The stores that have their own cards save on fees, but as a rule, they seem to end up with a higher nonpayment risk. Brandsmart is a local retailer of electronics and appliances that issued their own card, with special incentives (interest holidays and deals on closeouts, mostly) to cardholders. The interest rates were in the 15% annual range of Visa and MC.
Three years ago, the canceled the BrandsMart cards and replaced them with Visa. The new BrandsMart Visa Card has no interest holidays, and they do send cardholders an invitation to their "special sales", but everyone comes to the sales, and there is rarely room to park (The parking lot is huge), so their close out sales are obviously not so "special", as formerly they were much less attended.
Many stores have their own Visa cards now. There is no advantage to having one over the Visa card that anyone can get. The rates are higher and the fees are higher and there are more of them than for other cards I have.