July 16, 2007
Dallas Discounter Accepts Pesos
By Tom Ryan
Talk about embracing the Hispanic customer! Dallas-based chain Value Giant announced last Thursday that their stores will begin accepting Mexican pesos as payment.
The Value Giant store at Southwest Center Mall, according to MyFox News in Dallas/Fort Worth, hosted a promotional event on Saturday to introduce the new policy. Value Giant is a regional discounter selling groceries, apparel, electronics and general merchandise.
Value Giant’s decision follows a controversial move by a Dallas-based pizza chain to accept pesos.
In
January, Pizza Patrón launched a “pizza for pesos” marketing campaign. Customers could pay for their food with either paper currency from Mexico or American dollars. About 60 percent of Pizza Patrón’s customers and 45 percent of its franchisees are Latino.
News of that flexibility sparked abusive e-mails, irate calls and even death threats to Pizza Patrón headquarters from some who linked it to the anti-immigration situation. It also garnered national attention from CNN, the Tonight Show with Jay Leno, The Colbert Report, and right-wing commentator Rush Limbaugh.
“All right, you know this stuff doesn’t go away. It’s just like gay marriage. It’s like illegal immigration,” a website Immigration Watchdog, quoted Mr. Limbaugh as saying. “It’ll grow. It will expand.”
But some marketers hailed Pizza Patrón’s decision.
“I think it’s a very interesting idea,” Ron Paul, president of Technomic Inc., the restaurant market research firm, told the Dallas Morning News. “They are catering to that audience.”
“We’re trying to reach out to our core customer,” Antonio Swad, president of Pizza Patrón. “We know they come back [from Mexico] and have pesos left over. We want to be a convenient place for them to spend their pesos.”
Pizza Patrón later reported first-quarter sales jump 35 percent, partly due to the pesos campaign. In one store, sales vaulted 146 percent. The program was to run until late April but is now permanent.
“Our customers love the program,” Andrew Gamm, Pizza Patrón’s director of brand development told the Dallas Morning News.
Discussion Questions: Should American retailers and restaurants ‘explore accepting’ Mexican pesos in regions with a heavily Mexican populace? What do you think of the opportunity in such a strategy, as well as the risks?
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Anyone who feels this should not be allowed should steadfastly refuse to allow a Canadian or Mexican merchant, hotelier, taxi cab, or restaurateur to accept his or her greenbacks. Accepting pesos along the southern border is a natural next step in the social, political, and economic integration of our three countries, something which can only benefit us all.
Many retailers around the world accept multiple currencies. Even the NY State Thruway used to accept Canadian currency. When I’m outside the US, many hotels, restaurants, and other stores are happy to accept American currency. Pizza Patron and Value Giant are getting great publicity for doing something that has no risk and minimal cost. How can they lose?
As Mark notes, multiple currency transactions aren’t new. I live in Detroit where people have long accepted Canadian currency (granted at a substantial discount). I guess, from a retailer’s perspective, settling on the exchange rate and training are the only flies in the ointment, although I’m sure Lou Dobbs, et. al. see this as yet another sign of the end of the world.
It is just good business to accept Pesos, especially when your customer base is largely Hispanic and obviously mobile. The Peso is an internationally traded currency and most large banks will allow foreign currency deposits.
This is a just good old fashioned free trade. This isn’t about money laundering, it’s about the free exchange of goods and services utilizing legal tender.
There is a reactionary element in this country that challenges anything that runs against the status quo, and while I value their ability to share their opinions, I am equally thankful for those who push the envelope.
The freedom to do both is what makes us stronger.
Unless you are in a border community, this is just a stunt. It probably has no meaningful impact on their business. I think these big claims of sales increases are exaggerations. If sales are increasing, I doubt it was from people spending pesos but rather from the publicity.
With the wisdoms and realities already applied to this subject, I shall only add that pesos are pesos are pesos are pesos…and pesos can be proper tender for a pizza or a plate of food but don’t expect to see Rush Limbaugh eating there.
Perhaps this shouldn’t be about just accepting the Peso. In Europe and most other parts of the world, one can make a purchase with Dollars, Pounds, Euros and local currency. Why don’t we, the USA, make it easy for tourists? Major retailers should accept major foreign currencies. They post an exchange rate, just as other countries, and allow for easy purchase.
It’s just another tactic to make the consumer experience easier and more turnkey. Yes, it adds stress to the internal structure, but companies are going to have to decide if the proverbial “juice is worth the squeeze.” If it adds to the bottom line, it’s a good decision. If it detracts, it wasn’t. Simple as that.
