Business View Caribbean - October 2016 71
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
