Tiffany Hsu, Los Angeles Times, Dec. 24, 2008
Delfino Turan remembers his first trip to a Best Buy store, but not very fondly. Turan, at the time a recent immigrant from Mexico, said he could barely understand what salespeople were saying. What’s more, he couldn’t afford to pay for the purchases he wanted upfront, and the store didn’t offer to extend credit. So Turan now shops for electronics at the La Curacao department store near downtown, where he went the other day to replace the broken TV in the lunch truck he operates. “Here they understand Spanish, and they understand people like us,” he said after signing off on a down payment. “They treat you really well, they give easy credit, and they don’t ever say no.” Catering to immigrant customers has long been the stock in trade of ethnic-focused stores such as La Curacao Famsa, which caters to Spanish-speaking customers, and Kim’s Home Center, a favorite of Korean immigrants. But as electronics sales wilt in the tough market and immigrants’ buying power blooms, major big-box retailers such as Best Buy Co. and Wal-Mart Stores Inc. are catching on and catching up.
Many are using bilingual websites to turn online browsers into in-store clients, while others are hiring staffers with language skills and updating in-store signs and displays to appeal to immigrants.
“The Famsas and La Curacaos of this country have had those clients to themselves for a long time,” said Juan Tornoe, an independent consultant who has worked with companies such as Domino’s Pizza and Budweiser on Latino-targeted advertising. “Stores are looking for customers, and the wise ones are reaching out to immigrants through multiple channels.”
Wal-Mart activated its Spanish-language website in September to coincide with Hispanic Heritage month and has special holiday sites in Chinese and Vietnamese.
Last year Best Buy launched a bilingual website with a Spanish-language option after some customers complained that they couldn’t research products. Activity on the Spanish site has since far exceeded that of the original site, executives said. The company also recently signed Mexican soccer star Cuauhtemoc Blanco as a brand ambassador and has put up bilingual signage at 350 of its more than 1,000 stores, said Jeff Weness, director of Hispanic initiatives.
One reason for the initiatives is buying power. Latinos alone spend more than $870 billion on consumer products. By 2015, the amount is expected to boom to $1.3 trillion, or 12% of total U.S. purchasing power, according to Hispanic Business Inc. At the entrance to the Best Buy in West Hollywood, a sign boasts that employees speak 15 languages (including Russian, Bengali and the Nigerian languages Ibo and Ogba). In the last six years, the store has hired a burst of young, second-generation immigrants, said manager Margie Kenney.
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Original article
(Posted on December 24, 2008)
Comments
BEGIN to cater to non-English speaking immigrants?
This seems to be old news. There are little Mexicos and the like everywhere selling new, up-to-date items, not just food.
If only there were some way for people who speak the same language and share the same culture to live together in a large group, perhaps in a defined geographical area, so they could spend their time and money with those who “understand people like us.” Hmmm… I’m stumped.
Well truly anything for a dollar. Tiffany Hsu, Los Angeles Times, is, actually, not telling us anything new or that we do not already know. Big business does not respect borders, laws, etc. Big business simply wants to make a profit at the expense of what used to be our America.
Again not one mention of the word illegal immigrant. Why are businesses from mom and pop operations to giant corporations catering to people who are law breakers? For the almighty buck as always. We are witnessing the selling out of America.
Hummm and I ask this question…..how much shoplifting will go on in these places that cater to these criminals???? Just asking!
“US merchants beginning to cater to non-English speaking immigrants.”
What is this? Some kind of joke?
How long have we been pressing one for English? And how long have the departmet stores and home improvement businesses like Home Depot had Spanish signs up?
And this writer has the gall to pretend it’s just beginning?
The article brings me to a point about American companies in general. Don’t buy from the large corporation. You see, they are all overextended and are going under anyway, so they are now desperate to do things like cater to foreign illegal alien nationals, relocate for cheap wages, etc. Recently the Hershey Chocolate Corporation that was made rich by Americans, decided to move two of its factories to Mexico. Yep, good old Mexico again. Talk about Americans getting it from both ends.
Don’t buy chocolate from the Hershey corporation, seems to be good advice. I know many people believe that boycotts don’t help the citizenry. That is not true. The problem is so many companies never get the message that their former customers aren’t buying from them anymore, so they continue foolishly until many lose millions of dollars. The same advice goes for any company that was enriched by Americans and now decide to kick Americans in the teeth. Thousands of large companies are going to fold in 2009 because of their greed and already, smaller start ups are making progress. Americans should help these ungratefull U.S. corporations speed up their demise, not extend their useless (to the U.S. citizenry) activities any longer.
I cannot blame the businesses for the language fiasco in our country.
They are simply responding to a market demand because many of their patrons don’t speak English nor feel comfortable with American credit and selling practices, apparently.
The problem is our government. If we forced immigrants to assimilate via laws and regulations, or more wisely, elected representatives who realized that many of the immigrants that enter this country are not capable of assimilation, then this would not happen.
