Curacao is a big box-style retailer specializing in serving Hispanic consumers in California and the Southwest, but it’s more than that — mucho more. For example, the company offers credit to a population that’s often underserved by banks and other financial institutions, helping these customers build their credit history (sometimes from scratch).
Additionally, because many Curacao customers want to send products to family or friends in their home countries, the retailer has streamlined this process by stocking warehouses in several Latin American countries with furniture, appliances and even motorcycles to support fast delivery to recipients outside of the U.S.
Teylez Perez, the company’s SVP of Marketing, revealed how Curacao’s understanding of Hispanic-American culture and the specific needs of its customers has helped the retailer thrive for 45 years.
Retail TouchPoints (RTP): How does Curacao’s proprietary credit offering differentiate it from other retailers serving the Hispanic community?
Advertisement
Teylez Perez: That’s related to our overall goal, which is to offer access to products to improve the quality of life for families that are working really hard, encompassing home furnishings, appliances, electronics, apparel and gaming. And because we do our own credit underwriting, we can be very flexible, with different plans for different customers.
It also helps these customers build their credit — some of them haven’t had any sort of credit history — which makes them aspire to [potentially purchase] other brands from other retailers, even to buy their own homes or cars.
Offering credit grew out of when Curacao was starting out as a small operation [in the early 1980s]. Those executives understood that the customers they were attracting needed credit, so from day one Curacao was systematically learning how customers were behaving with credit. We developed this internal knowledge, which has led to an incredible database that has 10 million customers and supports our safe underwriting.
We’ve processed over 3 million credit applications and issued more than 2.3 million Curacao Credit Cards, and now we’re giving cash loans to customers [as opposed to credit for purchasing items in-store]. That’s almost unbelievable to me, that we’re saying, “Take our cash and use it for whatever you want.” But our data shows this is what our customers need.
RTP: How else has Curacao met customer needs over the years?
Perez: I’m very proud of the services we offer — for example money transfers. These are very common today, but they weren’t in the early 1980s, but, again, our people understood that it was important for the customers, so we developed our own money transfer organization, establishing relationships with a lot of banks. And we allow customers to send money using our credit card.
Curacao execs understood as well that [the customers] maintain connections with families in different places, which is why we have a whole department called “Export.” Customers can purchase furniture, appliances, even motorcycles here, and they are then delivered to friends and family in their home countries. We have products in warehouses there, so sometimes the products can be delivered the same day. It’s another service customized to the needs of our customers.
RTP: How does the in-store experience reflect Curacao’s mission?
Perez: The experience of our customers in stores goes beyond [speaking the customer’s language, literally]. It’s having an understanding of their culture, values and needs, and how they want to be treated. Many of these people are underserved, not just in retail but in many aspects of their lives, such as their jobs. We want to treat them the way they want to be treated, with care, compassion and respect, and so we give them an experience that they’re often surprised to get, along with products and services that they don’t get anywhere else. It’s also a celebration and a shared experience of who they are, because the Curacao brand is part of the community.
RTP: How does Curacao measure success?
Perez: Our company started as a small operation, and now we have 13 stores in California, Arizona and Nevada. We’ve recently opened a store in Chula Vista, Calif., which is a brand-new market for us, and a second store in Tucson, Ariz. That’s still [a small footprint] compared to big brands, but we discovered something — that shopping with us is not necessarily about convenience and nearness to consumers. We have data that our customers sometimes travel 30, 40 or 50 miles to do business with us, so we don’t need to open 100 stores in a market. We’re a destination, and it’s worth it to go all the way to [one of our stores].
RTP: What have been some of your biggest challenges in your time at Curacao?
Perez: I’ve been with the company for 15 years, and it took me a long time to change my mindset about [the products we offer]. If you look at our customers’ average household income, which can be low, how do you sell a $2,000 Apple computer to them? They don’t have the means to get it at the Apple store, and that’s a disproportional purchase for this household. Another issue is that it’s common for [companies like Apple] to assume that [Curacao] customers don’t crave their brands, but we carry the Apple products, and with the credit we offer [they’re accessible to our customers].
Another example is Tiffany. For Mother’s Day we introduced a line of Tiffany perfumes [at relatively low price points], because our customers want the best. They love the [luxury and technology] brands, and they embrace them, and they appreciate us as their way to access them. And once we give them this experience, they tell all their family and friends.
