According to a company spokesman quoted at Internet Retailer, Home Depot has shut down the Spanish language version of its homedepot.com e-commerce website. They launched their Spanish website in November, making it accessible from the main HomeDepot.com website. Accessibility, however, wasn’t the problem.
Home Depot closed the Spanish site because its analytics reported that almost 50% of the visitors hitting that site were from outside the U.S. Since Home Depot only provides shipping to domestic locations, the retailer felt it was a waste of resources. As someone who is somewhat familiar with the online retail industry, 50% of anything seems like sales to me. The decision seems strange, unless the allocated resources to the Spanish site were somewhat lopsided and costing the company more than it was bringing in (which seems unlikely).
Like its English counterpart, the Spanish site gave consumers the same access to over 40 thousand products. There was no mention as to whether or not Home Depot would provide Do-it-Yourself tips, and decorating ideas in Spanish – similar to what they had before the full Spanish version was released late last year.
One of the more interesting quotes from the article states that Forrester Research projects “there will be more than 17 million Hispanic consumers online by 2011. And many online Hispanic shoppers prefer to read and make a purchase in Spanish, even if they are bilingual.” If this is the case, then plodding through the Spanish site, even if it weren’t exactly profitable at this juncture might have been the smartest move for the long term. In pulling back, which seems like a cost-cutting reactionary move, Home Depot may have opened a way for its competitors to take away much of that market share.
Other large merchants and consumer brand manufacturers that have introduced Spanish-language web sites recently include Avon, Best Buy and 1-800-Flowers.com.
Home Depot is ranked as #42 in the Internet Retailer Top 500 Guide.
