Generally you should have 3-4 cards overall including a mix of retail and bank cards (credit cards). If you have 4 bank cards then you are already maximizing your mix for FICO score.
Some people like myself get retail cards because of the rewards, special financing and high CL's especially from GE.
The Walmart card is issued by GE and they tend to be easy. In whole all GE cards are pretty easy to obtain.
I have an Amazon card and it grew 5X as fast as my other cards and it sits at $10K. I chose this particular card because I shop online at Amazon a lot and the special financing.
@Gunnar419 wrote:Thank you for the excellent response chancit! That helps a lot.
Right now I have three bank cards and one retail (Amazon). And yes, I'm super-pleased with the way that Amazon card has already earned me an auto-CLI (after just two months!) Maybe I'll eventually SD one of the bank cards and bite the bullet on a Walmart card.
Not a problem buddy! Also dont forget even though they give you an auto CLI you can still call to ask the underwriter for a specific amount, but try to be modest LOL 
GE cards will help overall utilization which is great!
@Gunnar419 wrote:Thank you for the excellent response chancit! That helps a lot.
Right now I have three bank cards and one retail (Amazon). And yes, I'm super-pleased with the way that Amazon card has already earned me an auto-CLI (after just two months!) Maybe I'll eventually SD one of the bank cards (a Chase card that hasn't given me a single auto-CLI after three years of responsible use) and bite the bullet on a Walmart card.
And if you decide on Walmart, the free TU score is a nice plus!
@Gunnar419 wrote:I'm not sure whether this should go under "Credit Cards" or under a "Credit Score" thread, so mods feel free to move it if I've put it in the wrong place.
I have no super-baddies on my CRs. But one of the things weighing my score down (according to Experian) is a lack of retail accounts. I have an Amazon store card, but that's it. Problem is, I have no interest in most retail cards.
Though I'm tempted by the "shopping cart trick" with the Commentity (sp?) family of cards, there's nothing at any of those stores I'd want to buy -- not even enough to keep the card alive by making a few purchases a year. I find a lot of them overpriced; others just not interesting.
I shop a bit at Walmart but I don't want them tracking everything I buy there so I prefer to pay cash.
I live in the boonies where we have no Macys, J.C. Penney, Kay Jeweler, etc.
I could use a Home Depot card, but I've heard a lot of cautionary tales about that one.
So bottom line is that I really don't want or need any retail cards. I could get a Walmart card and use it just enough to keep it alive. But basically ... no need at all for these things.
So how important, really, is having retail cards? How badly is a score likely to be dinged by the lack of them?
If my score might really be suffering from this lack, what type of retail card is both easy to get and commonly useable even in a small town by a person who lives a no-frills life?
Thanks!
I have no (open) retail cards, and I think the impact is fairly small. Here is an "official" FICO view, from http://www.bankrate.com/finance/credit-cards/closing-credit-card-dings-credit-score-3.aspx
The credit mix (is) like 10 percent -- and that looks at the proportion of different kinds of credit. The big categories would be credit cardsand mortgages and auto loans. But then within credit cards, it breaks it down into whether you have bank cards or department-store cards. If you close off all your bank cards and they get deleted from your report in a few years, and all you're left with is department-store cards, that can hurt your score a little bit. Down the road that can hurt you, but that's a very minimally weighted part of the scoring. For most people, it's not going to matter a whole lot.
But if the reverse was true and you closed all your store cards, and just had regular bank credit cards, would the impact be the same?
That would hurt you less, potentially, because the bank cards count for more than the department-store cards, all things being equal. If you have to be without one, you're better off being without the department-store cards.
If you do decide to get another store card, I think the Walmart and Target cards are the best. You know the benefits of the Walmart card and the Target Redcard gives you a 5% discount at Target stores or Target.com and free online shipping. The downside of the Target Redcard, though, is that it is nearly impossible to get a CLI, but that might change soon, since TD Bank just bought Target's credit card business.
Starting Score: TU: 566
remember with the target you can just link a debit card to a redcard debit and get 5% off anyways you don't need a credit card through target.
Walmart is good for free TU scores but if you don't have any baddies fico scores are pretty useless since 0 baddies and 1 year of clean report is always in prime territory. but doesn't hurt to know I guess.
Also Experian is retarded on credit scoring they have no idea what they're talking about. Doesn't matter if you have any store cards or not. Major CC's are the ones that really matters. it's good to have a mix with installment loans like a car lease/loan and a mortgage if you can, but doesn't really matter cause no matter what as long as you have 2 credit cards and 0 baddies your in prime territory as long as you keep your credit / debt ratio in check.
