Local Competition
Brazil is a melting pot of people and cultures. Most people will agree that Brazilians are extremely open and friendly to foreigners, and it does not matter whether you are visiting their country or relocating permanently. It is easy to misinterpret their personal friendliness towards foreigners as a general appreciation of foreign companies, but this is not the case. There is a deeply founded bias against foreign companies in Brazil. They are seen as both expensive and difficult to deal with due to time zone and language differences. This leads to a preference for products and services from local companies, even when the price is higher or the quality might be lower.
To circumvent these perceptions, multinational SMEs should not expect to make their usual margins on their first order from Brazil. Taxes can eat as much as 50% of your sales price in Brazil because you import the product or services. For a Brazilian company, it seems unfair that the additional tax burden of being an international company without operations in Brazil should affect the price they are paying.
Two simple ways of addressing the challenge of local competitors are to either find the price point of your local competitors and match them, or hire a Brazilian intern/trainee in your company to address the language differences.