Written by: RBA Insights — Posted on: August 23, 2024

If you own or operate a furniture store in today’s economy, chances are you already offer some form of Lease-to-Own or subprime financing. Maybe you’ve partnered with big names in the LTO space, or maybe you work with smaller regional players. Either way, one thing is consistent: a large portion of your sales are only made possible because a customer was approved through one of these programs. And yet, most store owners treat that reality as just another part of doing business, a line item on the sales floor. Something to manage, not maximize. But what if that mentality is costing you more than you realize? What if the ability to say “yes” to a customer who everyone else turned down is not just a transactional event, but a massive, undervalued source of influence? Because whether you’ve thought about it this way or not, your store is doing something that very few businesses in America can claim: you’re granting access where the system has denied it.

You’re not just a furniture store, you’re an approval gateway. Most people don’t walk into a furniture store excited about a finance application. They’re nervous. They’re uncertain. They’ve probably been rejected elsewhere, maybe by a bank, maybe at a department store, maybe online. And they’re used to hearing “no.” But in your store, for many of them, something different happens: they get a yes. That “yes” might come from an LTO provider, but make no mistake, you are the one who made it possible. You gave them the access point. You gave them the terms. You gave them the dignity of walking out with something new, not secondhand, not temporary, not pieced together. That alone is worth more than most people realize.

The traditional credit economy is not built for working-class Americans. It never really has been. Most banks don’t care if someone makes $40,000 a year but has no revolving credit. They see risk, not reliability. Meanwhile, furniture stores, especially independent ones, have become one of the last places where that same person can walk in and be treated like they belong. They may not qualify for a luxury vehicle or a credit card with a high limit. But in your store, they can get a bedroom set, a new sofa, maybe even a full living room for their family. That’s not just a sale. That’s a relationship that didn’t exist anywhere else. And yet, most store owners have never stopped to think about the weight of that. They’ve never fully recognized that this ability to serve overlooked customers is not just a necessity, it’s an advantage.

Furniture stores benefit from LTO companies but they need you more than you need them. Almost all LTO providers don’t own stores. They don’t run showrooms. They don’t have trucks or warehouses or service techs. They rely entirely on you, the retailer, to be the human, physical face of their approval systems. And while you might think of them as the ones with the power (they hold the contracts, they approve the deals), the truth is, they wouldn’t exist without you. But here’s the problem: as long as you treat your LTO partnership like a convenience instead of a position of power, you’ll never get to fully leverage what you bring to the table.

Think about it. You’re the one: Bringing in the traffic, Building the customer trust, Training your team to walk people through the process, Delivering the product, and Handling post-sale service and communication. You’re not just a vendor, you’re the entire value chain. And if you’re not being compensated accordingly, in either influence, margin, or control, you’re leaving money and leverage on the table.

If You’re Already Doing the Work, You Might As Well Claim the Title. You don’t have to change anything tomorrow. You don’t need to take on new risk, start a bank, or reinvent your store. But you do need to start thinking of your store differently. Right now, your business is positioned at the crossroads of credit access, product delivery, and emotional security. That is not small. That is not generic. It means that when a customer walks in without a strong credit history, but walks out with $3,000 worth of furniture and a delivery date, you did something no one else in their life could. That’s not just retail. That’s relevance.

Ownership Starts With Awareness. Too many furniture store owners underestimate their role in the larger financial ecosystem. They think of themselves as merchants, not enablers. They see themselves as service providers, not decision-makers. But if you step back and look at what you’re actually enabling, the approvals, the access, the dignity, the comfort, the full-circle transaction, you’ll see that you’re not just running a store. You’re operating one of the last remaining doorways for customers that society quietly pushes aside. That kind of influence deserves recognition. More importantly, it deserves to be owned, not passed off, not handed over, not ignored. Because if you’re already doing the work, you might as well get credit for it. Literally.