Viva Wal-Mart!

[OldSchoolBoy75]

Viva Wal-Mart!

By Jonathan Birchall

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.

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-Mart's 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-Mart's 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-Mart's 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.


http://www.knx1070.com/Viva-Wal-Mart-/4015590Edited by: OldSchoolBoy75

 

[jaxvid]

Screw Wal-mart and the crappy stuff they sell. Let the hispaniola's spend their peso's on that junk. Everytime I go into one of those places it's like leaving america.

 

[DixieDestroyer]

"Wallyworld" loads up on Red Chinese, 3rd rate goods and much of their core customer base is illegal invaders. As I alluded to in another post/subject, the Walmart (where we've move to in NW GA) seems to have a mixed couple everytime I've been in. The WM where we used to live had a decent amount of ills therein.I'd rather shell out a little more $ and get real U.S. made goods, then save a few (fiat) dollars on "el cheapo" Red Chinese, slave labor made "goods".

 

[ToughJ.Riggins]

Very good point DixieDestroyer! The Chinese certainly aren't looking out for Americans. You probably heard about the Lead paint in children's toys made in China.

In fact the Chinese are so keen on industrializing quickly (kind of like our Industrial revolution only with better technology to work with for them at this point) they aren't even caring about the safety of their own citizens. They are also big on dirty energy. The Chinese are a threat to the globe right now and certainly to America.

I agree buy American goods so Industries can find a home here at home or buy Mexican; so the Mexicans can find Industrial jobs in their own nation without flooding across the border illegally. I am sick of seeing "made in China" everywhere. I want more "made in America", "Canada" and "Mexico".

 

[white is right]

I would say buy US/Canada first and Mexican a distant second. Mexico has cost the poor US states a lot of factories. The path for companies are US North East to the Bible Belt to Mexico.

 

[ToughJ.Riggins]

Yeah, but if you buy Mexican factory products; it means more Industrial jobs (and probably slightly better paid) for Mexicans so they likely wouldn't flood across our border at the same rate, so it would help us.

If I had my way I'd buy most things as a mix of Canadian, U.S, Mexican and occasionally other Latin American Products. Forget China people! It's America and it's neighbors for me.Edited by: ToughJ.Riggins

 

[Don Wassall]

Yeah, but if you buy Mexican factory products; it means more Industrial jobs (and probably slightly better paid) for Mexicans so they likely wouldn't flood across our border at the same rate, so it would help us.

If I had my way I'd buy most things as a mix of Canadian, U.S, Mexican and occasionally other Latin American Products. Forget China people! It's America and it's neighbors for me.

Literally millions of American jobs were moved to Mexico since the enactment of NAFTA and it didn't slow the Mexican invasion of the U.S. at all because those jobs pay poorly.


The only thing that has caused a bit of a reverse migration of late is the weak U.S. economy. For instance, in Las Vegas 80% of the construction workers are illegals. The construction industry has ground to a halt in Vegas so some of those illegals are returning to Mexico.


TJR you sound like an enthusiast of the North American Union. Why support non-American made products? There's no difference if they're made in Mexico or China -- either way non-Americans are making them, often at the expense of Americans who lost their jobs to outsourcing to those same Mexicans and Chinese.

 

[ToughJ.Riggins]

We've got to do something though, to stop basically every cheap product at our stores from being made in China.

Their products are crap, and like I said their government has so little personal conviction that they didn't even stop lead paint from being in their children's toys. It made lots of babies sick that chewed on them.

To top it off (according to Fox News): Their military has threatened us lately about getting within 200 miles of their shore when by standard international laws they don't have authority out that far.

Maybe we could put big-time tariffs on Chinese products. We could also set a wage for companies that go to Mexico (of course adjusted for currency values) to have to pay their workers above the poverty line over there or face import tariffs just like I advise we do for China.

But I agree; the biggest problem isn't having more American imports from China than from Mexico. It is the crap from leftist cities like LA and San Francisco.

I heard right from Fox news that those cities have made it illegal for police to report illegals to the INS; even when charged with a felony. Again: this is utter lunacy. The Feds have to step in and make those flaming leftists in California enforce the federal laws on the book.

We also need to put military and more federal agents on our southern border. We should do this rather than sending troops to duty in unnecessary missions like "Operation Iraqi Freedom". The Bush administration was the master of language and PR propaganda!

If Bush was able to run for a third term and up against Obama; I wouldn't have voted at all. As it was I was only moderately supportive of McCain.

 

[ToughJ.Riggins]

I should clarify: We need more factory jobs here in the U.S and should put tariffs on foreign imports to help us revive that sector. But whether we like it or not many products are going to come from abroad in this global economy. All we can do is put tariffs on companies' products that are saving too much money by not paying their workers a living wage in a place like Mexico (the living wage is much lower down there anyway).

Our biggest challenge is to protect our border though. We can't just continue to sit by and let illegals flood our country. This is killing our funding for schools and health care systems (illegals lack insurance) and economy overall.