Australians embraced credit culture enthusiastically, encouraged by governments that recognised the importance of consumer credit to the country’s economic success. Australian consumers’ use of credit in retail locations depended on their position in the class and social hierarchies and department stores leveraged these distinctions to encourage the use of credit in their stores and maximise their profits. Technological change has reduced the social stigma associated with credit use for the majority of consumers, but for many low-income Australians its capacity to draw them into unmanageable debt remains a significant problem. The hierarchy of retail credit in Australia remains firmly in place.