Article

Top 100: 22. Ethnic retail

August 6, 2011

Walmart's Hispanic-themed Más Club in Houston stocks a variety of Hispanic foods and international brands, including beverages and spices, while its café offers fresh-made tortillas. The familiar blue-and-white Sam's Club logo has been replaced with the Mexican flag's red and green. Other retailers have since followed Walmart's lead, expanding their range of products, advertising in other languages and changing storefront signage in hopes of attracting ethnic consumers. None of these efforts can guarantee that cash registers will ring, warns Tony Hernandez, director of Ryerson University's Centre for the Study of Commercial Activity. Ethnic populations are far from homogenous and retailers will need to understand the enormous size and complexity of these markets in order to attract and retain them as loyal customers. "We still have a lot to learn about immigrant consumer behavior," said Hernandez. "We need to know more about immigrants' consumption habits and generational differences."

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