ProblemStock
The goods he paid for and never took away
A customer paid and left the goods with you. What that corner really costs, what to agree at the counter before you take the money, and how to clear it.
Three things are true about that corner at once
- 1The money in your galla is not yours yetIt is paid for goods that have not gone. Spend it and you have spent somebody's delivery.
- 2The goods on your floor are not yours eitherYou are holding them and carrying them, but you cannot sell a single piece of them.
- 3Neither fact appears anywhere in your figuresThe galla reads richer than it is and the stock reads emptier, both at the same time.
A customer has paid and left the goods standing in your shop. Until he collects, that cash is money you owe and those goods are stock you cannot sell. Agree a collection date before you take the money, hold the money rather than the cartons, and keep the order written down as an open item.
The corner you have been stepping around
It is the first week of the month and Rafiq comes in with cash in his hand. He wants the whole month at once: two bags of flour, a bag of rice, four kilos of sugar, a tin of ghee. He counts out the notes and says, "I will send the boy with a rickshaw tomorrow."
You push the lot into the corner behind the freezer, tear a piece of a carton, write "Rafiq" on it in pen, and tuck it under the string of the top bag.
Tomorrow he does not come. On Friday his brother says the rickshaw is coming on Sunday. Then a week passes with nothing.
Now it is the third week, the paper has curled at one edge, and you step around that corner without looking at it. In your mind the goods have stopped being a sale. They have become furniture.
Three problems standing in one corner
That corner looks like nothing, which is why it survives for weeks. It is three problems leaning on each other.
The cash is not yours yet. It went into your galla with the day's takings and left again with the day's buying. But you have delivered nothing. Until Rafiq walks out with those bags, what you took is money you owe: the goods, or the notes back. It looked like profit all month and it was never profit.
The goods are stock you carry but cannot sell. They take space, they age, and every count includes them. They cost you what stock that never moves costs, with the sting that this lot is not even yours to discount.
Your figures now lie in both directions at once. The galla reads richer than the shop is, because it holds a customer's money. The shelf reads poorer, because a paid, promised lot sits in the count. Two errors pointing opposite ways is how a shopkeeper orders the wrong goods with money that was never his.
This is not the same as holding goods for somebody who has not paid. That promise you can walk away from. This one you cannot.
What that corner is really costing
Nobody sees the cost because nothing dramatic happens. Put a number on it and it stops hiding.
Say one paid, uncollected order stands for three weeks
An example, not a real shop. Put your own amounts in and the shape stays the same.
The re-order line catches most shopkeepers. You held ten kilos for Rafiq, the shelf count fell, and you bought more to fill it back up. Two lots of one demand, both paid for, which is how a shop bleeds when the count does not match the shelf.
The space costs you too, even though no landlord bills you for it. And the goods keep ageing while they wait: flour picks up smell, ghee sits in the heat, a fan gathers dust. On anything with a printed date the wait eats the part of the life you were counting on to sell it, which is the whole argument of watching dates in a small shop.
The ten seconds at the counter that prevent all of this
Every uncomfortable thing above is decided the moment he pays. Do not take the money and say "fine, whenever". Say the date out loud.
Say this, in your own words: "Rafiq, that is Rs 9,400, paid in full. I will keep it ready until Saturday. Who is coming, you or the boy? If nobody comes by then, the amount stays yours on your page and I will pick the goods fresh the day you send someone. Agreed?"
Three things just happened. A date. A named person allowed to take the goods. And a stated outcome if the date passes, so nothing has to be argued about later.
Four things to settle while the money is still in his hand
- 1Say the amount and say it is paid in fullOut loud, both of you hearing it, before anything is put in a corner.
- 2Fix a collection date, not "whenever"A day of the week he chooses himself is kept far more often than a date you set for him.
- 3Name the person who may take itHim, his son, the boy with the rickshaw. Half the later arguments are about who already took a bag.
- 4Say what happens if the date passesFor ordinary stock: the amount stays on his page and the goods are picked fresh on the day.
Should you set the goods aside at all
Here is the part most shopkeepers get backwards. For anything you keep in normal stock, physically holding the specific items is the mistake. Hold the money and the promise. Leave the goods on the shelf where they can sell, and pick his items out of stock on the day he comes.
Think about what setting aside does to ordinary stock. You lock away the freshest sack and sell the older ones. Your shelf count drops, so you order more, so you pay twice for one demand. And if the item runs out meanwhile, the sack in the corner cannot serve the customer in front of you, because it has a name on it.
Holding the money does the opposite. The shop keeps selling, nothing is hidden from the count, and the day the rickshaw comes you weigh out ten kilos of whatever is fresh.
