Curacao (retail store)

Last updated
Curacao
Company type Private
Industry Retail
Founded1978(46 years ago) (1978)
Headquarters
Los Angeles, California
,
USA
Number of locations
11
Products Consumer Electronics
Toys
Home Appliances
Furniture
Jewelry
Cosmetics
Number of employees
2,180
Parent ADIR International, LLC
Website http://www.icuracao.com
Store Locator

Curacao (pronounced Koo-ra-sao), formerly La Curacao, is a large-format retail store chain and finance company with export, travel and money transfer services. [1] Founded in 1978, Curacao is headquartered in Los Angeles with retail locations in California, Arizona and Nevada. [2]

Contents

Services

Curacao serves a diverse array of customers. A large percentage of its credit card holders include Hispanic and Latino American consumers. [3] Every store features English/Spanish-language advertisements and bilingual salesclerks. [4] Curacao sells most of its merchandise on credit, and has opened accounts for over two million private label cardholders. [5] [6] The company's services also include Curacao Travel, Curacao Money Transfer, and Curacao Export. The company's mission is said to be to improve people’s lives by providing them access to products and services using Curacao’s proprietary credit while supporting the communities it serves. [7] In 2002, the Curacao Foundation was established with programs focused on providing home goods, free services, financial, health and immigration education and resources. [8]

Statues of Aztec warriors at the entrance of La Curacao. Curacao Department Store.jpg
Statues of Aztec warriors at the entrance of La Curacao.

Locations

History

Founding

Curacao began as a consumer-product door-to-door sales company, in Burbank, California. [9] It became popular among the Latino community who did not have access to credit. [5] Salesmen allowed customers to buy their goods by placing a down payment and then returning to the customer's residence to collect payments on a regular basis. [10] This service eventually evolved into Curacao's proprietary credit business. [2]

Expansion

In 1983, La Curacao moved to the Pico-Union district in Los Angeles. [9] By 1984, it had opened its export division, which allowed customers to shop for goods and have them shipped to their families in Mexico and Central America. [11] During the Los Angeles Riots in 1992, the original store was burned down and its inventory destroyed. Two weeks later, the business reopened at its flagship location of 1605 W. Olympic Blvd. [9]

In 1995, La Curacao opened its second store, in the Panorama City district of the San Fernando Valley. Inside the Panorama Mall, the new store featured Mesoamerican style decor and child care. The company also purchased the office tower at 1605 West Olympic Boulevard, now the La Curacao Business Center, where its headquarters are now situated. [9]

By 2007, the Curacao stores had ten locations in the Southwestern United States, with nine stores in California and two in Arizona. [11]

In 2012, La Curacao was renamed Curacao, undergoing complete rebranding to cater to the second and third generation millennial Latino consumer. [12]

Curacao currently has locations in Los Angeles, [13] Panorama City, [13] South Gate, [13] Huntington Park, [13] San Bernardino, [13] Lynwood, [13] Santa Ana, [13] Chino, [13] Phoenix, Anaheim, [13] Tucson, [14] [15] Las Vegas [16] [17] and Northridge. [18]

Initiatives

The retailer is looking to continue adding new store locations across California and expand to more U.S. states by 2022. [19]

Export

Export is one of Curacao's services. Customers can purchase a product in the United States and have it delivered to countries in Central America and Mexico. [19] The company has its own warehouses and distribution centers in Mexico and Central America and operates a home-delivery program. [9]

Travel

Curacao’s Travel agency books over 20,000 trips a year on their proprietary credit card for services ranging from airline tickets, hotels, travel packages and cruises to specialized tours and entertainment venues. [20]

Money Transfer

Curacao’s Money Transfer affiliate makes it possible for customers to send over 175,000 international money transfers per year, on credit, by visiting Curacao stores or using the Curacao Money Transfer app. [21]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Northridge, Los Angeles</span> Neighborhood in California, US

Northridge is a neighborhood in the San Fernando Valley region of the City of Los Angeles. The community is home to California State University, Northridge, and the Northridge Fashion Center.

<i>Thomas Guide</i> American series of street atlases

Thomas Guide is a series of paperback, spiral-bound atlases featuring detailed street maps of various large metropolitan areas in the United States, including Boise, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Oakland, Phoenix, Portland, Reno-Tahoe, Sacramento, San Francisco, Seattle, Tucson, and Baltimore-Washington metropolitan area. Road Atlas titles are Arizona including Las Vegas, California Including portions of Nevada, and Pacific Northwest covering Washington, Oregon, Western Idaho, Southwestern British Columbia. The map books are usually arranged by county; for example, separate Thomas Guides have been published for Los Angeles County and San Diego County. There are also guides that will have two or three counties combined, or guides that cover a metropolitan area. Each guide has a detailed index of streets and points of interest, as well as arterial maps for easy page location.

