Walmart can no longer count Marlene Gosparini and her employer as regular customers in Thunder Bay after the world's largest retailer stopped accepting Visa credit cards at its three stores in the northwestern Ontario city.

“I'm not too happy about it,” Gosparini said Monday as she lugged five plastic bags filled with supplies across the street from the city's oldest Walmart store to Truck & Diesel Hydraulics, where she works in shipping and receiving. Her employer spends about $500 a month at the retailer, and she'll spend $150 a week on her own, often on Visa, she said.

How the Walmart-Visa fight affects you

“We won't be shopping there any more because we have a company Visa card,” said Gosparini, 55. “And now that we have to go somewhere else. I'll probably buy my personal stuff elsewhere, too.”

Thunder Bay is the latest battleground over credit-card fees for the Bentonville, Ark.-based retailer. Walmart's Canadian unit has threatened to expel Visa from all 405 of its stores nationwide unless the network agrees to lower the amount it charges for credit-card transactions.

Walmart prepared its Thunder Bay customers for the change in June when it posted a statement on its website. There were signs in stores leading up to the shift, and on Monday store greeters, employees and managers approached customers as they walked in to remind them of the change. Some cashiers even offered customers a chance to sign up for a Walmart Mastercard.

“It doesn't bother me,” said Lea Bostan, a 73-year-old retiree and Visa cardholder who echoed the sentiments of many shoppers. “I come here all the time. I'll still come here but I'll just use cash.”

Visa “remains committed to doing everything reasonable to ensure Canadians can use their Visa cards everywhere they wish to shop —including at Walmart stores,” Carla Hindman, a spokeswoman for San Francisco-based Visa, said in an e-mailed statement.

Visa ran ads in Thunder Bay's newspaper Monday offering cardholders a $25 online gift card for making purchases of $75 or more at Thunder Bay grocery stores.

“We haven’t set the timeline for the other markets,” Walmart Canada spokesperson Alex Roberton told The Star.

“We’re committed to continuing negotiations with Visa and remain optimistic we will reach an agreement with them.”

Roberton said credit card fees in Canada are too high for everyone – as much as four times higher than some other markets – and are a concern for all businesses, small and large, including charities.

Canada has emerged as an arena for early skirmishes between big retailers and payments networks over fees. In September 2014, Costco told customers it would stop accepting American Express cards at its Canadian stores the following year and switch to Mastercard. Five months later, AmEx and Costco announced they planned to end their exclusive U.S. relationship, as well.

Walmart's Canada unit, which pays more than $100 million to accept credit cards annually, called the fees Visa charges “unacceptably high” in a June 11 statement on its website. The retailer didn't say what the amount was. Visa responded with a letter published in newspapers accusing Walmart of “unfairly dragging millions of Canadian consumers into the middle of a business disagreement that can and should be resolved” between the companies.

“I do have a Mastercard so I'll probably be using that,” said Teresa Tucci, a Visa cardholder who questioned Walmart's policy. “They shouldn't put a limit on what kind of card you can use.”

Walmart's move and Visa's reaction feels like a negotiation being haggled out in public, Sanjay Sakhrani, a Keefe, Bruyette & Woods analyst, said in an interview.

“If this was a real threat, they'd start in Montreal or Toronto,” Sakhrani said, referring to Walmart's move. Choosing Thunder Bay “would lead you to believe that the intent is to try to work something out versus having some kind of wide consumer backlash.”

Walmart has been fighting for decades to reduce card fees. It was among merchants that sued Visa and Mastercard in 1996, claiming they used their market dominance to force retailers to accept their debit cards.

While that case was settled in 2003 with payments and policy changes, additional litigation followed alongside lobbying battles in Washington.

Visa had the largest share of the Canadian credit-card market by purchase volume in 2015 with 60 per cent, followed by Mastercard's 35 per cent and about 5.4 per cent for American Express, according to the Nilson Report, an industry newsletter.

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Most shoppers didn't think Walmart's move would have much of an impact in the end — at least in Thunder Bay.

“It's Walmart, people are going to shop here no matter what,” said Gloria Derouard, 63, who said she used her debit card to pay for her purchases.

With files from The Star’s Francine Kopun

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