably not a great idea. Is there plans to stay or are you guys thinking about moving out of there as well?
Speaker 2:In the long term? I wouldn't know. But we just signed the five-year lease release, so for the next five years we're at least five years you ain't going anywhere. We're stuck here for five years, um, but you know who knows? Um, but yeah, I've, I've always lived in california, um, but you know, it's just, I've seen the problems I hear about all the time. Um, certainly I don't enjoy paying all the taxes that we pay, and so you know, maybe it's a future thing that happens. Who knows?
Speaker 1:Well, I wish you guys the best. I know that there's a lot going on over there and I couldn't tell you six ways from Sunday how it's going to end up, but I just I've heard of a lot of businesses leaving that area. I've heard a lot of people who have said you know what? I've tried the California way and I love California, I love the weather, I love the people. What I don't love is just getting taxed to death on everything and there's a lot of opportunity out there. So the problem is you go out there and there's a lot of opportunity and you turn around and there's a lot of tax that come with it, and so it turns those opportunities almost into the same kind of opportunity you'd get anywhere else.
Speaker 1:I know Texas is starting to really boom. As far as where the business is going, I know some of it's actually coming to Florida. If you ever come over here, let me know. But I mean, I think it's one of those situations where you got to do what's best for the company and absolutely I think that's what you guys are doing over there at Living Essentials. So let's say that I'm involved in the rent-to-own space, I get my own place, I open up my own business and I want to do business. How do I get a hold of Living Essentials and Brandon? How does that work?
Speaker 2:It's 909-590-1000. And then you'll be prompted to look for a department and just click sales and I'll be happy to help you out.
Speaker 1:Now, is Living Essentials anywhere as far as social media is concerned? Or is that because the way you ship and the way you vend that's just not for you yet?
Speaker 2:So it's not for us yet, but that's actually something we're working on for 2025. We want to start kind of getting a little bit more of a social presence out there, but in the meantime we're nowhere. We're nowhere to be found.
Speaker 1:So. So in that case, how did? How did you get into the rent to own space? I mean, I know a lot of people who know your face. Everybody knows who living essential is, how did you guys get in and break into that space when there really isn't a lot of advertising going on?
Speaker 2:Harry, who's our um president of the company. He's been he's been servicing Rantone now for about 20 years. You know, before Living Essentials we rebranded from InnoVex. Beyond InnoVex I actually don't know what the company was, I think it might've been Leta Lock or Leta L-E-D-A. But I know he's had a lot of experience working with errands, a little bit of Rent-A-Center, and so you know, I've kind of been able to have the kind of have all that knowledge kind of just trickled down onto me and that's.
Speaker 2:We've just been in Rent-A-Own for a while now and obviously through Harry, andrew and you know there was someone previous that did it before, but that's how we've been in rent-to-own for a while now we're doing the product development for rent-to-own and it's for you to help you guys compete against, like the Walmarts and Walmarts, amazon, because we know everything is becoming so price sensitive, and so again the thing is is we really want to get more involved now, especially from my standpoint as kind of heading rent-to-own. Now I just want to kind of get more insight where we can kind of. You know, if we can bring that innovation where you guys need something, I'm more than happy to look at it.
Speaker 1:Is there a specific way that you would like rent-to-own to contact you or to reach out to you and say hey, this is what I think that your brand can do, better or differently? That would put us in the right spot to get more living essentials out into the customer's home.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, I would love to hear that. I think it's just hearing, because the thing is this everything I've done up until now within Rent2Own is because I've had the opportunity to talk to people like you and the people that I have developed a very close relationship with. You know, from when I first started with Red 2 On, I literally was kind of shadowing Eric Moore pretty much like every show opportunity that I got. You know, I was always just shadowing him. I was just always standing next to him kind of listening to how he converses with customers and you know he introduced me to some great people as well. He's been doing it for a long time. He's been doing it for a long time.
Speaker 2:He's been doing it for a long time, so you know with him and you know with the people that he's introduced me to. Um, you know I think you and I were connected because of Scott and Daniel. You know he was still around and it's just I spent a lot of time cause I knew, coming in, I had no idea what the hell I was even doing and so I knew I had to kind of become like a sponge and just absorb all the information I can. And you know.
