Store card sales tactics scrapped

Shops agree to stop offering instant incentives to people for signing up to a store card and won't pay commission to salespeople.

New rules mean shops will no longer be able to offer instant incentives to persuade people to take out store cards and staff won’t receive commission from selling them.

These are part of new voluntary measures announced by the Finance & Leasing Association, which represents store card providers, in a bid to improve these much-criticised products.

Discounts and incentives, such as free gifts, discount vouchers and cash credits, will only be available seven days after a customer has taken out a card. And, in addition to not earning commission from sales, all staff who sell store cards will received standardised training.

High APRs and hard sell

Store cards have earned a bad reputation thanks to a combination of high APRs and salespeople’s hard-sell tactics. A 14-day cooling-off period was introduced earlier this year in a bid to prevent people from taking on debts they couldn’t afford just to get an incentive.

As a rule, APRs on store cards are typically higher than credit cards, at 25.5% compared to 16.8%, according to Which? magazine.

Here are four big name store cards and their APRs:

Store cards on the way out?

Many shops have now moved to offer credit cards rather than store cards, usually offering loyalty points or some other incentive. And we all know about free loyalty card schemes, such as Tesco Clubcard, Nectar and Boots Advantage.

Hopefully, these new rules will put an end to the high-pressure sales tactics most of us loathe.  And the people selling store cards should actually understand they work.

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