Hispanic Profits

I've noticed the spanish option on ATMs and checkout counters before and always understood that this is a way for merchants to make it easier for spanish speaking people to patronize their businesses if not attract them to keep coming back. The "translator" facilitates trade by lowering the cost of transaction to the hispanic customer and also to the merchant.

As I was staring at the option that popped up again at the Wal-Mart check out counter I began to realize that there is something even more clever than making the transaction painless. It's profit generating! Imagine spanish speaking buyers are the only ones for sure likely to choose the option of doing the transaction in spanish (except for few spanish tourists and language students). This makes them the only demographic group where merchants can mine expenditures and consumption data for. Sellers like Wal-Mart can figure out how sensitive they are to miniscule price changes, what kind of goods they like, when and how often they buy this and how much they spend on it as a fraction of their monthly grocery expenditures. All these information is important in trying to set up prices and stocking items that would maximize profits. Makes a lot of sense since the spanish speaking population is the fastest growing segment of americans.