AAN
#Yes.
We appreciate the question.
Our largest accounts continue to grow nicely driven by a couple of things.
We have the good fortune of being partnered with really good retailers who are growing their businesses.
And that certainly helped provide a nice stable support to ours.
But they've also been great partners in finding ways to increase the volume of our programs within their doors by zeroing in on the way we deliver the product at the point-of-sale, revisiting the range of marketing activities associated with our offering.
And really partnering with our field sales team which is doing a phenomenal job of driving new growth there.
So that's been positive.
That's good.
We are excited to complement that with the infusion of some new opportunities through the pipeline which is going well.
Yes.
Good question.
Certainly, the regulatory environment is something we think a lot about, and have invested significantly in over the last few years.
And honestly at Progressively we were doing it along the way.
And then we repurchased by Aaron's, Aaron's was along the way as well.
We made some significant investments.
We've actually brought in, in the last year a Chief Compliance Officer for the whole organization.
That will just further augment the work we have going on in each of the divisions, which has been going on for a while, as I mentioned.
We're definitely investing there.
But at the end of the day, for us is all about doing what's good and right for the customer.
And making sure we are as compliant as we can absolutely be.
That's an area in this day and age, you just have to be focused on.
We believe it could be a core competitive advantage for us.
But it takes effort and investment and is something we have been investing in and will to continue to invest in going forward.
Yes <UNK>, this is Steve.
We obviously have our annual guidance policy.
And have said, as it relates to DMI, we thought that it would be up to a $0.10 drag for the year.
That would be including the GAAP numbers.
And we are not providing any guidance on the quarterly basis.
So, the guidance we provided early for the year remains unchanged.
Yes.
I can speak to that.
This is Douglas again.
We're managing, as I mentioned before, the business ultimately for EBITDA.
So there's a trade-off between our promotional activity and our advertising activity.
And ultimately it is going to affect margins in various areas.
But we're focused on EBITDA and really the return on that capital that we put into both promotions and in advertising.
We're going to continue be promotional.
And we're going to continue to advertise.
But it may be heavier and certain periods rather than others as we go throughout the year.
We may do it with more intensity within certain periods than in others.
We will continue to asses that.
And we will continue to pursue that strategy.
And in terms of pricing, that will offset some of the pricing increase we put in place.
But we will only do it if we think it's a net positive to our bottom line.
And ultimately <UNK> from a competitive standpoint, we've still feel like our prices are very competitive in the market.
And relative to our franchisees, they're lower in most cases.
And so, that's always a good control for us from a test perspective.
We work on that when we made the decision to increase prices.
And we feel good about those decisions.
But as Douglas said, it's more complicated than that given the promotional strategies that go into any quarter but that all will continue.
Yes.
Good question.
We have seen a couple of folks move out of the market.
I would say I haven't detected a material change in the competitive landscape.
Maybe during the last quarter, [not] that was implied in the comment.
The market continues to be relatively more competitive in the regions for the smaller opportunities.
And less competitive for the larger national accounts, where scale and access to capital are larger barriers to entry.
We're obviously happy with what's implied in the 14% growth in door count.
It validates the value proposition of the progressive offering and proposition with respect to opportunities that are out there.
And we have said in the past, that pipeline includes opportunities in our traditional core of furniture and bedding as well as those outside of that, which is another good indicator of broad appeal of the offering.
Good question.
We've said that it's a great addition to the Progressive business and our strategy.
Retailers have been asking for it, and we think that it's a nice fit for those retailers who decide that they'd like to have a one-stop shop for non-prime lending and leasing under one roof.
We've been focused, in the early days on building a team and the infrastructure and plan to introduce it strategically into the retail relationships that we are working with and that's really still the plan.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
Thank you all for participating in the call, and your interest in Aaron's.
And we look forward to updating you on our second quarter on our next call.
Thank you.
