Supermarket Chain Will No Longer Accept Credit Cards at Oklahoma City Locations
UPDATE 12:48 PM CENTRAL: WinCo Director of Corporate Communications Noah Fleisher provided the following statement via email:
"As of Aug. 1, 2022, WinCo will no longer be taking credit cards as a form of payment at our Oklahoma City stores."
Could this be the beginning of a new trend?
KOCO is reporting that WinCo Foods announced via social media that it will no longer be accepting credit card payments due to inflation.
At WinCo, our goal is to offer the same quality products other stores offer, but at overall combined lower prices. There are many different strategies and features that help us accomplish this; and eliminating credit card fees is one of them. At this point, the rates we pay on every credit card transaction are drastically higher than the rates for debit cards, and while other stores simply pass this cost to their customers via higher prices throughout their stores (or additional fees), with rising costs of inflation it has become extremely difficult to absorb that added expense while staying true to our mission of being the area's supermarket low price leader.
What forms of payment will continue to be accepted?
The company will continue to accept cash, debit cards, check, EBT, WIC, and WinCo gift cards.
The change is set to take effect on Monday, August 1.
The post has since been removed from social media, so it’s not clear as to whether or not this is a company-wide decision or if it simply applies to the locations in the Oklahoma City Metro as referenced in the report from KOCO.
I reached out to the company for clarification, but haven’t yet heard back. I will update this post when I have more information.