With a sharp eye on the 2 million Hispanic-owned businesses in the U.S., which generate an estimated $300 billion in annual sales, Office Depot on Jan. 16 launched a Spanish-language Website. The new site, which offers more than 14,000 products, mirrors the office supplier’s English-language site but will be operated separately. Delray Beach, FL-based Office Depot operates numerous other Websites, including domestic and international sites for its unit Viking Office Products catalog unit.
After months of evaluating Hispanic buying patterns, “we learned that when it comes to making major purchasing decisions, Hispanic business owners want rich content and information, and oftentimes they want to make purchasing decisions in Spanish,” Office Depot’s executive vice president of e-commerce, Monica Luechtefeld, said in a statement. “By reaching out to Hispanic customers in their native language, the benefits are twofold: Our new site will not only help us attract new customers, but [it will also] build increased loyalty among our existing Hispanic customers.”