I am not usually an advocate of store cards. Why use a store card for something you can use a major credit card for, which will likely have a lower interest rate and possibly offer you airline miles or some other benefit? Besides, store cards can be just another bill you have to deal with every month. Yeah they may offer you some coupons every month, but they rarely come with interest rates below 24%, so how much would you really be saving?
For someone working to build new credit, store cards can potentially be a major help. Most store cards are issued by one of two major banks: Comenity Bank and GE Merchants Bank/GE Capital Retail Bank (GEMB/GECRB). Opponents of store cards and using them to rebuild credit will often cite the adding of inquiries to your credit report for each store card. Well, with Comenity Bank, one can use the “shopping bag trick” to get approval with just a soft inquiry – I just did it a few months ago and got an Express card. With regard to GEMB/GECRB, they will pull your TransUnion credit report and score – and for the most part, if you get approved for one GEMB card, you will get approved for any of them. TransUnion inquiries are the easiest to bump off, so my approach was (1) pick whatever GEMB cards I wanted and apply for them all same day then (2) bump all the inquires off TransUnion within the next month. I started with the WalMart card, then got the Banana Republic, Amazon, Belk and Chevron cards. After four months of good payment history on your GEMB-issued card, you will get a credit limit increase.
Just because you have the store cards does not mean you need to use them. Most of mine I have used one time, paid the entire balance off, and then just left it alone. It will add positive, active tradelines to your credit file and increase your total revolving credit amount, making any balances you may carry on your major credit cards have less impact on your credit score. When I began my credit repair in December, 2013, I had ZERO positive, open credit card accounts. Less than three months later, I have EIGHT open revolving accounts of my own (plus two on which I am an authorized user). I pay my balances in full every month and I know when summer is here and my accounts have all aged six months or more, my score will have improved even more and I will be able to open accounts with Barclays Bank, Discover, etc.
If you don’t know the shopping bag trick or understand bumpage, this may not be the best idea for you. Also, GEMB does not like public records or collections (from my experience). Start with Walmart – if you don’t get approved there, no need applying for any other GEMB accounts. And if you have a collection or public record and are not approved, that is more than likely why.
All my store accounts are showing on my credit files already. My current FICO score is 733 (TransUnion). When I started my credit repair less than three months ago, my score was 496. So, in three months, I have raised my score 237 points. It can be done.
Roots, Credit & Life 
How does the shopping cart thing work?
Could you go into some more detail about this comment: “. TransUnion inquiries are the easiest to bump off”
I don’t want any store cards, but I do I want to bump some inquiries 🙂
The two have nothing to do with one another. B* is a way to remove inquiries from your credit files by replacing the hard inquiries with soft inquiries you initiate. It ONLY works with Transunion and Equifax – it does not work with Experian. The long-short of it: you need to sign up with (ideally) three services that allow you to pull all three of your credit reports and FAKO scores daily. Then start pulling them daily – Transunion inquiries will fall off sooner than Equifax, usually in less than a month if you are pulling daily AND using at least THREE daily pullers. You can use Transunion-only daily pullers as well to speed up the process. A good one for this is Smart Credit. As for the triple-daily pullers, I would suggest the Credit Check Monitoring offered through USAA and EliminateID Theft’s MyPrivacyMatters. You don’t have to be eligible for USAA membership to join just for CCM. As for the third, a lot of people use Equifax Credit Monitoring. You don’t have to have three – it just makes it happen faster, which can help you avoid C* (Choppage).
” Yeah they may offer you some coupons every month, but they rarely come with interest rates below 24%, so how much would you really be saving?”
ummmm.. buy the item… go home, pay off card. Bam savings with coupon and no interest. People act like you can’t avoid the interest rates!