The customer who buys big once a year

Treat him as a customer worth a year of small ones, because that is what he is. Write down what he bought and why, note when he is likely to need it again, and reach him a few weeks before that. Most shops lose this buyer not to a cheaper rate but to being forgotten at exactly the wrong moment.

The man you see once and then not again

He comes in on an ordinary afternoon and spends Rs 40,000 in twenty minutes. Paint, fittings, cement, whatever your shop sells for the job he is doing.

You serve him well, he pays, and he leaves. You feel good about the day.

And then nothing. He is not a regular, he does not walk past, and there is no reason for him to appear again until the next time he has a job like that one.

When that day comes, roughly a year later, he goes wherever is convenient. It might be you. Statistically it is whoever he happened to think of first, and thinking of you is not something that happens by itself.

What he is actually worth to your shop

The reason to take this seriously is arithmetic, not sentiment.

Say one buyer spends Rs 40,000 and then disappears

What he spends in a single visitRs 40,000

What a Rs 250-a-day regular buys in a yearRs 72,000

Six years of that one annual visitRs 240,000

What keeping him costs: one message a yearRs 0

So the name nobody wrote down was worthRs 240,000

A customer who spends Rs 40,000 once a year and never returns is worth Rs 40,000. The same customer, kept for six years, is worth six times that, and he cost you nothing extra to keep except being remembered.

Now compare him to the daily customer you know by name. He buys Rs 250 of things most days, which is around Rs 6,000 a month, and you would be upset to lose him. The once-a-year man is worth more than half of that customer, and most shops spend no effort at all on him.

The reason is simply that he is invisible. He does not appear in your day, he is not in your head, and shops give attention to what stands in front of them. That is not a character flaw; it is why writing things down beats remembering them, which is the same argument running underneath whether one big buyer beats twenty small ones.

Why he goes somewhere else the next time

Ask a large occasional buyer why he switched shops and he will almost never say the price.

He will say he was passing. He will say somebody told him about a place. He will say he could not remember whether you carried it. What he means is that at the moment he needed to decide, your shop was not in his mind, and another one was.

There is a second reason and it is worth knowing. His job is usually urgent. When a man is building or fixing something, the shop that can tell him today whether the item is in stock wins over the shop that is slightly cheaper. If he does not have your number, he cannot ask you, so he asks somebody he can reach.

And there is a third, quieter one. Large occasional purchases often need something afterwards: two more of an item, an exchange, a piece that turned out wrong. A buyer who had an easy time coming back for that remembers you. One who had an awkward time never returns and never says why.

Write down enough to recognise him

You cannot keep a customer you cannot identify a year later, and a name and a number are not enough.

What to write down about a large one-off buyer

• His name and number, and one other way to reach him
• What the job was, written in ordinary words
• Roughly what he spent, so you know his size next time
• What he does: builds, farms, runs a workshop
• Roughly when the same need comes around again
• Anything he asked for that you did not have that day

What you need is the shape of his purchase. What the job was, roughly what he spent, and anything that will still be true next time: he builds, he farms, he runs a workshop, he was furnishing a house for a wedding.

Write when he is likely to need it again. Most large purchases have a rhythm, even a rough one. Farm inputs follow the crop. Painting and repairs follow a season. Workshop supplies follow how fast he uses them. You do not need to be right to the week; you need to be roughly right and early rather than exactly right and late.

If your records are on a phone, this is already there in the entry, and you can look up who bought this category last time without remembering anybody. On paper, keep one page at the back of the book for large one-off buyers, because they will never be found again inside a book organised by daily customers.

Stay in his mind without pestering him

The whole strategy is one message at the right moment, and the right moment is a few weeks before he needs to decide.

Not a general offer sent to everybody. Something specific: "The paint you took last time is in, and the rate has held. Let me know if you need it for the coming work." He knows immediately that you are the shop that served him, and it took you thirty seconds.

