Looking to grow your local business? Consider lease-to-own financing
Growing your local business may start with addressing payment barriers that may affect an interested shopper’s ability to move forward with a transaction. Learn how lease-to-own financing may help you expand the way you reach and serve customers in your community.
Key takeaways
Expand who you can serve. Lease-to-own financing may give eligible shoppers who might not qualify for traditional financing another way to get what they need.
Compete beyond price. Additional payment options may help strengthen your value proposition without relying solely on discounts or trying to match larger retailers on price.
Make lease-to-own financing visible. Promote payment options across key touchpoints so customers know about them before checkout.
When you’re looking for ways to grow your local business, it’s natural to focus on the common strategies: advertise more, add inventory, run a promotion, or eventually open another location.
But growth isn’t limited to these typical levers. Sometimes, growth potential resides at checkout.
Consider the shopper who walks into your store because they need a new mattress, appliance, set of tires, or piece of furniture. They found your business. They found what they need. The problem is how to pay for it.
For shoppers with credit challenges, that barrier is especially common. Snap Finance research found that 78% of consumers with credit scores below 670 have been turned down for financing. These shoppers still need to make major purchases – particularly when an appliance breaks, tires wear out, or another essential item needs to be replaced.
Lease-to-own financing gives eligible customers another way to move forward. When paired with strong local marketing, knowledgeable employees, clear financing visibility, and a convenient buying experience, it may become part of a broader growth strategy.
How can lease-to-own financing support your local business?
Lease-to-own financing helps approved customers get the merchandise they need while paying for it over time. By offering scheduled payments instead of requiring payment of the full price up front – or forcing customers to rely solely on traditional credit – it creates another path to getting the products they need.
For local businesses, the opportunity is not simply changing how an existing customer pays. It may broaden the range of customers who have another payment option available.
A shopper who cannot qualify for traditional financing may still have a need and may be interested in another payment option. Without another option available, that customer might delay the purchase, settle for something that does not meet their needs, or look for another retailer.
In fact, 61% of consumers with credit scores below 670 said financing for all credit types was an important factor when choosing where to shop for a big-ticket item. Credit scores change how people shop.
That makes lease-to-own financing for businesses more than a checkout feature. It may help make your store an option for shoppers seeking additional payment flexibility.
How can you reach more customers in your local market?
To reach more customers, start by considering who your current payment options may leave out. You may already have shoppers nearby who need the products you sell and are ready to buy, but do not have the cash available to pay in full or may have limited access to traditional financing.
Lease-to-own financing may give eligible shoppers – who might already be in your store or just a short drive away – another way to get what they need. This may be especially useful for local businesses that sell higher-cost or necessity-driven products, such as furniture, mattresses, appliances, tires, and electronics, where customers may need an item before they have the cash to cover the full cost upfront.
Offering access to another payment path may help broaden the range of customers your business is equipped to serve. When you make that option visible in your local marketing, online, and in-store, you may also give nearby shoppers another reason to consider your business when deciding where to buy.
How can a local business compete without lowering prices?
Competing with national retailers on price alone can present a challenge. Larger businesses tend to have bigger advertising budgets, deeper inventory, and more room to run frequent promotions.
But local businesses have other ways to win.
Personal service, local expertise, convenience, accessibility, and flexible payment options may helpl strengthen the value you offer customers. Instead of asking, “How low can we make the price?” consider asking, “How easy are we making it for customers to shop with us?”
Lease-to-own financing can be an important part of that equation. Giving customers more ways to pay may help shift the conversation from finding the lowest possible price to finding a product they choose based on their needs and budget.
It may also provide an alternative to discounting by giving shoppers another payment option. Small retailers can compete with larger ones by making financing a visible, trust-building part of the purchase journey.
How can lease-to-own financing attract more local customers?
Simply offering financing options does not mean it will attract more customers. If you want local business customer financing to support acquisition, make it visible before a shopper reaches the register.
Start with your website. Make all financing information easy to find on relevant product pages and other appropriate website pages, and consider creating pages that answer the financing questions customers in your area are already searching for.