Panorama City is a neighborhood in the city of Los Angeles, California, in the San Fernando Valley. It has a generally young age range as well as the highest population density in the Valley. More than half of the neighborhood's population was born abroad, the majority being from Mexico. Known as the Valley's first planned community after a transition from agriculture to a post-World War II housing boom, it has been home to several notable residents. It is now a mixture of single-family homes and low-rise apartment buildings.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Welton Becket</span> American architect

Welton David Becket was an American modern architect who designed many buildings in Los Angeles, California.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fox Theatres</span> Chain of movie theaters in the United States

Fox Theatres was a large chain of movie theaters in the United States dating from the 1920s either built by Fox Film studio owner William Fox, or subsequently merged in 1929 by Fox with the West Coast Theatres chain, to form the Fox West Coast Theatres chain. Fox West Coast went into bankruptcy and was sold to The National Theatres Corporation, led by Charles Skouras, on November 20, 1933, for $17,000,000.00. Eugene V. Klein later became CEO of National, and turned it into the conglomerate National General. Mann Theatres bought National General's theatres in 1973.

Ohrbach's was a moderate-priced department store with a merchandising focus primarily on clothing and accessories. From its modest start in 1923 until the chain's demise in 1987, Ohrbach's expanded dramatically after World War II, and opened numerous branch locations in the New York and Los Angeles metropolitan areas. Its original flagship store was located on Union Square in New York City. It maintained administrative offices in Newark and in Los Angeles. The retailer closed the Newark offices in the 1970s. Paul László designed the Union Square store as well as many of their other stores.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Robinsons-May</span> Retail company

Robinsons-May was a chain of department stores operating in Southern California, Arizona, and Nevada, from 1993 until 2006. It was created when May Department Stores combined two of its chains, May Company California and J. W. Robinson's chains. Its headquarters was at the former May Company California headquarters at its Laurel Plaza store in North Hollywood, Los Angeles. When Federated took over May Department Stores Company on August 30, 2005, Robinsons-May was dissolved, with some stores becoming branches of Macy's, while others were closed, sold, or transformed into branches of Bloomingdale's. Robinsons-May had 45 stores.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">J. W. Robinson's</span> Defunct department store chain

J. W. Robinson Co., Robinson's, was a chain of department stores operating in the Southern California and Arizona area, previously with headquarters in Los Angeles, California.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fedco</span> American membership department store chain (1948 to 1999)

Federal Employees' Distributing Company, known as Fedco, was a membership department store chain that operated in Southern California from 1948 to 1999.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tucson Mall</span> Shopping mall in Tucson, Arizona

Tucson Mall is the largest shopping mall in Tucson, Arizona. Tucson Mall features over 170 stores and two levels of indoor shopping. It is anchored by Forever 21, J. C. Penney, Macy's, and Dillard's. Tucson Mall contains a food court containing several fast food restaurants, as well as "Arizona Avenue," an arcade containing Southwestern-themed items. The mall is located on the north side of Tucson, bounded by Oracle Road, Wetmore Road, Stone Avenue, and the Rillito River.

The Shops at Montebello is a shopping mall mainly located within the city limits of Montebello, California, with over 120 national and local retail outlets such as Aeropostale, Disney Store, Hollister, Victoria’s Secret and BJ's Restaurant & Brewery. A small portion of its eastern side is actually within the city limits of Rosemead. It features major department stores, children's stores, smaller shops such as beauty and bath stores, health stores and salons, as well as a small food court. The boundary line between Montebello and Rosemead runs through the eastern end of the mall. Policing is provided by the City of Montebello. It was managed by The Macerich Company before being sold to Simon Property Group in 2011. The mall features 758,504 sq ft of leasable retail space. As of 2019, Simon no longer owns the mall. Pacific Retail announced ownership of the mall on the company Instagram page on January 24, 2019.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Northridge Fashion Center</span> American shopping mall in California

Northridge Fashion Center is a large shopping mall located in Northridge, Los Angeles, California. It opened in 1971. It was severely damaged during the Northridge earthquake in 1994, but renovated extensively in 1995, 1998, and 2003. The mall features J. C. Penney, Macy's, and Macy's Furniture Gallery, Dick's Sporting Goods, in addition to an AMC Theatres.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">2008 Chino Hills earthquake</span>

The 2008 Chino Hills earthquake occurred at 11:42:15 am PDT on July 29 in Southern California. The epicenter of the magnitude 5.4 earthquake was in Chino Hills, c. 28 miles (45 km) east-southeast of downtown Los Angeles. Movement on an oblique-slip fault resulted in a maximum Mercalli intensity of VI (Strong). Though there were no deaths, eight people were injured, and it caused considerable damage in numerous structures throughout the area and caused some amusement park facilities to shut down their rides. The earthquake led to increased discussion regarding the possibility of a stronger earthquake in the future.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Desmond's (department store)</span> Los Angeles department store

