Divico Distributors

Business View Caribbean 5 local price. “People just buy from Miami and ship it down,” he explains. “And because there are no duties on this island, these things are not recorded by cus- toms and it’s not against the law for people to bring in products. So, continuously, we face parallel trad- ing and have to fight it. We have to negotiate with our vendors because the larger wholesalers in the U.S. don’t provide the service, they don’t provide the mer- chandising, they don’t provide the credit – all they do is provide better pricing. And, of course, we have to pay our taxes, which are much higher than the U.S. So, it’s been challenging. We continuously have to look for ways to be as efficient as possible.” Even though Khatnani claims that the distribution business is “always a battle,” he’s happy to have found a niche that suits him better than his previous stints in the jewelry and telecommunications fields. “You have to enjoy the distribution business to be in it,” he states. “It requires experience in a little bit of everything. And it’s very complicated; especially when you’re doing business on St. Maarten, where we have a hundred nationalities living here. In any meeting, I might be speaking in Spanish, or in French, or in English, or in Dutch. It’s not easy to operate on a small island like this – we’re unique.” So, in order to keep winning the battle, Khatnani says that the company is planning to expand its product line. “We have to look for other categories to grow in,” he asserts. “We’ve been such an aggressive company for the past 25 years; we’ve matured in many of the