Then carry the same message into the places where local customers discover your business. Depending on your marketing strategy, that might include your Google Business Profile, local search advertising, geo-targeted digital campaigns, email and SMS, social media, or in-store signage and point-of-purchase materials.
The goal is consistency. A shopper who sees that payment options are available in a local ad should find the same message when they visit your website, walk into your store, or speak with an employee.
How can you support more local shoppers through checkout?
Getting someone through the door does not necessarily mean they will make a purchase. If you want to grow, look closely at what happens between “I’m interested” and “I’ll take it.”
Sticker shock can create one point of friction, especially for big-ticket purchases. Limited payment choices can create another. Some shoppers may also assume they will not qualify for financing based on a previous experience, while others may not learn that financing exists until they are already considering walking away.
That is why financing visibility matters throughout the shopping journey.
Mentioning available payment options, including lease-to-own financing, earlier gives shoppers time to understand their choices before total price becomes the only factor in the decision. Keep financing information clear, easy to find, and consistent online and in-store. Customers should also know where to find accurate details about applications, payments, and terms before making a decision.
How should your team talk about lease-to-own financing?
Your employees can play an important role in making customers aware of their options. The key is to make the conversation consistent, factual, and pressure-free.
Train employees to explain available payment options without making assumptions about who needs financing or who might qualify. Rather than waiting for someone to say they cannot afford to pay upfront, associates can make payment options part of the normal sales conversation for everyone.
Employees should understand when and how to introduce lease-to-own financing, how customers can apply, and where to direct them for accurate information about terms and eligibility. They do not make the decision for the customer – they simply need to make sure the customer knows what options are available.
How can you bring local customers back again?
Customer acquisition matters, but local growth does not have to end after the first sale.
A smooth, respectful shopping experience can give customers a reason to consider your business again when another need arises. That experience includes everything from helpful employees and convenient shopping to clear information about the ways they can pay.
Merchant-owned channels can help you maintain that relationship. With the appropriate customer consent, email and SMS can keep your business top of mind for seasonal needs, new products, promotions, or future purchases. Social media can do the same while reinforcing your presence in the community.
The goal is not to assume that offering lease-to-own financing will create loyalty. It is to make it one part of a customer experience that is easy, useful, and worth remembering.
How do you know if lease-to-own financing is helping your business grow?
Once lease-to-own financing is in place, the next step is understanding how customers are using it and what that means for your business. Tracking a few key metrics can help you see where financing fits into your broader growth strategy.
Start by tracking financing application starts, approval activity, approval-to-purchase conversion, funded sales volume, and average order value. You can also look at first-time versus repeat customers and compare financing usage by store, product category, or marketing campaign. Snap Finance makes key metrics available to its partners on the Merchant Portal.
Over time, these numbers can help you identify where lease-to-own financing is having the most impact. For example, are customers who arrive through local search more likely to start an application? Does lease-to-own usage increase when you promote it on product pages? Do certain categories generate more funded transactions?
Compare results over consistent time periods and across marketing channels. The goal is not simply to generate more applications – it is to understand whether lease-to-own financing is associated with changes in customer reach and completed transactions.
Ready to open the door to more local customers?
Learning how to grow a local business does not always mean adding more products, spending more on advertising, or competing on price.
Sometimes, a growth strategy can include expanding the payment options available to shoppers.
Snap Finance helps retailers offer access to lease-to-own financing designed to serve a wider range of shoppers, including consumers who may have limited access to traditional credit. Customers can apply in minutes online or in-store and receive a decision in seconds, with no impact to their FICO® credit score.1
Snap also provides retailer support and marketing resources that can help businesses make financing more visible throughout the customer journey.
Because the next stage of local growth may not require finding an entirely new market – it may start by making another payment option available to customers in your community when they need eligible merchandise.
Partner with Snap Finance today and learn more about how financing may help you reach more customers in your local area.
The advertised service is a lease-to-own agreement provided by Snap RTO LLC. Lease-to-own financing is not available to residents of Minnesota, New Jersey, and Wisconsin.
1 Not all applicants are approved. No credit history is required. Snap obtains information from consumer reporting agencies in connection with your application; this does not impact your FICO® Score, though other credit scores may be affected.