Thread: Wal-Mart to Open 2 Hispanic-Focused Supermarkets

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Wal-Mart to Open 2 Hispanic-Focused Supermarkets

Saturday, March 14, 2009



What if Wal-mart decided to open 2 American Focused Supermarkets decorated with the colors, Red, White and Blue, like our Flag.?
I'm sure that would be considered racist by certain hate groups?

Their reply to my letter this morning: Still not a very good response and it looks like a prepared statement. Must be getting a lot of flack about this practice.

Thank you for your message.

Dear ________,

Through Walmart's store-of-the-community program, our stores are merchandised to meet the diverse needs of local customers in each community. We want to make sure that our products and services are relevant to our local customers and that we carry the products they need and want. We focus on one store at a time - identifying the specific needs of all of our customers in each community and tailoring our products and services to reflect the local customer base.

Overall, our store of the community program is not targeted to any specific demographic, but rather being aware and inclusive of the needs of all of our customers and the changing demographics in the communities we serve. Our stores across the country currently serve a wide range of demographics from urban to rural communities to multi-cultural and diverse communities including Asian, Hispanic, African American, Amish and many others. We have very diverse communities in the U.S. and we are working to ensure that our stores are reflective of that diversity.

When a store is remodeled, for example, we have an opportunity to update our products and services to meet the changing needs of local customers. As part of our store refresh program this year, we are remodeling and converting two existing neighborhood markets - one in Phoenix and one in Houston - to better serve the diverse needs of their local communities. These two stores, which are located in strongly Hispanic communities, will open under the name Supermercado de Walmart in the first half of the year. The stores will feature a new layout, signing and product assortment designed to make them even more relevant to local customers.


Thank you,
Customer Care Center

Originally Posted by crazybird

They got my e-mail sent bright and early this morning. I wanted to know when my Spanish signs would be taken down and when they'd be catering to me. Or , if they have a heads up....where the Irish, English, German, French, Scottish, Hungarian, Polish, Dutch, Sioux, Cherokee version would open....where that section of the country was, to cater to me and my ethnic groups. I also asked if they have an Asian version in the future and if signs would be in English, just incase I decided to venture forth out of my "community". Then I demanded an elderly friendly version of Wal-Mart since it's tough for me to "shop" in this big store environment and find what I might need. Then suggested they might want a young family store to cater to new parents, a Muslim Wal-Mart, a Christian one and to be fair, an Athiest one as well.

This surely captures the absurdity of it all, and I sent a similar letter to the headquarters a couple of years ago. I will be following up again. I'm simply looking out for Walmart's expanding interests afterall.

Wal-Mercado of the Twenty-First Century
marketing public relations race/ethnic issues
Source: Advertising Age, October 2, 2006

"Wal-Mart Stores accounts for 65% of Latino music sold in the U.S. -- more than double the giant retailer's market share in the general market," writes AdAge. "Now, it wants to get even better at marketing to Hispanics." The plan involves "revamping hundreds of stores during the next two years," according to Simon El Hage of Lopez Negrete Communications, which has been Wal-Mart's "Hispanic agency of record" for 12 years. "Lopez Negrete, the seventh-largest Hispanic agency, is leading the effort to develop Wal-Mart's 21st-century Hispanic store model." The new model is on display at a Houston, Texas, prototype store. The prototype features a larger "Hispanic-oriented dry grocery" and an in-store bakery, run by "an outside Hispanic operator." El Hage stressed the importance of rural Hispanics to Wal-Mart, saying, "Because the general-market population is aging, guess who's going into rural America today? Latinos. So the new rural format for Wal-Mart will also have to accommodate the new Latino."

I suggest judicialwatch.org or attorneys in Texas and Arizona file discrimination suits against Wal-Mercado/Wal-Mart and Lopez Negrete Communications. If Wal-Mart wants to open a new Supercenter, it should be an INTERNATIONAL SUPERCENTER catering to ALL U.S. ETHNIC GROUPS -- NOT JUST ONE ETHNIC GROUP -- THIS IS TRULY A DISCRIMINATION LAWSUIT THAT WILL BE WON -- CLASS ACTION!!!!!!!!!!!

Wal-Mart looks to Hispanic market

By Jonathan Birchall

Published: March 12 2009 18:03 | Last updated: March 12 2009 18:03

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 neighbourhoodsâ€

I suggest judicialwatch.org or attorneys in Texas and Arizona file discrimination suits against Wal-Mercado/Wal-Mart and Lopez Negrete Communications. If Wal-Mart wants to open a new Supercenter, it should be an INTERNATIONAL SUPERCENTER catering to ALL U.S. ETHNIC GROUPS -- NOT JUST ONE ETHNIC GROUP -- THIS IS TRULY A DISCRIMINATION LAWSUIT THAT WILL BE WON -- CLASS ACTION!!!!!!!!!!!

Exactly. I mean other stores expand thier choices to include various other ethnic favorites, without limiting the selection to cater to just one ethnic group. I'm sure many in the hispanic community might think this shows they've won......till many of their individually owned shops and restaurants suffer when they can't compete with Wal-Mart prices.

Plus, don't they think people travel, move, it's a sure way to seperate and support having everybody stay into ethnic communities. Where's the cultural sharing? LOL

the new stores will not be called walmart, but, it will be called
MexiMart.

