"I used to send her money, but this way I have more control," says
Cubici-González, a Venezuelan who has lived in England for 14 years.
"Knowing my mother, I had the feeling that when I sent her money, she
would run out and not have everything she needed in the fridge."

Cubici-González is part of a growing number of people outside Latin
America using the Internet to send groceries to relatives in the region.
It's an alternative to sending money that customers like because it lets
them avoid fees charged by money-wiring services and ensures that their
money is spent on food. And, at a time when many countries in the region
are dealing with severe economic downturns, Latin Americans living
abroad feel a great need to support family members in their home
countries.

From El Plazas in Venezuela to Peru's E. Wong, grocery stores throughout
Latin America now accept Web orders paid with foreign credit cards.
Argentina's Disco Virtual began offering service to foreign customers in
March 2003, and Mexico's Gigante plans to begin in the first half of
2004. "I have clients from London, Spain, China, Japan," says María
Teresa Méndez, e-commerce manager for El Plazas. The chain saw its
overseas orders increase from virtually none to 6% of Web sales after
Venezuela's political instability led to a recession in late 2002.

Disco Virtual, at discovirtual.com.ar, has about 1,500 foreign
customers, says the Web site's director, Diego Barón. The store's
marketing campaign targets Argentines living abroad by advertising in
cities such as Miami, Madrid and Barcelona, where many Argentines have
moved in the past three years following the country's debilitating
financial crisis. The grocery store also advertises on Web sites that
expatriates visit, such as Argentine newspaper sites.

Instead of just groceries, Disco Virtual also offers gift certificates
for use in the grocery store. "People don't necessarily know what sort
of food their relatives need, so they prefer to buy them vouchers,"
Barón says. "That way, they know they're not buying clothes."

Barón says he sees the overseas purchases as a niche market with
significant growth potential. Web sales account for a small percentage
of most grocery companies' annual revenues, and purchases by foreign
customers are just a fraction of those Web sales. But companies are
continuing to tap the foreign market, in part because Web sales within
the region have been somewhat disappointing.

In theory, online grocery delivery businesses should fare better in
Latin America than they did in the United States, where many flopped
with the dot.com bust, perhaps for being overly ambitious. Many of the
U.S. start-ups had no brick-and-mortar stores, counting solely on
elaborate warehouses with fleets of delivery vehicles and an army of
workers that proved too costly to maintain. In Latin American cities,
labor is cheaper, distances are shorter than in U.S. suburbs, and the
stores use existing in-store staff to fill Web orders.

Yet in Latin America there are not enough Internet users to support
these businesses. And those who do use the Internet don't yet feel
completely comfortable buying over the Web. "People in Mexico are afraid
to give their credit card number online," says Ernesto Valdez, vice
president of the Mexican Internet Association (AMIPCI). "We are working
on a marketing campaign, educating people so that they understand that
buying on the Internet is safe, that there is technology that protects
credit card information."

Another problem for Web-based grocery stores in Latin America is
demographics. The group of people using the Internet in the region is
not the same segment of the population that does the grocery shopping.
About 65% of Mexico's 10 million Internet users are between the ages of
18 and 34, and about 68% are men, according to a 2003 AMIPCI study. Most
grocery store shopping, meanwhile, is done by middle-aged or elderly
women, says Carlos González, e-commerce director at Gigante, whose Web
grocery service has not made a profit since it started in 2001. But
González says he's willing to wait for his customers to come.

"Right now, the young Internet users are living at home with their
parents," he says. "But as these new generations get married and have
their own homes, Internet grocery shopping is going to increase." Some
busy professionals in Latin America, however, do take advantage of
Internet grocery sites. Yanina Pineda, 31, works for a technology
company in Mexico City. She orders groceries online from work and has
them delivered to her office once a week. "I work all week, and on the
weekends I don't feel like going to the supermarket," she says.

And although she doesn't order fruits and vegetables because she likes
to select those items herself, she finds the service convenient. Most
Web-based grocery delivery services in Latin America, along with the
older telephone-order services, charge a small delivery fee, about US$2,
which is sometimes waived for orders above a certain amount, around $40,
depending on the store.

As Latin American grocery stores wait for more domestic Web customers
like Pineda, they're tapping the potential of overseas clients like
Cubici-González.

"I just couldn't believe that I can sit here in my house and buy
groceries for my mom's house in Venezuela," says Cubici-González, whose
mother is an unemployed widow. "We Latin Americans have a completely
different culture than people in other places. We don't abandon old
people; we look after them. My mother gave me a lot of her life, and I
feel a need from my heart to help her."