One hardware shop kept a single page at the back of its book with about thirty names on it, each with a line saying what the man did and roughly when he bought. Every few weeks the owner looked down the page, found the two or three whose turn was coming, and sent each of them one short message. He was not running a campaign; he was reading a list. Half of them came back, and none of them were ever asked to.

Timing beats frequency by a very long way. Four messages spread through the year are ignored. One message that lands two weeks before he starts thinking about the job is the reason he calls you instead of walking into whatever is nearest.

Once a year is often enough. A large buyer who hears from you every month files you with everybody else who sends things, and once that has happened you cannot get out of it. The gentleness is what makes it work, and it is the same restraint that works when winning back a customer who stopped coming.

Credit for a man who is not around

This buyer will ask for credit, and it is a genuinely harder decision than it is for a regular.

Your usual test does not apply. With a daily customer you have months of behaviour to judge; with this one you have one visit a year ago and a good impression. He may be completely reliable and you have no way of knowing it, which is the honest starting point for deciding how much udhaar to give and to whom.

So change the shape rather than refusing. Take a real advance, because a man who is spending Rs 40,000 on a job has usually been paid something for that job. Keep the credit portion small relative to the total, and put a short date on it that falls while the work is still happening rather than after it finishes.

Ask where the work is. A buyer whose job site you can point to is in a completely different position from one who is buying for somewhere you cannot picture, and asking is normal in trade purchases rather than intrusive.

And take the number of somebody local who knows him. Not as a guarantor, just as a second way to reach him, because the one thing you cannot do with this customer is walk down the street to his shop.

Get the second visit while he is still standing there

The best time to arrange the next visit is during the first one, when he is happy and you are in front of him.

Tell him what you carry that he did not buy. He came for paint and has no idea you keep the fittings too, so he will buy those somewhere else without ever considering you. One sentence fixes that permanently.

Make returning easy and say so out loud. "If any of it is wrong, bring it back within the week and we will exchange it." A large buyer is nervous about exactly that, and hearing it before he asks does more for his opinion of your shop than a discount would.

Give him your number written down, not just spoken. Written on the bill, on a card, or stamped on the slip. A buyer with your number in his phone is a buyer who can ask you a question in a year, and asking a question is how the second visit starts.

And if you deal with people who come back seasonally, plan for it the way you would any predictable rush, which is the whole subject of getting your shop ready for the season.

Common questions

Is it worth keeping records for a customer I may never see again?

The record costs you a minute and the customer is worth more than a month of an average regular, so the arithmetic is not close. What makes it feel unnecessary is that the payoff is a year away, which is exactly why most shops skip it and why the ones that do it keep these buyers. Write it once and forget it until the reminder matters.

How do I know when he will need something again?

Ask him while he is standing there, because he usually knows and nobody has ever asked him. A single question at the counter about how often the work comes around gives you a better answer than any guess. Write what he says next to his name, and being a few weeks early is far better than being a few weeks late.

Should I give a discount to a big occasional buyer?

Price the order properly rather than discounting to win affection, because a buyer who came for a rate will leave for a rate. If you want to give something, give it in a form he will remember: a small extra quantity, free delivery to the job, or holding stock for him for two days. Those cost you less and buy far more loyalty than a lower number on the bill.

He wants a large amount on credit and I hardly know him. Should I refuse?

Do not refuse the customer, change the structure of the deal, which is a different thing and it keeps the sale. Take a real advance, keep the credit portion modest against the total, and set a date that falls while his own work is still being paid for. If he will not accept any of that on a large first purchase, the refusal has effectively come from him.

What if he only ever buys one category from me?

That is normal and it is also your biggest opportunity, since he is buying the rest of his list from somebody else purely out of habit. Tell him what else you carry while he is in the shop and once again in your yearly message. Most single-category buyers become multi-category buyers the moment somebody tells them they can.

How many of these buyers should a small shop be tracking?

Track everybody whose single purchase is worth more than an ordinary customer's month, and for most small shops that is a short list rather than a project. Twenty names on one page at the back of the book is enough to change a year. The point is not to build a system, it is simply to stop losing large customers to being forgotten.