ANDERSON, Ind. -- As Jay Ricker, president and owner of Anderson, Ind.-based Ricker Oil, prepares to take over as the chairman of the National Association of Convenience Stores (NACS), he's got his eyes clearly on a single prize: the revamping of credit-card interchange fees. "If nothing else got done the entire year, I would be ecstatic, and I think most all of our members would be too, if we could get some change made on that."
With that in mind, Ricker and NACS will unveil a program this week that allows smaller retailers to follow in the footsteps of their larger brethrenspecifically 7[image-nocss] -Eleven and Circle Kwho have asked customers to sign petitions urging interchange-fee legislation.
"[It's] a petition-type drive for all the other retailers out there to try and redouble our efforts. We're thinking it may be the most signatures ever garnered for a petition drive in the country," Ricker told CSP Daily News. "Hopefully that makes some sort of impact on Congress when they see literally the millions of [signatures on] petitions between 7-Eleven and Circle K and then the industry at large.
"I myself will be doing one of those petition drives in my 49 stores because it's extremely important that we get that onerous fee down."
[Click here to hear more from Ricker on credit-card fees and the year ahead in today's exclusive CSPTV interview.]
Ricker said he sees another tangential benefit coming out of the credit-card-fee fight. He noted that in his 37 years in the industry, he's never seen retailersacross all channelsban together over a single issue as they have over interchange fees.
"Even when you look outside of our industry, when you look at the retail industry in total, I don't think I ever remember anything that everyone has been so united on, and not just united, most of those people are actually spending their hard-earned dollars to support this cause," he said. "I don't think there's any question that if we can come together on something like this that impacts everyone, as we go down the road and face other issues, if we can have one voice, we're certainly going to be more powerful. And if we've gotten this one done, there are other issues down the road we can work on collaboratively."
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