I haven't set foot in a Walmart for years. Long ago, I noticed that they were putting a lot of other stores out of business. I'd rather pay a little more for things, or do without, than shop there. This latest move on their part to cater to Hispanics just confirms my suspicions. When Sam Walton died, Walmart's patriotism went out the window.

Take a look at the following link to see how Walmart has spread across the US. Pretty soon we will have no choice BUT to shop there.

http://projects.flowingdata.com/walmart/

This isn't the first time Wal-Mart's done this, remember this?

Arab-America’s Store

Wal-Mart stocks falafel, olives and Islamic greeting cards to attract Dearborn's ethnic shoppers.
By Keith Naughton | NEWSWEEK
From the magazine issue dated Mar 10, 2008

As Arwa Hamad strolls a new Wal-Mart, an eight-foot display of olive oil stops her in her tracks. "Oh, wow," she says, marveling at the sight of so many gallons of Lebanese extra virgin. "We could go through one of these in a week in my house." Around the corner, row upon row of gallon jars of olives—from Turkey, Greece, Egypt and Lebanon—soak in deep hues of purple, red and green. "Look at the size of these olives," says the stay-at-home mother of three and native of Yemen. Hamad, 34, has shopped at Wal-Mart before, but never one like this. She is overcome with nostalgia as she spots Nido powdered milk and Al Haloub Cow, canned meat she calls the "Arabic Spam." "My father loves this," she says. "People from war-torn countries, this is what you lived on when you couldn't go out of the house to shop." This Wal-Mart, though, isn't in a war zone. It's in Dearborn, Mich., home to nearly a half-million Arab-Americans, the largest concentration of Arabs outside the Middle East.

As America changes, so does the store where America shops. In Dearborn this week, the world's largest retailer opens a store like no other among its 3,500 U.S. outlets. Walk through the front door of the 200,000-square-foot supercenter and instead of rows of checkout counters, you find a scene akin to a farmers market in Beirut. Twenty-two tables are stacked high with fresh produce like kusa and batenjan, squash and eggplant used in Middle Eastern dishes. Rimming the produce department are shelves filled with Arab favorites like mango juice from Egypt and vine leaves from Turkey used to make mehshi, or stuffed grape leaves. A walled-off section of the butcher case is devoted to Halal meats, slaughtered in accordance with Islamic law (when a Wal-Mart manager noticed the pork section was too prominent he ordered it moved, since Muslims don't eat pork). In the freezer case, you'll find frozen falafel. You can also pick up a CD from Lebanese pop singer Ragheb Alama or buy Muslim greeting cards.

Wal-Mart's Arab-American emporium provides a preview of the retail giant's latest strategy to boost business as it reaches the saturation point in its American expansion. Over the past two years, Wal-Mart has tested its "store of the community": it has stocked stores in Chicago and Atlanta with products aimed at African-Americans and set up a hitching post at an Ohio store near a large Amish community. The Dearborn store, though, is the most extreme example of the concept. Wal-Mart offers its standard fare, plus 550 items targeted at Middle Eastern shoppers. "In the past, Wal-Mart has been pretty cookie-cutter when it comes to merchandise," says Dearborn store manager Bill Bartell. "But this time, we really got to know the community. We're blazing a trail here."

Typically when Wal-Mart comes to town, it drops its big-box store on the community with a thud. Then it rolls out rock-bottom prices that undercut local merchants, who often wither and die. That Bigfooting has led to passionate community opposition in many markets, including suburban Detroit, where it opened its first supercenter just a year ago to protests over plans to stay open 24 hours (Wal-Mart backed down to 18 hours a day).

To fit into this bastion of ethnic tradition, Wal-Mart started two years ago to meet with imams and moms, conducting focus groups at Middle Eastern restaurants. Wal-Mart learned the community wasn't as concerned about seeing Arabic-language signs as they were with dealing with Arabic-speaking staff. So Bartell hired about 35 Arabic speakers, including Suehaila Amen, a local middle-school teacher who is providing ethnic-sensitivity training to the 650 employees. He also learned not to bother stocking traditional Muslim clothing, like the headscarf, or hijab, Amen wears. "The community told us, 'I would not feel comfortable coming to Wal-Mart to buy my hijab'," says assistant store manager Jordan Berke. "We're not here to overstep our bounds."

Despite the sensitive sell, local shopkeepers still worry about Wal-Mart. "There is a fear factor in the business community," says Osama Siblani, publisher of Dearborn's Arab American News. To allay those fears, Wal-Mart is making an extraordinary promise: it will not undercut the prices of the small local merchants (though it will still go after Kroger). The insular company even agreed to be scrutinized by a "community advisory board" made up of local Arab-American leaders to ensure it isn't harming the mom-and-pop shops. One example: Wal-Mart agreed to charge one dime more than local grocers for a six-pack of pita bread.

Arwa Hamad says her devotion to Dearborn's Muslim merchants doesn't simply rest on one thin dime. After all, when her husband goes to their Arab butcher, he buys in bulk. "It's hard to get half a lamb at Wal-Mart," she says. And yet, the more she wanders the aisles, the more she likes. There are the Turkish sweets and dried dates her kids love, and the Nescafé coffee she adores. "This brings back memories from home," she says. "I'll never forget Mustafa's corner store, but as soon as this place opens, I'm coming here with my checkbook." Going native just might be the next way Wal-Mart wins.

© 2008
http://www.newsweek.com/id/117835