Speaker 1:I can tell you right now we appreciate what you do, I appreciate what you do and I love having you on the show, Even for me, like I don't even really tell people how old I am, because I've had some experiences where customers would be like oh, you're 21 or 22.
Speaker 2:Oh, I don't know if I want to do business with you, and I've had that reaction. So the people that I've kind of they've kind of started working with me and given me that opportunity Very grateful for them.
Speaker 1:You know, sometimes I always found a way that sometimes I've been into it. You know he said hey, I totally understand. I'm literally half your age and I'm sitting here trying to tell you what to sell in your showroom. But how about you give me an opportunity first and you let that talk first. Right, let me show you what I got. Let me show you the product and features. Let me show you how I can get it to you. Let me show you how fast this works and how simple it is. You can order one. You can order five. You can order six. If there's something that you want to talk about, we can implement. You might be able to see that down the road and we can give you the. You know we can say this came from the conversation that we had in RTO. Before you judge me, let me show you what I got going on.
Speaker 2:That's kind of the idea that I've, kind of that mindset that I've been following too, is like the people who you know. I've had some sour interactions with people who are like, oh, you're, you're young, like I don't even know what you're doing, like you know, I've. I've kind of like, well, I'm kind of used to it, where I've like, all right, well, if that's the cow you want to think about it, then I'll pass you along to andrew, kind of andrew will talk you down. But you know, that's kind of what I've been just doing. It's's just like, if that's how they believe, then sure, hey, give me another year, however long you think it takes for me to earn status quo with you, to believe that I can take care of you or take care of your business, then yeah, the same.
Speaker 1:I know guys who have spent two years in the business and have way more experience than guys that I've seen with 10 and 12. And it's because they're not afraid to put themselves out there every single day to be better at their craft. And I know people who show up to work and they go home and that's okay If you want to do a nine to five or if you want to rent homes on nine to five. But if you want to do that, that's okay and I get that. But there are people that are on that grind, like you said, are listening into the conversation. You're trying to learn about how it goes.
Speaker 1:I want to learn the ambiance between the seller and the sellee and what's going on between the customer and you guys, you and me, me and distribution and how we put things together. And when you're in that you know you're running the race and it's kind of like I can run a mile at five miles an hour. I can run a mile at five miles an hour, I can run a mile at 10 miles an hour and they're both going to get to the same thing but in different timeframes. So you know, time isn't always a situation. I think that even if you have that age situation going on, I don't think it has anything to do with how good you do your business.
Speaker 2:No, no, I've kind of it's been. I've been at this now for about four and a half years.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And now I'm kind of more like you know, I'm confident in what I know, I'm confident in what I think. So I have no doubts anywhere in that process.
Speaker 1:Listen, guys. If you guys have any questions for Brandon, jen and you want to reach out to Living Essentials, don't be afraid, but you can also reach out to the show. If you guys have any questions. You're also welcome to hit up the show at Pete at the RTO show, podcastcom. That's our email. You can hit us up on Facebook or Instagram, both at the RTO show and if you want to hit us on LinkedIn, because our LinkedIn is actually getting pretty good, look me up on there at the RTO show, ask the question, say hey, I didn't really catch. That number is. Can you hook me up with brandon? What do you think? And I'm going to give you, the guys, the detail. I think living essentials has a lot going on and I can tell you right now I think that modular sofa is going to be a super hit. Uh, I'm going to tell you right now. I'm calling that. I'm calling that into the living space. All right, it's going to be.
Speaker 2:Hopefully, I'll come back within a year and I'll give you an update on that that's what I'm saying.
Speaker 1:Well, listen, we can do a follow-up next, next time, and we Next time I'm going to say hey, how did it work out, pete? I'm going to say you're going to say it right now. Pete told me it was going to be a hit and it's going to happen. I think it's going to be new to the system and I can't wait to see it. Listen, we appreciate you guys listening to us and listening to Brandon today. If you have any questions, again hit us up at the show. But, more importantly, I want you guys beginning of a great 2025, and everything that you guys do we appreciate. Please feel free to look us up on YouTube as well the RTO Show podcast. You don't want to miss us there and always hit that subscribe button and I will tell you guys, as always. Hey, I appreciate you, Brandon, keep your collections low to get your sales high. Have a good one.
