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Starting New Business in DR

gainkeeper

How user friendly is DR to foreigners starting a new business?

You've seen people selling products at busy intersections. I'd like to start a business selling vape products at stop lights. People selling the products for me could earn a good income.

I'd have to import the products from China. It would be a huge investment. I wouldn't want to spend $100,000 and come up against legal challenges.

Are there any laws against what can be sold on the street? How much would the DR cooperate with me or work against me?  How often do businesses get squeezed for bribes?

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UncleBuck

That business model seems like the fastest way to get your product and money stolen from the "employees".  Honestly, opening up a beach bar has more chance for success!  Nothing about your idea is legal.  Most of these vendors are independents, where they buy and sell the product themselves. 

Papito NL

I am sorry but every aspect of this idea is a potential recipe for disaster!


For starters consider any investment in a starting business in the DR as money lost or “play money” because you never know when or if there will be a return on investment at all. Many misjudged all that is needed to run a business in the DR.

gainkeeper

I wouldn't have employees ... except a delivery driver. I would only sell my products to a vendor that can afford to pay my wholesale price for them up front. They would "own" that corner and would hire their own employees for all the different directions of traffic. I would honor their ownership of that corner until they proved to me I couldn't trust them.

wondering9

Just because it's informal commerce doesn't mean it doesn't have "rules" (and potentially powerful enforcers). How much research have you done into how street vending works in the DR? How are you planning to meet up with potential vendors? How are you planning to get control of a given corner so that you can decide what vendor gets to work there? How's your Spanish? How are you going to report/explain your activities to the government?


I used to live in the US borderlands and sometimes heard there that both vendors and panhandlers on the Mexican side were under the control of organized crime. I don't know for certainty that that's true even for Mexico, and obviously the DR is a different country, but I'd be careful.


It may not look like there's much to it but I suspect that street-vending scene is a whole nother world.

CHRISTOPHER DAVID56

I have a different opinion and belief. Why not sell commerce/products that are healthy, and has a positive impact to health within the DR and doesn't send young kids to the hospitals with scared lung issues with vaping. (Which now is a huge problem here in the DR) Vape from China? Russian Rollett with whatever chemicals are in the vapes...my 2 cents....

planner

Street vendors are not legal!  Just because it happens does not make it legal.


None of these guys selling on the streets can "invest" in your product and then sell it.


As someone said it's a recipe for disaster.  Also remember what Dominicans can get away with, you cannot.