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It's available in cyberspacio
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April 24, 1999: 10:30 a.m. ET
In search of saris or spices? Ethnic Web sites hook immigrants to the Net
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NEW YORK (CNNfn) - Maria Esther Lois has done a fair amount of window shopping at the Internet mall, making a few small purchases along the way. But what's really sold her on the future of electronic commerce is the ham.
Lois, who's from Madrid, has found nowhere in her adopted home of Cape Cod to buy the traditional jamon serrano, or country ham, which flavors the rich and spicy dishes of Spanish cuisine. Her search for authentic cured meats led her to a small site on the Internet, La Tienda, or "The Store," a Williamsburg, Va.-based business that imports pork, olives, gazpacho and other Spanish specialties.
"I'm hoping that they will remind me of my mother's cooking -- somehow," she said.
The Internet has created opportunities for businesses, no matter how big or small, to set up shop in all kinds of ethnic niches that would have scant chance of succeeding on Starbucks-strewn and Domino's-dotted Main Street.
While electronic commerce is growing, Americans, for the most part, are still pretty cool toward the idea. Many people buy books or reserve airline tickets or hotel rooms online, but the click-and-pay approach toward more tactile kinds of merchandise such as clothes or groceries has yet to revolutionize shopping as we know it.
But many ethnic minorities, largely out of necessity, have been using the Internet in ways that electronic merchants can only dream about the general population adopting.
Unless they live in a major U.S. urban center, it can be hard to find basic staples from their home countries. So for many immigrants, the Web has become the next best thing to the traditional Latin American bodega or the Middle Eastern souk.
"The Net is a perfect medium for this kind of thing," says Fiona Swerdlow, a digital commerce analyst at Jupiter Communications. "Whatever it is you're offering, you can very cost effectively market to groups in other geographic locations very easily."
An untapped market
There are a lot of specialty businesses on the Internet, selling virtually anything your heart desires, but what distinguishes ethnic businesses online is their ability to draw in largely untapped groups of Web users. If immigrants looking for Mediterranean olives or Indian saris at specialty sites have a satisfactory experience, they may then surf on over to something else, Swerdlow said.
"What our research has borne out is that when you get someone to buy online once, there is an incredibly high likelihood that they will go online in the future and buy again," she said.
Corporate America is also taking notice of the huge potential customer base and of the large numbers of minorities already online. An estimated 36 percent of the U.S. Hispanic population uses the Internet, higher than the 33.2 percent figure for the general U.S. population, according to a study by Forrester Research. For Asian Americans, the rates are even higher -- 64 percent are Internet users.
The booming Spanish-language Internet attests to the growing interest. Prodigy recently launched an all-Spanish access service targeting Hispanics in the U.S., an estimated audience of 8 million users. Meanwhile, America Online has announced a new Spanish-language service in Latin America.
A number of Internet networks offer all-Spanish content, such as the new eHola and Quepasa, which is planning a public offering soon.
Some operators of immigrant-targeted sites say they have a larger motive than just selling their own products. Portland, Ore., engineer and entrepreneur Farid Adlouni hopes his online business, Muskcarrier, which imports alcohol-free Middle Eastern fragrances, will help many Muslim buyers become more comfortable with the Internet. Many, he said, are suspicious of the technology and what they see as inappropriate content on the Web.
"By providing these products, we're trying to attract people to really log on," Adlouni said.
Not just an 'American thing'
But the irony of the booming ethnic Internet is that many of these buyers are the least likely you'd expect to find shopping over the computer, a method that seems much more of a product of frenzied American culture.
In Latin and Arab societies, for example, there is a much stronger tradition of cultivating personal contact with shopowners and shopping daily for fresh foods than there is in the United States. "We are used to walking into a store and establishing a relationship," Adlouni said.
Even 25-year-old Lois, who works for a telecom startup and is supremely confident navigating her way through cyberspace, has found it a little weird to order groceries over the Web.
"In Spain, you go to the market every single day," she said. "Whatever you're going to eat at dinnertime or lunchtime, you buy it that morning."
For electronic businesses, then, there is an even greater need to create that all important "community" atmosphere that Web peddlers try so hard to cultivate. Many point to Internet wonder child Amazon.com as the No. 1 business model to emulate, saying it is easy to use and community oriented.
It's no coincidence that many of these sites play up their mom-and-pop roots. India Plaza -- where Indian expatriates can search for traditional clothing, incense, spices or even a husband or wife -- tries to cultivate that homey kind of feeling. "Welcome to our family," visitors to the site are greeted.
"There are Indian stores all over the place but what we're trying to do is have a complete mall," said Sheila Juthani, a partner in the San Jose, Calif.-based business launched by her brother. While many customers were uncomfortable initially with the buying process and of giving out credit card information over the Internet, now many "are so comfortable they just say send us anything, we trust you," she said.
"The dream of the Internet business is to set up the business and just push buttons," adds Donald Harris, the owner of the La Tienda Spanish market. But "that is not effective with these people. They want to have an intimate relationship."
Harris, a former U.S. Navy chaplain stationed in Spain, sends his customers an e-mail newsletter and greetings on Spanish holidays. On the site, there are recipes and family photos and testimonials about how much the Harris family loves Spanish cuisine.
"Most of all," the site gushes to visitors, "our family enjoys having a real jamon serrano mounted on its stand on the kitchen counter, accompanied by a sharp knife so we can carve a few nibbles throughout the day."
To translate or not to translate?
But not all immigrants are finding online shopping very welcoming. For example, while the Arab-American Internet "is booming," says Guy Aeschelmann, marketing associate at the National U.S.-Arab Chamber of Commerce in Washington, some of the older generation who don't read English well find little available.
New software programs in Arabic script have created more opportunities, but "most of the content is in English," he said. "For the people who are only speaking Arabic, it's a little hard to keep up."
But most operators of sites aimed at immigrant populations say there is no need to translate, at least not for domestic audiences. Marketing products abroad, however, is a whole different story.
At the all-English Shatila Foods, an Arab bakery in Dearborn, Mich. that offers "sweets of the Middle East ... from the heart of the Midwest," transplanted Arabic speakers generally have no trouble using the colorful site to find light and flaky baklava and other pastries that remind them of home, said Lebanese-born owner Riad Shatila.
"Most immigrants can go through, and it's easy to place an order through the Internet," he said. Shatila said the bakery's online sales are doubling every six or seven months.
Sheila Juthani, of India Plaza, said that English is a lingua franca for her customers since "in India, there's a zillion languages."
And while immigrants say they like to read things in their native languages, they often find them inadequate. Lois says that even when American companies offer Spanish on their sites, she generally sticks with the English version because "most of the translations out there are horrible."
But, she said, La Tienda has impressed her with what she says is a genuine appreciation of Spanish culture and language.
"They speak Spanish very nicely," she said.
-- by staff writer Martha Slud
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