Fixed prices are rare and most sales
become negotiations with the polite shopkeeper. In the country it is
customary for the storekeeper to make advances of merchandise to the
smaller farmers until crop time; they then pay him in cacao, coffee,
tobacco or other farm products, which he remits to the seaport to the
wholesale merchant with whom he deals.
The larger business houses are in a majority of cases owned by
foreigners, principally of Italian, German, Spanish, American and
Cuban citizenship, and now also including numerous Syrian firms. A
majority of those classed as Americans are natives of Porto Rico. A
number of these merchants arrived in Santo Domingo as poor men and by
hard work and shrewd investment built up respectable firms. They
carefully preserved their foreign nationality as a valuable asset
which protected them from undue interference on the part of the
government. One of the most prominent and successful merchants of
Santo Domingo was the late J.B. Vicini, an Italian who came to the
country penniless, but with his energy and sagacity amassed the
largest fortune of the island.
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