A recent survey by Vertis Communications revealed that Hispanic consumers are not only more tech-savvy than often considered, but also more likely to spend money on big ticket electronics. For those of us in the industry, this is really not earth shattering news. Hispanics have long been considered early adopters when it comes to electronics, wireless technologies and even some internet technologies.
The report also shed light on which media most influences buying decisions among these consumers. TV of course ranked number 1, followed by advertising inserts/circulars and then the Internet. The Vertis study goes on to report that 42% of Hispanics are researching products online prior to buying. So this got me thinking….which computer companies are asking for this order??
A quick check of the Dell, Apple, Gateway, and HP websites revealed that virtually none of them are!?! None of these companies provide a quick, easy to find link to the Spanish versions of their websites. On most, the visitor must scroll down and select a Spanish speaking country from their “global” offerings in order to view the content in Spanish. HP is nice enough to put the country selection right on top of the page, but sadly offers up “United States - English” as the first and only United States option.
Fortunately for Hispanic computer shoppers, Best Buy and Office Depot get it. Both websites provided a quick click to their Spanish language content. With Christmas just around the corner, I’m just saying, if I were Dell or Apple or HP……..
To support this point, a study conducted by a Spring 2008 MRI Survey of the American Consumer indicates that 18.83 percent of Hispanics have made an online purchase for personal use in the last 30 days, compared to 31.62 percent of non-Hispanic respondents. Of these respondents, a large majority preferred to view their content in Spanish. This is a huge, untapped market with increasing purchasing power that’s essentially being underestimated/ignored online. If Dell or Microsoft really want to give Apple a run for their money - I’m thinking this might be a good start…
An interesting study by Burson Marsteller about Hispanic-fluentials:
http://www.marketingcharts.com/print/influential-online-hispanic-consumers-super-e-fluentials-4088/