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.
I’m ok. Still kinda’ wish I was making illegal alien wages, though. :)
The people flooding in now come from countries that are, to put it gently, toilets with oppressive governments, brutality, and crime.
Rather that joining with us, they want to turn our country into the northern version of the mess they left.
This must be stopped.
I don’t want to stick it to them...but I have seen first hand the problems with illegal immigration. Staples in Gwinnett county in Georgia had to change their red shirts become the Mexican gangs kept beating up employees who wore the red shirts...a gang color you understand. The schools were destroyed, taxes went up, the hospitals were on the brink of bankruptcy. I am not kidding my girls and I could not walk to the lake or go to Walmart by ourselves because of unwarranted attention by Mexican men. After an incident in the parking lot where a couple of drunken louts scared the crap out of us, and the police were called, I did not go to Walmart anymore; my husband absolutely forbade me to go near that store. After the incident, my husband talked to the store manager who apologized profusely, but then added ‘we needed to understand that their culture was different in terms of women’. That was that...no more Walmart. He told the store manager that making overtures to 11 year old girls is child molestation in any culture. Anyway, I just don’t think Walmart is a good corporate citizen in many ways and they have implemented policies not good for this country. On one interesting not...the just in time policy practiced by Walmart seems to be on its way out...new local policy going into effect at GM anyway.
Very funny, George had some nibbles on his resume so I was feeling a bit more optimistic even before the news on Friday. I no longer imagined driving off a cliff-you know. I really think things may get better...maybe we will avoid a depression. I hope you find a great job...hey where are you? There is networking going on FR in terms of jobs.
I read my last post and It’s not right. It’s not exactly how I feel. My kids went to school with the children of illegals-essentially American. Many were nice kids too and so were their parents, but we need to get rid of the gang bangers and keep the decent people...never going to send everyone back...but please let’s get rid of criminals. Then we really do need reform and not for slave labor or votes either...but a policy that benefits the immigrant and the country.
And another one bites the dust. The only reason you feel that way about unionizing WM is that you have fallen for the BS propaganda of the unions.
I doubt you have ever applied for a job at WalMart. I have, and I assure you they make damned sure you are legal. As to low pay, where I live the only jobs that pay a higher starting hourly wage than WM is the night shift at the Tyson chicken plant and to get a job there your best bet is to mis-spell words on your app, not have a HS diploma, and preferably speak accented English.
Wal-Mart and the other profiteers are only restricting those immigrants to substandard futures.
Yea, verily.
All that entities that use Spanish in their business and their packaging and teaching and their cable programming and other functions do, is further the divisions and the eventuality of conflict.
If we want to avoid of the certainty of several million unassimilated and disadvantaged children who will not be able to get the top jobs and the best schools, this has to stop.
Learning an additional set of languages - great. A country with two or more major languages and the separate cultures they support just brings disaster.
Sorry, I don't agree. Most want just the money. They could care less about America or her past. Remember not long ago when the US played Mexico in LA? Guess who the crowd was rooting for? That's what we're up against.
Get rid of them all and make them do it legally.
Toyota does not produce great cars anymore...even Honda is slipped. As for gas friendly cars,we are are already kicking Japanese butt...our cars are much more gas friendly...new ones on the way.
They had illegals working in Georgia two years ago...if they don’t do this anymore than this would apply to any company hires illegals.
Be that as it may, no company should be forced to be unionized as you seem to believe WM should be. And don’t be so sure those unionized companies aren’t hiring illegals either, neither GM nor the UAW is squeaky clean when it comes to illegals. Of course that is not going to be seen in the media the way the unions make sure such is OVER played when it comes to non unionized companies such as WM.
I am not advocating forced unionization. However, Walmart has made themselves a target with their policies. I don’t want to have to subsidize this company with my tax dollars...their employees are on food stamps, housing assistance and state medical in many states including Ohio.
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