D-Mac's Comments on Wal-Mart Credit Card Figures

Wow, a comment on one of my posts! That's really something. (OK, I confess -- it's from a family member. Don't burst my bubble.)

At 6/2/2004 09:24:01 PM, D-Mac said...
Hey Rob. Sam's club only takes debit cards. WalMart had that anti-trust suit against MC/Visa a while back. Pretty viscious, which is why Sam's only take debit. Cuts out the merchant Fee. That probably explains part of the quirk. Also, the average American has 4 credit cards. So the statistics are probably off. It may only be 50 million people that actually have cards, it is just multiple cards.

Actually, Sam's does accept one credit card: Discover. Costco only accepts Amex. BJ's accepts all four major cards. The figures I was given were for Wal-Mart stores only; Sam's was not included in the calculation. (Incidentally, the average Sam's Club customer is _much_ more affluent than the typical Wal-Mart customer. I don't remember the difference in income level, but I was really surprised when I heard it.)

I did some more poking around for credit card ownership rates. The most recent data I could find indicated that the average American holds seven credit cards, which includes department store and oil company cards. I also found a slightly older reference to the total number of people carrying cards that put the number just over 200 million. That's in the ballpark with the 190 million I quoted earlier. (Sorry I don't have any supporting links. I was on the job and didn't have time to copy them. I think I found most of the info on Cardweb.com.)

Wal-Mart does not accept MasterCard debit cards. They do take Visa debit cards, though. I witnessed an "associate" explaining this to a customer last week. I am not sure about Sam's and debit cards. (I've never used a debit card in my life -- I wonder what the debit card demographics look like.)

Regardless of the figures, I am still amazed that half of Wal-Mart's customer's don't have credit cards.