Worth It To Try And Start Business With New Arg Clients?

[TehDeej]

Hello, former BA expat selling networking products from a large well known company not yet in the region. I am travelling to Colombia and Chile to work with new clients and thought I'd take advantage of being so close to take a vaction in BA. As I am there I thought I might try to shedule some meetings and see what opportunities exist in the market. I know the consumer market is shot but as I'm selling enterprise and B2B products I figure life goes on regardless of the economy. Big companies still have to build IT infrasrtucters and PC's are being bbuilt locally so poeple have to buy and import something. I know that many importers anre afraid to take on new vendors and focusing on those that they have already established business with. So would I be wasting my time or does anybody think I can do business in Argentina these days?

Thanks, D.J.

 

[Jaredberryman]

I think you would be wasting your time. The import restrictions here are stifling. You would think that Argentina would let those kinds of products through, but they don't. Even enterprise products are not even allowed to be imported, or if they are, with major headaches. My advice to you would be to avoid Argentina like the plague. This country is in a recession now, imports are highly restricted, and companies are not going to be looking to make any new purchases--many of them are already downsizing.

 

[ARbound]

B2B sales are going to be tough, the company I worked for literally waited until MS pulled the plug on XP to put 7 on machines/buy new ones and that is cheap compared to buying servers, networking supplies, etc, and it was a company based in the EU, so I can only imagine what it's like Arge companies.

Economy is in recession, borderline full default, currency is devaluing daily, import restrictions have gotten so bad that Argentines can only import 2 items over $35 US (or $25, can't remember) per year without having to get an import license (something that's damned near impossible) and this is all on top of the regular issues involved in doing business in LatAm.

My advise is to choose almost any other country in the region (minus VZ) and then maybe from there you import/export with Argentina, it's really night and day crossing in to Chile now, $10 for ketchup in BsAs or $3 in Patagonia, apply this to every other item and you'll start to get an idea.