Business View Caribbean | October 2019

77 BUSINESS VIEW CARIBBEAN OCTOBER 2019 DO I T CENTER DOMINI CA are knowledgeable and well- prepared to serve customers. Inventory is primarily imported from the U.S., with smaller amounts coming from China, Europe, and the U.K. Not surprisingly, shipping poses one of Do It Center’s biggest challenges. Esprit admits, “The long lead times, not having goods readily available - these are worrisome. We have to plan purchasing, carefully, so as not to run out of product. For example, it will take 75 to 90 days to get a shipment out of China. And it may be longer depending on the shipping schedule, so there is a risk that we’ll run out of product for our customers. We have a 45,000-square-foot building on two levels (shop floor and warehouse) and we carry about 8.5 million EC dollars in inventory – a large amount of lumber, steel, roofing materials, and cement in individual bags and in whole pallets.” With being so new on the retail scene, Do It Center is trying a variety of marketing channels to see what works best. According to Esprit, “We have an active Facebook presence with great comments from customers about the excellent service. We do not have a website yet, having only been open less than a year, but we do radio ads and we have a lot of customer referrals. We also belong to the Dominica Industry and Commerce Association. Being part of the Do It Best parent corporation, they have been very supportive in getting the store designed and set up, giving us the training that we need. That was very critical in us opening in such a short space of time because they already had a road map to help get us off the ground. We started the building in March 2018 and within seven months we had the structure up and the store laid out and we opened in November. Our buying group in the U.S. is really the best support in getting our hardware here.” Looking to the future, the company’s priorities and objectives are clear and resolute: to continue to grow and provide the services for the general public of Dominica, and expand to respond to the needs of the country. “That’s really what the future holds for the business,” says Esprit. “We have very