As Posted by sbuffalonative at 9:42 PM on December 24, this practice may hurt many corporation’s bottom line because of the extra employees, advertisement, and financial risk. If so it will also end that way. They are indeed foolish to try it from a strictly business point of view, Wal Mart doesn’t cater in this way, go there and you’ll see so many non-Whites that you’ll think you are in a major international airport.
I stated on this very forum, over three years ago, that the failure to make the forbidding of speaking Spanish in places of commerce, business, etc. OUTSIDE OF INTERNATIONAL FIRMS doing business in countries other than the USA, signals the end of our nation, no matter how ‘bigoted’ or ‘hateful’ it might appear. (Yawn)
Speaking ANY OTHER LANGUAGE than English in these United States, except under specific circumstances, should be a CRIME. I said it then (and was censored) and I say it now. (and probably will be censored again!) And all the talk about ‘but how could you enforce that?” falls on deaf ears. Hearing Spanish being spoken by non-Anglos is a pretty darn good clue that the perps are NOT Americans!!!!
Why not all non-English Languages, then? Oh, come on! We’re NOT having a Kulturkampf (a non-English term!) with the Czechs, or the Bulgarians, now, are we?
When nothing but the Almighty Dollar will speak to these merchandising whores, their capitulation to the Anti-Culture of Darkness is complete.
And we are doomed.
If only there were some way for people who speak the same language and share the same culture to live together in a large group, perhaps in a defined geographical area, so they could spend their time and money with those who “understand people like us.” Hmmm… I’m stumped. Posted by at 5:36 AM on December 25
This is one of the best comments I’ve ever read on the internet. Merry Christmas to you, sir!
At the Best Buy near my home, roughly 70% of the customers are mestizos chatting away in Spanish next to the TVs and car stereos. They don’t seem to have any difficulty shopping there, as evidenced by hilarious scenes of them trying to cram Plasma TVs into rusted Honda Civics in the parking lot.
About 2 miles from the store is a huge sprawling apartment complex filled with illegal Central Americans and rural Mexicans (it’s obvious from their dark skins and squat stature, with many men under 5 feet tall). Driving by at night, you can see window after window filled with enormous TVs. Most of the apartments seem to have a TV of 42 inches or more.
I guess if you have 8 rent payers in your 2 bedroom apartment, you can afford to splurge on TVs!
There are two shocking facts entailed by this news.
1. The ‘retailers’, particularly those of foreign ethnicity, have no sense of patriotism and will try to market and sell their goods to America’s sworn enemies just to make a buck. Imagine the uproar if the French “retailers” in 1941 (when Hitler’s troops were conquering France) advertised their goods in German in order to make profit of the invading army? (Those who did would be, most likely, tried and shot for treason by the French Resistance.)
2. The American economy, the “retailers” are a vital part of which, is sensitive and responsive to the byres’ needs, tastes, and preferences. So, as soon as the Mexican (or Chinese, or any other foreign group of alien ethnicity) “migrants” command considerable spending power, the American economy will try to please them as much as possible, at the expense of traditional American buyers who may be more prudent in spending the money they earned and less likely to spend the money they didn’t earn. As a result, the American economy moves quickly into serving the “migrants” which, in big part, can only be done by neglecting the actual Americans who built that economy.
Two more reasons to seal the border and deport all deportable aliens to wherever they came from.
Lenin said it best:
“The Capitalists will sell us the rope with which we will hang them.”
Let’s not forget one important detail left out in the above article by comrade Hsu. The “buying power” of much of the illegal alien population is subsidized by the U.S. taxpayer. When you are on all kinds of programs that lower your utility bill, while Americans stay the same, that offer zero down payment, delayed interest housing mortgages, while Americans don’t get the same break, or get medical and dental free in so many cases as to be unimaginable, free school lunches, breakfasts,etc.(here in the broke state of Kaleeefornia)then Yes, you have a lot of buying power as an “IMMIGRANT”.
In support of my last post, I can add the following. I went to the supermarket the other day, and after buying my stuff, I received the receipt which had part of the previous customers recent attached. She was a Mexican women it seemed. The part of the receipt that showed her transaction, indicated that her produce was bought with a food stamp type State credit card. It showed she had 157.00 or so dollars of the taxpayer left to spend. Just an average incident among millions that occurs everyday in the broke state of Kaleefornia. Governor Arnaldo Schwarzenegger,”republican” is now advocating for the matricula card to “help” some of the “immigrants”. The band plays on.
Watch this credit fiasco grow into another bailout. We’ve issued credit to 15,000,000 people who can’t or won’t pay. Now it’s time to pay the piper. Can the govt. bail us out?
Would these be the immigrants who wire money home to Mexico instead of spending much of it in the economy they expect to provide them jobs?
