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-Marts 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-Marts Sams 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-Marts 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-Marts 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-Marts 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.
Have you ever been to Chinatown?
I often wonder how people the people you describe feel about selling state secrets. I mean, its capitalism, right? No limits, ultimate freedom. You’re not being treasonous, you’re just being a good capitalist.
Destroying your country in the pursuit of money is hardly what the FF envisioned. While you have the right to pursue money, you have the obligation to do so in a way that doesn’t harm the country that provides you this freedom.
So to these same people, selling our secrets for money must be ok, just like undercutting our labor force and offshoring everything is ok. Both result in gain for you and harm for the country.
That takes care of the slippery-slope fallacy. Thanks for sharing.
BOYCOTT WALMART
....since most of the stuff they sell is from China
Hell they are a major supplier of money to the Chinese Communist Armed Forces anyway.
Right on the money my friend. One of my BIG problems with the GOP has been their support of illegals simply because they provide cheap labor. Good for business maybe but bad fir the nation . We;ll be a 3rd world toilet by the time Obama runs out his years anyway.
Not to mention that China funnels weapons and money to terrorists by way of Iran who in turn kill our soldiers. Apparently loyalty to our troops isn’t cost effective for some.
Yes. That is why I leave it to rot...
If they were as large a segment of the population as Hispanics are I’m sure there would be stores up and running to appeal to them as well.
It is amazing to me how many people will embrace the destruction of the US because it is good for business.
Is that what we are worth now? Our culture, institutions, heroes, way of life are worth whatever Wal-Mart et al says it is?
You’ve got that one right I see a lot of that here.
If you think about it, the reason behind this move might be to separate the two groups. Anglos go to Walmart, Hispanics go to the Spanish equivalent. Problem solved from their end.
Bully for you! You must be in multicultural heaven.
Stop the invasion and stop the destruction of us, our culture and institutions. Disband LaRaza, MEChA, LULAC, The hispanic caucus and ALL other raced based political and lobbying groups.
Walmart-o?
Maybe with the two new stores for them, it might work that way. Here we had one WalMart, and the "minorities" (who just about out number whites now) raised a ruckus wanting one in another part of town where most of them live. So, they got a brand new shiny store. They all still come over to this one and we tend to go to the new one (if you go) where there are fewer hispanic shoppers and a cleaner store.
I was speaking to a meat counter person at the grocery Publix the other day about the meat being labeled as being from US/Canada/Mexico(all three).
He said the cow may have been born in Mexico, fattened up in the US and slaughtered in Canada.
But then he went on to say that it was a moot point as Publix had taken such flak for meat labeled like this that they were only buying US beef from now on.
Sure enough, last night all the beef in the meat section was labeled US and not the tripartite stuff.
I refuse to go to wal-mart in my area after I noticed the announcements
were in Spanish. And I live in Georgia!
Don't get me wrong, I like Wal-Mart generally, and shop there often. I just get tired of hearing them sucking up to liberal special interest groups on occasion. Like the time they actually listened and responded to fat-ass left-wing POS Michael Moore and his gun-grabbing comrades, and pulled the sell of guns and ammunition from some of their stores (if I remeber the story correctly).
Wal-Mart needs to TOTALLY IGNORE these left-wing, anti-capitalism, anti-American maggots, and carry on with business as they see fit, which had always been to ahve guns and ammunition at all of their stores.
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