Wal-Mart looks to Hispanic market

[RamboLiberal]

Source: Financial Times

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.



Read more: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/bd371350-0f2c-11de-ba10-0000779fd2ac.html

[Blaze Diem]

1. I'll skip supporting Walmart & go directly to the local flea market here in Dallas for produce &

chilies. I'll support independent & the price is cheaper & often negotiable.

Way to go Walmart for infringing on the local & independent Hispanic market.

I hope the Hispanic communities see what Walmart is doing to their great farmers & flea markets.

Of course they will still exist, however I see Walmart doing to these businesses just what they've done to main street America.

megalocorporomania.

[dbackjon]

2. In Phoenix, the locally owned Grocery Store Basha's has a chain of hispanic stores

Food City.

Basha's is owned by the Basha family, longtime prominent Democratic family.

There are also a number of independent grocery stores as well.

[Blaze Diem]

4. Walmart intends to do to these local stores exactly what it has done

everywhere else they set up shop. Good luck to Basha's. I hope they survive the giant cockroach Walmart.

[HopeHoops]

3. Frozen mung bean burritos and bamboo sombreros? This should be interesting.

[silverojo]

5. What for?

They already have signs in Spanish in the English-speaking Wal-Mart stores. All the merchandise labels are in Spanish as well as English.

When are people going to realize that the way to help people learn a language is to immerse them in it? I don't see why even people who support amnesty don't realize that coddling Spanish-speakers in this way is dooming them to second-rate jobs with no chance of advancement.