The Cost Nobody Puts on the Invoice

See Original El Cronista Article

I was 18 years old in Ciudad Ojeda, working with my father.

I had run the numbers on a used car from Miami. Buy it there. Ship it to Maracaibo. Sell at a premium. Keep the spread.

Then I calculated the import tariff. Then I worked the timeline. Months, minimum, from purchase to sale. And an annual inflation of 35% that does not pause while your operation is in transit.

My profit, in bolivars, would erode before I could convert it.

The numbers were not wrong about the spread. They were wrong about the full cost of the border.

I walked away before importing anything. Zero dollars lost. I thought I was done learning about borders.

I was not.

Years later, Solpak was buying millions in U.S. packaging materials when the Canadian dollar dropped more than 30% against the USD. January 2016. A number I will not forget.

That was not a tariff. It was not on any invoice. But it hit our margins the same way.

Most entrepreneurs quote the invoice and add freight. Some remember the tariff. Almost nobody has a real model for what currency movement does to margin across an eighteen-month supply cycle.

That is not a cost problem. That is a planning problem.

I wrote about this for El Cronista. The car, the crash, and the cost nobody puts on the invoice.