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Focuses on steps taken by Rona Home and Garden Warehouse in Vancouver, British Columbia to foster relationships with ethnic customers. In 1996, Russ Jones was put in charge as store manager. Sales were slow, the store was underperforming and Jones took a careful look at his neighbourhood. Statistics Canada figures bore out what he saw, 40 percent of his customers were Asian. Jones quickly decided to adopt strategies which would suit ethnic customers. He recruited locally and pretty soon had a staff that could handle 27 different languages anddialects. “We hired the people in the community who reflectedthe community, and that's been the most successful thing we'vedone,” he says. “We really promote to our employeesthat you speak in whatever language our customer is comfortablein.” The store also offers a translation service. “Ifyou walk up to an employee in aisle six and you don't speak English, we will call a translator for you. ”Jones also found that Asian customers wanted different products. Since Asians do business largely through word of mouth and networking, the business is involved in the Chinese community, celebrating their festivals with them.