Major US merchants love slave labor and more customers, no matter where they come from. If you’re a poor and oppressed minority, everything in the major retail outlets is free. Just stuff it down your pants and walk out the door. If you get caught, start screaming about the constitution and slavery and PO Lice brutality and it’s not fair. This society deserves you
Retailers need to also catch on to the “shoplifting power” of ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS! Shoplifting crimes by immigrants accounting for a hefty percentage of “stock shrinkage.” No, you hardly ever are made aware of this in the papers or on the evening news. But it happens. Believe it, it happens! Also these Hispanic thieves seldom face arrest. Stores are afraid to detain them (hold them for the police) for fear of being charged and sued by the perps. Furthermore the police are hardly about to rush to a store to legitimately “arrest” the Hispanic perps, having more important calls to answer. So WE, THE PUBLIC, end up paying higher prices for what our good amigos from South of the Border steal each and every day.
Incidentally, illegal Mexican females seem to have turned shoplifting into a fine art (as have the guys with the baggy pants). A favorite dodge… three to five females, one or two carrying babies in those carriers. While inevitably one or two stop to coo over the brat, they’re stuffing stolen loot under the baby’s blankets. The baggy pants brigade can strollt through a Wal-Mart and load up enough ‘free food’ to fee the family a day or two. Something to watch for next time you patronize your friendly W-M SuperStore.
If they have a Hispanic exit checker… trust him/her to do a good job scrutinizing Anglos’ purchases against the proffered sales slips… While developing extreme myopia when a Mexican strolls out, ladden with expensive clothing or electronics sans bags.
“”Believe it, it happens! Also these Hispanic thieves seldom face arrest. Stores are afraid to detain them (hold them for the police) for fear of being charged and sued by the perps. Furthermore the police are hardly about to rush to a store to legitimately “arrest” the Hispanic perps, having more important calls to answer.”“
Not true at my store. In fact quite the opposite. An illegal Mexican will get busted for stealing as little as a cookie and we’ll hold him for the police even if it takes all day. 50% of the time he’ll be taken to jail. And if he even thinks about screaming racism he’ll be waiting for them face down on the floor in handcuffs.
Fed Up, you are so utterly correct about hispanic shoplifters, and the little schemes they have set up in stores. You are also correct about it being kept quiet. Too bad, because continuing ignorance in this nation, is going to be the end of it—soon.
Yes, I’ve also seen the shoplifting of Hispanics (I assume most are illegal).
I worked at Home Depot in college. (I don’t like Home Depot, but in this case I’m for Home Depot.) Hispanics slipped in and out of the Contractor entrance. I found a shank, a block of wood with a nail through it wound with duct tape, left on a shelf by a couple of Hispanics. This lead me and a manager to track these two down in the store. The manager ended up running out to their truck in the parking lot and snatching a push mower off and throwing other Home Depot’s stolen property off the back of their truck as they sped out. The manager was worried that he would be reprimanded. That’s sick that he could lose his job for protecting the company’s property and not letting some low-life get away with theft.
I have a prediction about the giant Home Depot and I realize it is going to sound crazy to some people. HOME DEPOT is going to go out of business within 3 years if it takes that long. Why? Because I am sure that they are just as overextended on credit, having open far too many stores too fast, as other businesses that went under. This combined with the massive shoplifting everyone knows goes on, will be its inglorious end. Finally the third reason I believe it to be doomed is that I have observed the way they manage stores, and all similarly managed stores have gone under. Mervins, and Circuit City come to my mind. I’m sorry this is a bit off topic but I believe the immigrant buying power baloney to be just that. All based on false premises.
Bobby wrote re Home Depot:
This combined with the massive shoplifting everyone knows goes on, will be its inglorious end.
Home Depot semi-endorses shoplifting from its own stores:
http://countenance.wordpress.com/2007/06/07/you-can-shoplift-we-can-help/
Home Depot has a very bad reputation among white racial right-wingers in the South. They’re the worst racial panderers.
Home Depot’s store manager was fired for stealing after I left (I worked there 3 months). They are overextended. They do open too many stores too fast. Managers of big companies don’t know how to manage anything, probably first of all their own lives.
” “They treat you really well, they give easy credit, and they don’t ever say no.””
They sure do give easy credit, 70, 80 percent. It is a major consumer problem in California, immigrant businesses taking advantage of their own ethnic group with horrendous credit interest. They seldom get prosecuted for usury though because they howl and yowl about racism and MALDEF and other federally funded legal foundations defend them.
When he was in high school, my son and some friends heard about a Los Angeles Mexican owned used car lot that offered easy credit. When he brought the paperwork home, I pointed out that the car lot offered 46 percent interest. Obviously he didn’t buy a car from that lot.
The Los Angeles Times has printed versions of this article for the last 40 years. Guess what!!!!! There are non English speakers in S. Ca.!!!!!!! They like to shop in their own language!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