Great marketing move and, as everyone above pointed out, not much downside. As I have traveled the world I have had no trouble exchanging Dollars, Euros, and Pounds for food or services in areas where there is a lot of tourist trade. Stores along the US-Mexican Boarder have taken either dollars or Pesos for years. Makes good business sense.
This is a very interesting issue. I happen to live in Dallas. There is no doubt that the Hispanic consumer is a very viable part of the economy. This is true in Dallas and it is true throughout many other parts of the U.S.
On the issue of accepting Pesos as payment, this seems like a tough sale to me. My view is that this places an additional point of stress on the transaction. Most of us over 40 will remember that as kids we had to learn to count money. It was our responsibility to “make change” when handling a transaction at the register. However in recent years the computerized registers have taken away the need for young people to learn this valuable trait. In fact one could argue that if you take away the computers, many of our young people may indeed be lost in making change for transactions.
I have a number of acquaintances and some friends who are Hispanic. I asked a few of them about this issue and pretty much got some iteration of the same answer. Most wish to assimilate into the American culture while maintaining what they believe to be important to hold over from their own culture. Using Pesos was universally not one of the issues that they were concerned about.
If you buy this argument, then it is not very hard to extend this concern when adding the issue of international currency. While in an ideal world we could all take currency from wherever it comes, this is not the case today. Given that, accepting Mexican Pesos appears to me to be a great and commendable idea but not one I would see extending in the near future.
The decision to accept pesos sounds like a good business decision if there is a core group of consumers who have pesos to spend. If McDonald’s found the need to put pictures on the cash register to facilitate accuracy for the employees who had difficult with the math, the biggest difficulty is likely to be the ability of training the part time help to actually do the currency exchange accurately at the register.
Why is U.S. currency accepted in every country and not the other way around? We always have excuses for U.S. values but, when it comes to other countries, we seem to stomp their ideas into the floor.
I agree with David that this was probably mostly a PR stunt, but that doesn’t negate that fact that taking a foreign currency should be no big deal. It’s usually not a particularly good bargain for the consumer (the exchange rate would have to include the cost of the retailer then having to go exchange the currency, and include the risk of the exchange rate changing between time of acceptance and completing the exchange), and it’s probably not really good business for the store except under some very specific circumstances.
For those stores who are likely to have a steady clientele with foreign currency, it may make sense. That’s why retailers who depend on tourists do take foreign currency. If the stores taking pesos do it as a convenience for their clientele with some leftover pesos, it’s good customer service. It’s unlikely that encouraging them to pay all the time for all of their goods in pesos makes any real sense for either party.
From a customer service point of view, I think that these stores are doing a great service for their customer base. They are really catering to their market and I think this will increase sales and help bolster their position in the local market. From a political point of view, this is probably a mistake. Illegal immigration is a huge (and very hot) topic right now and accepting a ‘foreign’ currency may seem like a stab in the back of patriotism. From a worldwide perspective, Canadian merchants have been accepting US currency for decades and I’m sure paying for stuff overseas with Greenbacks is not difficult. This is a situation where a retailer is catering to the local market (which all retailers should be doing). Value Giant and Pizza Patron are in the business of doing business, not politics and as long as they are providing ‘great products and fair prices’, they should be allowed to accept payment in any form they choose.
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Anyone who feels this should not be allowed should steadfastly refuse to allow a Canadian or Mexican merchant, hotelier, taxi cab, or restaurateur to accept his or her greenbacks. Accepting pesos along the southern border is a natural next step in the social, political, and economic integration of our three countries, something which can only benefit us all.
Many retailers around the world accept multiple currencies. Even the NY State Thruway used to accept Canadian currency. When I’m outside the US, many hotels, restaurants, and other stores are happy to accept American currency. Pizza Patron and Value Giant are getting great publicity for doing something that has no risk and minimal cost. How can they lose?
As Mark notes, multiple currency transactions aren’t new. I live in Detroit where people have long accepted Canadian currency (granted at a substantial discount). I guess, from a retailer’s perspective, settling on the exchange rate and training are the only flies in the ointment, although I’m sure Lou Dobbs, et. al. see this as yet another sign of the end of the world.
It is just good business to accept Pesos, especially when your customer base is largely Hispanic and obviously mobile. The Peso is an internationally traded currency and most large banks will allow foreign currency deposits.
This is a just good old fashioned free trade. This isn’t about money laundering, it’s about the free exchange of goods and services utilizing legal tender.
