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BISBEE — About once every month, Raœl Milton, 30, an auto parts dealer from Cananea, Sonora, Mexico, gets in his car with his wife and 2-year-old son and drives an hour north to the U.S.-Mexico border.
The purpose of the trip is always the same: shopping.
“We’ve got a lot of stores in Cananea, but to be honest, the prices and the quality of products in the United States are better,” he said.
 Shoppers from Mexico make the Mall at Sierra Vista a frequent stop. (By Ed Honda-Herald/Review) |
“It’s definitely worth the drive to come up here.”
In the past, after crossing into the United States at the Douglas port of entry, the Miltons would continue driving another two hours north to Tucson.
But these days they are finding that they can satisfy most of their consumer needs at an even closer destination: Sierra Vista.
Raœl says he likes the city’s home improvement stores, such as Sutherland’s and Home Depot. But for the most part, the family spends its time and its money at the Mall at Sierra Vista.
“They’ve got restaurants, an area for children to play, and since we mostly look for things like clothes and shoes, it’s a good place for us,” he said.
Organizers of the “Day Without Immigrants” boycott of U.S. businesses are hoping Mexicans like the Miltons will join in an effort Monday to demonstrate their significance to the nation’s economy.
But regardless of whether the parallel “Nothing Gringo” campaign successfully keeps Mexican consumers away from area stores for a day, the importance of shoppers from south of the border to the local retail economy is already abundantly clear.
A study conducted by the University of Arizona in 2001 showed that Mexican visitors to Cochise County that year spent an estimated $96.8 million — $109.2 million in today’s dollars. In addition, the study concluded that 5.9 percent of all taxable sales in the county in 2001 were attributable to Mexican shoppers.
Now, five years later, that spending is likely to be even higher, said Robert Carreira, director of the Cochise College Center for Economic Research.
Carreira points to statistics showing that between 2001 and 2005, Sierra Vista’s retail sector grew 8 percent after adjustments for inflation and population growth. Assuming the impact of Mexican shoppers has increased at relatively the same level, he said those consumers may now be spending as much as $117.9 million per year.
Some local business leaders believe the recent proliferation of “big-box” stores like Wal-Mart, Target and Staples, and the corresponding improvement in selection and competitive pricing, also has made the area more enticing to shoppers from Mexico.
“At the (Greater Sierra Vista Area) chamber of commerce, we notice that the larger the stores that come in, the larger the base of shoppers that are attracted to the community,” said Kathleen Bullock, the group’s director.
“When the bargains are good, it makes it worthwhile for those people who are going to travel far.”
Gaining in image
According to Miguel Escobar, the Mexican Consul in Douglas, Sierra Vista is benefiting from a growing perception among northeastern Sonorans that it is the “in” place to shop in the Arizona borderlands.
In the past, he said, Nogales was the most desirable regional destination for Mexican consumers. But especially after the Mall at Sierra Vista opened in 1999, shoppers from Agua Prieta, Cananea, Fronteras, and even Nacozari and Cumpas, 120 miles south of the border, have been heading for the city.
“They make a whole production out of going up to Sierra Vista,” he said. “They go to the cinema, eat at the restaurants, and they go shopping.
“They even go up there to buy tires for their cars.”
Escobar said Sierra Vista is especially popular among well-to-do Sonorans.
“It’s almost like a vanity thing for people to say they do their shopping there,” he said.
In March, the management of the Mall at Sierra Vista decided to find out just how much of its sales were coming from Mexican customers. According to marketing coordinator Crystal Rivera, a poll of store owners indicated that roughly 30 percent of all shop purchases were generated by cross-border consumers.
Now, Rivera is trying to figure out the best response to the new data.
“I’ve been looking for ways to market more to the Mexican community, but I haven’t yet located an avenue to do so,” she said. “It’s a hard demographic to target, especially with them being on the other side of the border.”
The chamber of commerce is also looking for a way to reach out.
“(Mexican shoppers) are a big part of our economic base here and we want to do everything we can to attract them,” Bullock said. “We don’t have anything specific right now (in terms of a marketing strategy), but it’s definitely something we’re talking about.”
They also are talking with some Mexican counterparts. Recently, chamber members met with leaders of the chamber of commerce of Nogales, Sonora, to exchange ideas on economic cooperation.