Desmond's was a Los Angeles–based department store, during its existence second only to Harris & Frank as the oldest Los Angeles retail chain, founded in 1862 as a hat shop by Daniel Desmond near the Los Angeles Plaza. The chain as a whole went out of business in 1981 but Desmond's, Inc. continued as a company that went in to other chains to liquidate them. Desmond's stores in Northridge and West Covina were liquidated only in 1986 and survived in Palm Springs into the first years of the 21st century.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dearden's</span>


Dearden's was a chain of furniture stores based in Los Angeles, that operated for 108 years. It was founded in 1909 by Edgar Dearden, an immigrant from England. Dearden's sold furniture, appliances, cookware, other home goods, watches, and perfume. It also provided services such as check cashing, travel planning, tax preparation and bill paying. In its last decades, it targeted lower-income Latino clients, especially immigrants from Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador. Dearden's offered its own credit, which it extended to many Latino immigrant customers for whom it was the first credit, and for many of whom it was difficult to get regular credit cards. For some undocumented immigrants in the 1990s, documents from Dearden's established that they were present in the country and helped in the process of receiving amnesty in order to become legal residents of the U.S.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Panorama Mall</span> Shopping mall in California, United States

Panorama Mall is a mall in Panorama City, San Fernando Valley, Los Angeles, California. It is an enclosed mall anchored by two large discount stores, Walmart and Curacao, aimed primarily at a Hispanic customer base.

Valley Plaza was a shopping center in North Hollywood, Los Angeles, one of the first in the San Fernando Valley, opened in 1951. In the mid-1950s it was reported to be the largest shopping center on the West Coast of the United States and the third-largest in the country. It was located along Laurel Canyon Boulevard from Oxnard to Vanowen, and west along Victory Boulevard. Like its competitor Panorama City Shopping Center to the north, Valley Plaza started with one core development and grew over time to market, under the single name "Valley Plaza", a collection of adjacent retail developments with multiple developers, owners, and opening dates.

Orangefair Marketplace is a community shopping center in Fullerton, California which when built was one of the earliest large shopping centers in Orange County, California. along with Anaheim Plaza and Orange County Plaza. It is located at the southeast corner of Harbor Boulevard and Orangethorpe Avenue, a mile south of Fullerton's historic downtown.

References

  1. ↑ "Curacao Debuts Company Transformation". PR Newswire. 2012. Retrieved 2012-08-03.
  2. 1 2 "Company Overview of Adir International, LLC". businessweek.com. Archived from the original on June 3, 2014. Retrieved 2014-06-02.
  3. ↑ "Curacao". Trend Offset Printing. 2012. Archived from the original on 2013-01-06. Retrieved 2012-08-03.
  4. ↑ Crocker H. Liu (2008). "Location Analysis" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2010-07-02. Retrieved 2010-10-12.
  5. 1 2 Miriam Jordan (2004). "Credito Hispano". Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 2010-05-24.
  6. ↑ Rick Hutton (2012). "Rick Hutton". Trend Offset Printing. Archived from the original on 2013-01-06. Retrieved 2012-08-03.
  7. ↑ "La Curacao Services". La Curacao. Archived from the original on 2009-06-12. Retrieved 2010-05-24.
  8. ↑ Steve Rutledge. "Childrens Hospital Los Angeles Trustees Named "Outstanding Philanthropists" by the Association of Fundraising Professionals". Children's Hospital Los Angeles. Archived from the original on 2010-12-27. Retrieved 2011-01-26.
  9. 1 2 3 4 5 "La Curacao History". lacuracao.net. Retrieved 2010-05-25.
  10. ↑ LEE ROMNEY (2000-11-01). "La Curacao a Growing Family". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 2010-05-26.
  11. 1 2 "Our History and our Awards". Curacao. Retrieved 2012-08-04.
  12. ↑ "La Curacao Rebranding". icuracao.com. Archived from the original on 2014-01-29. Retrieved 2013-02-05.
  13. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Ronald D. White (2015-02-01). "How I Made It: Jerry Azarkman". Los Angeles Times .
  14. ↑ Patrick McNamara (2012-09-21). "Long delayed Curacao mega-store finally set to open next week". insidetucsonbusiness.com. Inside Tucson Business.
  15. ↑ "Curacao finally opens Tucson store". kold.com. KOLD-TV. 2012-09-28.
  16. ↑ Tony Garcia (2016-10-02). "California-based Curacao opens first Nevada location at Meadows Mall". news3lv.com. KSNV.
  17. ↑ Chris Kudialis (2016-10-01). "Opening draws long lines at Nevada's first Curaçao store". lasvegassun.com. Las Vegas Sun.
  18. ↑ Caleb J. Spivak (2020-10-06). "Curacao, Dick's, and Gold's Gym Planning Northridge Fashion Center Stores". whatnowlosangeles.com. What Now Media Group.
  19. 1 2 Russ Gager. "All In The Family". Management Today. Retrieved 2011-01-25.
  20. ↑ "CURACAO TRAVEL". icuracao.com (in Spanish).
  21. ↑ "Money Transfer". icuracao.com.

money transfer services

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.