There is a reactionary element in this country that challenges anything that runs against the status quo, and while I value their ability to share their opinions, I am equally thankful for those who push the envelope.
The freedom to do both is what makes us stronger.
Unless you are in a border community, this is just a stunt. It probably has no meaningful impact on their business. I think these big claims of sales increases are exaggerations. If sales are increasing, I doubt it was from people spending pesos but rather from the publicity.
With the wisdoms and realities already applied to this subject, I shall only add that pesos are pesos are pesos are pesos…and pesos can be proper tender for a pizza or a plate of food but don’t expect to see Rush Limbaugh eating there.
Perhaps this shouldn’t be about just accepting the Peso. In Europe and most other parts of the world, one can make a purchase with Dollars, Pounds, Euros and local currency. Why don’t we, the USA, make it easy for tourists? Major retailers should accept major foreign currencies. They post an exchange rate, just as other countries, and allow for easy purchase.
It’s just another tactic to make the consumer experience easier and more turnkey. Yes, it adds stress to the internal structure, but companies are going to have to decide if the proverbial “juice is worth the squeeze.” If it adds to the bottom line, it’s a good decision. If it detracts, it wasn’t. Simple as that.
Great marketing move and, as everyone above pointed out, not much downside. As I have traveled the world I have had no trouble exchanging Dollars, Euros, and Pounds for food or services in areas where there is a lot of tourist trade. Stores along the US-Mexican Boarder have taken either dollars or Pesos for years. Makes good business sense.
This is a very interesting issue. I happen to live in Dallas. There is no doubt that the Hispanic consumer is a very viable part of the economy. This is true in Dallas and it is true throughout many other parts of the U.S.
On the issue of accepting Pesos as payment, this seems like a tough sale to me. My view is that this places an additional point of stress on the transaction. Most of us over 40 will remember that as kids we had to learn to count money. It was our responsibility to “make change” when handling a transaction at the register. However in recent years the computerized registers have taken away the need for young people to learn this valuable trait. In fact one could argue that if you take away the computers, many of our young people may indeed be lost in making change for transactions.
I have a number of acquaintances and some friends who are Hispanic. I asked a few of them about this issue and pretty much got some iteration of the same answer. Most wish to assimilate into the American culture while maintaining what they believe to be important to hold over from their own culture. Using Pesos was universally not one of the issues that they were concerned about.
If you buy this argument, then it is not very hard to extend this concern when adding the issue of international currency. While in an ideal world we could all take currency from wherever it comes, this is not the case today. Given that, accepting Mexican Pesos appears to me to be a great and commendable idea but not one I would see extending in the near future.
The decision to accept pesos sounds like a good business decision if there is a core group of consumers who have pesos to spend. If McDonald’s found the need to put pictures on the cash register to facilitate accuracy for the employees who had difficult with the math, the biggest difficulty is likely to be the ability of training the part time help to actually do the currency exchange accurately at the register.
Why is U.S. currency accepted in every country and not the other way around? We always have excuses for U.S. values but, when it comes to other countries, we seem to stomp their ideas into the floor.
I agree with David that this was probably mostly a PR stunt, but that doesn’t negate that fact that taking a foreign currency should be no big deal. It’s usually not a particularly good bargain for the consumer (the exchange rate would have to include the cost of the retailer then having to go exchange the currency, and include the risk of the exchange rate changing between time of acceptance and completing the exchange), and it’s probably not really good business for the store except under some very specific circumstances.
For those stores who are likely to have a steady clientele with foreign currency, it may make sense. That’s why retailers who depend on tourists do take foreign currency. If the stores taking pesos do it as a convenience for their clientele with some leftover pesos, it’s good customer service. It’s unlikely that encouraging them to pay all the time for all of their goods in pesos makes any real sense for either party.
From a customer service point of view, I think that these stores are doing a great service for their customer base. They are really catering to their market and I think this will increase sales and help bolster their position in the local market. From a political point of view, this is probably a mistake. Illegal immigration is a huge (and very hot) topic right now and accepting a ‘foreign’ currency may seem like a stab in the back of patriotism. From a worldwide perspective, Canadian merchants have been accepting US currency for decades and I’m sure paying for stuff overseas with Greenbacks is not difficult. This is a situation where a retailer is catering to the local market (which all retailers should be doing). Value Giant and Pizza Patron are in the business of doing business, not politics and as long as they are providing ‘great products and fair prices’, they should be allowed to accept payment in any form they choose.