It's easy to replace a couch or love seat for very cheap, if someone takes the right shortcuts. Image from Wikimedia Commons.

Every now and again, people do have to buy new furniture. For some it is not always the most pleasant experience, but there are some ways to make it easier and a lot lighter on the wallet. There are a few excellent places to look for great deals.

Replacing a couch or love seat

Replacing furniture and appliances is part of every day life, and for some it can be a somewhat unpleasant experience. Replacing living room furniture such as a recliner, a couch or love seat can also be expensive. New furniture can cost hundreds of dollars, and financing can be risky. However, there are some ways to find a great deal on home furnishings if a person is determined enough.

Be all right with used furniture

When putting together a living room on a budget, the fact may be that there is not a new piece in the right price range. Therefore, a person has to be willing to buy used furniture. Used furniture does not automatically mean lower quality. There are plenty of well maintained used sofas, recliners, love seats, coffee tables and other furniture out there, one must simply be willing to look. Here are some great starting points.

• Craigslist – look for picture ads, as Craigslist ads can run from awful to amazing.
• Garage sales – look for garage sales put on by housing communities, especially the kind where a home owners association only allows them now and again.
• “Ding and dent” stores – furniture and appliance stores have their slightly damaged goods resold for them, at discounts up to 50 percent off or more.
• Call furniture and appliance stores directly – ask about dinged and dented pieces, and try to negotiate a bargain. It could be easier than one might think.

Rent to own and financing

Going the rent-to-own route or financing through a furniture store might not be the best choice. Rent to own stores mark their furniture up, and consumers in the end pay more than retail. Financing furniture through a store usually means a no interest period before the balance is due, but if whatever is not paid off has the interest assessed automatically.

Personal Money Market may be your portal for payday loans, but if you have your eye on an appliance, electronic device or piece of furniture and want to must up the liquidity to be able to get what you want, payday loans may not always be the most direct route. Utilizing the services of a rent-to-own company in order to pay the bill over time has been a popular method for some consumers, and Rent-A-Center (See http://www6.rentacenter.com/Rent-A-Center-Home.html#1) is one of America’s largest, most publicized rent-to-own companies.

3,000-plus stores across the U.S., Canada and Puerto Rico

According to rentacenter.com, the Plano, Texas-based Rent-A-Center and its 19,000 employees offers consumers “an easy, affordable way to furnish their homes without incurring a continuing obligation and without needing access to credit.” Name brands are on the menu, as well as same-day delivery, 90 days same as cash and an early purchase option. Interesting, Rent-A-Center repairs merchandise still on rent at no charge to the consumer and they offer them a substitute while the original is being repaired.

In addition, Rent-A-Center offers the “RAC Worry-Free Guarantee,” which is billed as “100% satisfaction or your money back.” Not only do you not need credit to apply, but RAC will match competitor prices. If you aren’t satisfied with your Rent-A-Center item, you can return it within the first week and the full first payment will be refunded.

Online traffic for rentacenter.com: Recovering after a fall

According to the online metric site compete.com, rentacenter.com hit 600,000 unique visitors in January 2009. Unfortunately, a steep decline followed. Numbers for December 2009 were 505,014 unique visitors, which was a 7.92 percent improvement over the previous month. The trend since the heights of January 2009 has been to increase, but there’s still road to travel. Total visitors for December 2009 was 687,185, a 6.71 percent increase over the previous month.

Getting to rentacenter.com meant using Google.com (20.63 percent of traffic), Yahoo.com (10 percent) and Facebook (5.63 percent). It comes as no surprise that “rent a center” is the most frequently used search term (netting a whopping 42.98 percent), while “rentacenter.com” (4.01 percent) and “rentacenter” (2.87 percent) followed up.

If it’s good enough for Magic, Rent-A-Center may be good enough for you

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