Posted on 03/14/2009 4:05:39 AM PDT by Man50D
Wal-Mart plans to open its first Hispanic-focused supermarkets this summer in Arizona and Texas as the largest US retailer continues its drive to expand its dominance of the US grocery business.
The pilot stores, named Supermercado de Walmart, will open in Phoenix and Houston in remodelled 39,000 sq ft locations occupied previously by two of Wal-Mart’s Neighborhood Market stores.
The retailer said that the stores were in “strongly Hispanic neighbourhoods” and would feature a “new lay-out, signing and product assortment designed to make them even more relevant to local Hispanic customers”. The staff will also be bilingual.
Wal-Mart’s Sam’s Club warehouse store also plans to open a 143,000 sq ft Hispanic-focused store called Más Club in Houston this year.
Several leading regional US supermarket chains already operate Hispanic store brands, including Publix in Florida, which operates three Publix Sabor markets, and HEB in Texas, which opened a Mi Tienda store in Houston in 2006.
The markets include elements such as cafés serving Latino pastries and coffee, and full service meat and fish counters.
Leading retailers are also pursuing Hispanic consumers online, with Best Buy and Home Depot having launched Spanish-language versions of their e-commerce sites in recent months.
Eduardo Castro-Wright, the head of Wal-Mart’s US stores since 2005, has also been an advocate of testing new smaller, more focused formats, and raised the idea of turning the Neighbourhood Market into a Hispanic-style bodega concept several years ago.
He has also developed Wal-Mart’s efforts to customise its larger Supercenter stores, which have been grouped according to differing community profiles, such as urban, suburban, Hispanic and African-American, with customised merchandise.
A 195,000 sq ft Supercenter that opened in Texas last year included a tortilleria bakery, Hispanic foods and a larger selection of Spanish-language music and DVDs.
Mr Castro-Wright was previously head of Wal-Mart’s Mexican subsidiary, whose store network ranges from large US-style Supercenters to small local bodegas, an upmarket supermarket chain and two restaurant chains.
Last year, Wal-Mart also began testing four new 10,000 sq ft Marketside convenience grocery stores in the Phoenix area – its first new format in a decade. Tesco, the UK retailer, also has more than 25 of its small Fresh & Easy markets in the Phoenix area.
And so it goes: the Mexicanization of the US.
They are decades behind stores like Fiesta but I would sure like to see the inside of one of those, unfortunately I live in San Diego where the left won’t even allow a Super store.
Wal-Mart plans to open its first Hispanic-focused supermarkets this summer in Arizona and Texas as the largest US retailer continues its drive to expand its dominance of the US grocery business.Just what the hell has Wal-Mart's focus been all this time, then?
Have you ever looked at where almost all the produce comes from in your Super WalMart supermarket? It’s already Hispanic.
I was thinking the same thing. Does this mean we get to lose all the spanish for english seaking only stores? How bout english only bathrooms and drinking fountains?
That's what I was thinking. It's the same at the two stores we have here. Every aisle has spanish and English aisle markers, some food aisles are dedicated to spanish foods, the clothing is crappy and most managers are hispanic with all clerks and most checkers being mexican. I rarely go to WalMart any more.
It is probably a good business move. It’s their business and unless O nationalizes WalMart too, they have a right to do whatever helps their bottom line.
I thought capitalism was a good thing?
That was exactly my reaction! When we got a new Wal-Mart in the area, I went very soon after it opened, and it was already trashed. The shelves were a mess, similar items were in different aisles, and the service was horrible even after finding someone who spoke understandable English (actually, there was lots of Ebonics, too, not just Spanish). I noticed that they tried to improve it a few months later, but their efforts weren't being very successful and I haven't been back.
I now go to a civilized one that's more than an hour away.
The first time I was stopped by a Wal-Mart greeter, I showed him my passport. I assumed that was what he was asking for.
What an excellent line! :-)
i think this is a wonderful idea—with a few enhancements:
1. Use ICE agents as in-store roaming security
2. Send the security videos to ICE HQ and screen for gang members and mules
3. Have the greeters wand and pat down all the customers.
Nope. It's more important to take out your frustrations on a private entity instead of actually doing something. Symbolism over substance, works every time.
Racism at it’s finest.
I propose we start outsourcing illegal aliens.
Have you ever looked at where almost all the produce comes from in your Super WalMart supermarket? It’s already Hispanic.
End produce discrimination now! Demand more Canadian produce.
I thought capitalism was a good thing?
Not to the extent that it fosters a culture within a culture.
Study ancient Rome and see how that came crumbling down.
Stores shouldn’t stock what people buy. They should stock what people think you ought to buy.
I think the only thing Canadian I’ve ever seen at my Safeway is Maple Syrup. Even the Canadian bacon is American. lol.
While making money is dandy, doing so while betraying your country - such as dealing with Iran, or outsourcing American jobs to improve profitability - is obviously wrong. Pandering to a set of immigrants that refuse to accept our language or our culture and perpetuating the divisions is also morally wrong.
Wal-Mart has the absolute right to make Spanish-centric stores.
We have the absolute right to avoid their stores until they return to the US again.
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