Bisbee also benefitting
Meanwhile, 25 miles east, Bisbee also is enjoying a steady stream of shoppers from Mexico, although on a smaller scale and from a slightly different demographic group. With its one major shopping plaza positioned a short drive up the hill from Naco, Sonora, Mexican consumers in Bisbee are more localized and perhaps more utilitarian in their buying than those in Sierra Vista.
îscar Amaya and Berenice Franco are a young couple from Naco struggling to raise two daughters on their modest teachers’ salaries. Because it is crucial for them to maximize every peso in the family budget, they do almost all of their shopping in the United States, where they say their money goes farther and the quality of items is better.
“The only things that we buy in Mexico are laundry soap, air fresheners and things like that,” Amaya said. “Everything else, from milk to butter, from clothes to even gasoline we buy in the United States.”
The family goes to Bisbee once a week, where they shop for groceries at Safeway and for household items at Family Dollar. Every other week they travel to Sierra Vista, where they seek out the best prices at Fry’s, Wal-Mart and Food City. On occasion, they’ll even pick up a few specialty food items at the Asian market. In all, Amaya estimates that every 15 days — the standard pay cycle in Mexico — the family spends close to $300 in Arizona.
Amaya thinks that at least 60 percent of Naco’s 7,500 residents also do the bulk of their day-to-day shopping in the United States. And the only reason the other 40 percent do not follow suit, he says, is because they do not have a “laser visa” — the U.S. travel permit issued exclusively to Mexicans for frequent, short-stay visits.
But even some of those who do not have the visa take advantage of the cross-border bargains by having friends and neighbors pick up items for them, Amaya said.
Frank Barco, president of the Bisbee Chamber of Commerce, said his group is hoping that the town has other untapped customers on the Mexican side of the border. To that end, the chamber is considering a cooperative program with a group of business owners from Naco, Sonora.
Under the plan, the Bisbee chamber would help steer some of the town’s American tourists toward Naco, while the Naco contingent would help distribute bilingual promotional material on Bisbee in their area.
The Safeway supermarket in Bisbee, a magnet for shoppers from Naco, Sonora, already has a marketing program in place. Along with Safeway stores in Douglas and Sierra Vista, it inserts sales fliers in Sonora-based newspapers such as La Verdad, which circulates in Agua Prieta and Naco.
Safeway also responds to its cross-border shoppers by stocking Mexican-made products such as Jumex fruit juices, Jarritos soft drinks and tortillas from the Taskari tortilleria in Agua Prieta. And the store allows shoppers from Sonora to enroll in its Safeway Club program, in which they can earn shopping credits and take advantage of special discounts.
As for the boycott planned for Monday, it is doubtful that local stores like Safeway will take any significant financial hit, said Carreira, despite the volume of sales normally generated by Mexicans.
“Most likely, those who observe the boycott will merely delay their purchases until another day,” the economist said. “To have a lasting impact, the boycott would need to span a period of several weeks or months.”
However, he added the embargo should be sufficient to make a statement as a symbolic action and produce a visible impact on the day of the event.
“It’s more like they will be saying, ‘Here, look what we could do if we wanted,’” he said.
Facts on Mexican shoppers and the local economy:
— A 2001 University of Arizona study showed that Mexican visitors to Cochise County that year spent an estimated $96.8 million — $109.2 million in today’s dollars — and made 5.9 percent of all taxable purchases in the county.
— The same study estimated that spending from Mexican visitors to Cochise County generated approximately 3,551 jobs countywide in 2001, accounting for $57.5 million ($64.9 million in today’s dollars) in local wages.
— Also according to the study, 70.6 percent of Mexican visitors crossing at the Douglas port of entry and 85 percent at the Naco station listed shopping as the purpose of their visit. In the 2004-2005 fiscal year, a total of 2,807,039 people crossed from Mexico at the Douglas port of entry and 411,003 crossed at Naco. (Note: numbers reflect individual crossings, not individual people.)
Statistics provided by the Cochise College Center for Economic Research
and U.S. Customs and Border Protection
HERALD/REVIEW reporter Jonathan Clark an be reached at 515-4693 or by e-mail at jonathan.clark@bisbeereview.net.
Ezai I. Martinez wrote on Jun 24, 2009 7:58 PM: