Most business interest groups in nineteenth-century Brazil enjoyed a notable potential for influence. It rested on the relative scarcity of other interest groups and on the advisory and regulatory prerogatives inherited from Iberian corporatism. Enhancing it were the personal contacts of group leaders with Brazilian government heads. Group members had economic and business expertise that the government needed and overseas ties that gave them access to technology and modernizing influences from abroad. Finally, the central position of overseas merchants in Brazil's economy even enabled the commercial associations to coerce government if conditions warranted. Although commercial associations and factor groups enjoyed access of the highest order to government decision makers, industrial groups did not. Despite influential leaders, they faced a government largely unreceptive to the idea of industrialization. They were forced to appeal more than commercial associations and factor groups to the educated public. All business interest groups also broadcast images and themes intended to legitimate enterprise and enhance the image of the business elite with that public.

The commercial associations benefited most from the relative lack of other interest organizations competing for the attention and favor of government. Although primarily responding to the interests of overseas commerce, the associations had no real rivals as business interest organizations. Factor groups shared with commercial associations most policy objectives, membership, and even leadership. Retailer interest groups had virtually no impact on national policy. First appearing in the 1880s, they usually concerned themselves with limited problems such as licensing, labeling, or municipal taxation. Their impotence in part reflected the small scale of operations and the low social standing of most retailers in nineteenth-century Brazil.