So national accounts are performing very strong for us as well. But it’s a combination of the sales team. And then it’s the differentiation, I think, and some of the things that differentiate us from our competition, Brad, where we — from an integration standpoint, we believe we’re the easiest to integrate with different partners. Our e-com process, as we compare it to everybody else’s, is not only easiest to integrate, but works very, very well. We have an ability others don’t have to leverage Rent-A-Center when it comes to large partners and how we work together. We have the staff option that really drives revenue. And when you take a 30- or 40-store regional player and you probably don’t have enough volume in every store to justify a subject matter expert, and it’s a theme of subject matter expert in the store to supplement their sales team.
But let’s say you do it in 10 out of the 40, and of course you’re going to get exclusivity for spending the money on the staff, not only in those 10 stores but all 40 in that example. So I think our staffed option is a differentiator. And when I talk about that sales team out there doing such a great job, they also it’s not just signing people up, but also the ongoing training, and that where you get some of that organic — organic increases by going back in and constantly doing that training. You can sign people up with this. We can sign people up with a smaller team, but you won’t get the organic growth. If you’re not going back in those stores, and depending on the partner monthly or quarterly, in making sure new salespeople know how to sell the transaction within their retailer and stuff like that.
So, I think it’s a combination of all those things. Sales, underwriting I mean, our approval rates were lower than they were last year. I don’t hear differences in approval rates between us and competition. I think those are pretty consistent. You think about losses within the industry is pretty consistent throughout the partners obviously, ours will get better as the year goes on as the legacy accounts wind down. But I don’t think, it’s approval rates or buying the business I think your other part of your question, you asked about, if we rebate, we all offer some rebates depending on the size of the account. Those haven’t really changed, over the years. They’re not any higher now than they were before. So, I think it’s really the other stuff, I just mentioned.
Brad Thomas: That’s really helpful, Mitch. Thank you. And if I could ask a follow-up on the Rent-A-Center, side of the business and just congratulations on getting same-store sales back to positive territory and after the two years of declines, I guess if you could just talk to your confidence that we’re past a more difficult period here for the segment on the revenue side of things. I know that in the first quarter, there can be sometimes some abnormalities, with early buyouts and tax refund season. How are you feeling about that customer and the outlook to keep same-store sales positive here for the year?
Mitch Fadel: Yes, certainly optimistic when it — first of all, when you think about Acima and you think about trade down the same thing happens at Rent-A-Center does come a little slower though because they’re not any — they’re not in a waterfall stack within a retailer. So, when consumer credit tightens it eventually helps Rent-A-Center, but not as quickly as I can help with Acima — probably was obvious reasons. But Rent-A-Center, yes, I think we mentioned in the prepared comments that even as we looked at April, the portfolios looking good. So, we would expect the — at least, slightly positive same-store sales for the whole rest of the year. We are not going to start turning 5% and 8% and 10% same-store sales numbers but certainly slightly positive numbers should — which is great for that mature business.
The website continues to grow — the resiliency that customer to tear back to maybe the core of your question that certainly proven over the years, you go back to the Great Recession and so forth – that customers very resilient when you have really strong consumer confidence, that business grows even better. And when you have — when things get tight out there, you do see trade down. So it’s been very resilient over the years, it will continue. It’s nice to be in the positive territory. We’d like it to be even a little higher as we go through the year and that team is certainly working hard to do that — very encouraged by the growth with the — in the e-com channel. A lot of new customers come in that way, their delinquencies in line as far as the pressures on the customer — their losses came down a little bit year-over-year and their delinquencies as you saw in the presentation, as we mentioned are flat.
So the customers performing — the other teams performing there and we’ve expect to continue at least low single-digit comps positive comps the rest of the year
Brad Thomas: Thanks. Thanks so much.
Mitch Fadel: Thanks, Brad
Operator: Thank you. One moment for our next question. Our next comes from Hoang Nguyen at TD Cowen.
Q – Hoang Nguyen: Hi, team. Congratulations on the quarter. And I just wanted to touch base on maybe the guidance looks like business trends are pretty strong and you know has improved since the last quarter. And I mean, the guidance is maintained, right? I guess, my question is what would you — what would it take for you guys to get more constructive on the guidance going forward? And maybe if you could give us some color on some of the strong and weak categories within ICMA during the quarter it would be helpful. And I have a follow-up. Thank you.
Fahmi Karam: Good morning Hoang. Thank you for the question. Yes, look I think as far as the guidance for the rest of the year, we’re very pleased with the first quarter results, obviously, at the high end of our range. So, we’re very pleased with the performance. We’re pleased with the momentum we built into both businesses but a seamless specifically with another strong quarter from a GMV standpoint, which we look to continue for the rest of the year. As far as the guidance goes, as I said, the quarter came in line with exactly where our expectations were maybe slightly towards the higher end. So, still early in the year no point to change at this point to for the rest of the year. But as we progress if we get the margin pickup we expect, we continue to do the GMV growth that we expect.
