Online Buying For Latinos: A $25 Billion Market

Descuento Libre is a discount website that has been working to break into the Latino market since its launch in 2011. At a panel Monday at South By Southwest in Austin, Group Buying for the Latino Demographic, several people at the organization presented about the ways in which they’d attempted to break into the online Latino consumer market.

Boris Portman, CEO of Descuento Libre, said that Latino group buying is a good market because there’s less competition for this demographic. Although Latinos are mobile and tech savvy, as well as being early adopters of technology, this particular slice of the group deal pie has yet to be fully claimed.

One way Descuento Libre is working to snatch it is by expanding from the U.S. into Mexico. While there are 22 million online Latino shoppers in the U.S., there are 25 million more in Mexico, a market that Portman termed “one the fastest growing e-commerce markets in the world.”

“Since we launched, we’ve been working to discover the best approach to engaging Latinos online with brands and retailers through incentives such as coupons and deals,” said Alexandra Landeros the company’s social media director. “Our goal is to foster loyalty between customers and the businesses to create a mutually beneficial relationship.”

There’s a lot of money at stake here. Between the U.S. and Mexico, there’s $25 billion dollars worth of online spending up for grabs. The presentation was interesting for describing the different ways in which the company worked to monetize its idea. They tried local radio giveaways, Mexican food deals and more. Moving forward, Descuento Libre is set to expand their group buying from the Internet into a text message-based model.

But, the company reps maintained, because Latinos over-index on e-commerce by almost 20%, it’s certainly a fruitful thing to pursue.