Hold the actual goods, or hold only the money?
Worth setting aside physically
- Something ordered in specially, for him and nobody else
- Perishable goods you bought because he asked for them
- The last of a line you are not bringing in again
- Anything with his name, size or measurement on it
Leave it in normal stock
- Ten kilos of the flour you weigh out all day anyway
- A carton of the soap that is on the shelf in three places
- Goods you will re-order twice before he collects
- Anything a customer standing in front of you needs today
Setting real goods aside is right only where the item is not ordinary stock: something ordered specially for him, something perishable bought on his order, or the last of a line you are not restocking. For those the money and the goods travel together from the start, which is why a big special order deserves a proper advance rather than a casual promise.
When it has already been standing for weeks
None of that helps the corner you already have. That one needs a sequence, and the order matters, because doing the last step first is how you lose the customer.
A corner that is already three weeks old
- Day 1Paid in full, collection day agreed out loudRs 9,400 paidPaid
- Week 1Date passed. Short friendly reminder naming the goodsStill standingDue
- Week 2Second reminder, and ask whether he wants it deliveredStill standingDue
- Week 3Clear final date, said as a plan and not as a threatRs 9,400 owedLate
- Week 4Sit with him: keep it, deliver it, or move it to his pageDecide togetherdone
- Week 6No answer at all: record stays open, goods stay hisOpen itemLate
Remind properly first. A proper reminder is short and specific: the goods, the amount, and the fact that they are ready. Not "when are you coming", which invites another "soon".
If two reminders pass, give a clear final date and say what follows it. Not a threat, a plan. "Your things are ready and it has been a month. Can you collect by Sunday? If not, come and see me and we will sort it out another way."
Then have the conversation. The reason is usually dull and human: no rickshaw fare, no space at home, a function that moved. A conversation solves those. Silence does not.
And never sell his goods just because you needed the space. The money is his, and selling first and explaining later turns a small problem into a story told about you in the street. Reach him, agree the next step, then act.
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The three cases that are genuinely hard
None of these has a clean answer. What they share is that deciding them at the counter, before the money changes hands, is the cheap version.
Perishable goods bought for him. A crate of eggs, milk packets, a tray of tomatoes ordered because he asked. They will not survive a two week wait. Say so while he is paying: "This is fresh, so I can hold it three days. After that I will have to sell it, and the money stays with you." Then do that, and tell him the day it happens.
A special order nobody else in your street will buy. The unusual size, the odd colour, the machine part with a number on it. Once it arrives it is not stock, it is that one man's goods. Which is why the honest sentence belongs before you place the order.
The customer who has stopped answering. Do not absorb it quietly and do not sell it quietly. Keep the record open, ask whoever introduced him, and treat it as you would any customer who has gone silent. His money is a debt you owe until he turns up.
If he changes his mind and wants the money back
For ordinary stock, give it back, and give it back pleasantly. The goods return to the shelf, you lose nothing, and you keep a customer who now knows you are safe to pay in advance.
For a special order, be honest early. The line to say before you order is: "I am bringing this in only for you. If you change your mind after it arrives, I cannot send it back to the company. I can keep the amount on your page for anything else in the shop, or sell it on and hand you the money when it goes."
Said before the order, that is a fair deal a customer accepts. Said after he asks for his money back, it sounds like an excuse you invented.
Where a paid, uncollected order should live
A paid, uncollected order needs to exist somewhere as an open item, with four things on it: the amount, the goods, the date he paid, and the date he promised to come. Without those four it lives only on a scrap of carton taped to a sack, and the day that paper falls off, your version of events falls off with it. Then it is your memory against his, the same fight that shows up in a cash box that never matches the khata.
In Wasoolo that open item can sit on the customer's own page as an entry carrying the product lines, quantity and rate, dated the day he paid, so the amount and the goods sit together instead of on a piece of carton. The habit matters more than the tool, though: a shopkeeper with a notebook and a fixed rule beats one with a shelf full of paper names.
Take the money, say the date, name the person, write it down. Then the corner stays empty, the galla holds only what is yours, and the shelf tells you the truth when the supplier's van pulls up.
He paid a month ago and has not collected. Can I sell the goods?
Not before reaching him. Call, send a message, and if he still does not answer, ask whoever introduced him. Once you have reached him and agreed what happens, sell the goods and keep his money on his page.
Is it fair to charge him for keeping his goods so long?
No. Adding anything on top for the delay turns a small favour into a quarrel. The fix is a collection date agreed before you take the money.
Should I count paid, uncollected goods in my stock?
Keep them out of what you can sell, but visible somewhere. Inside the normal count you order to fill a gap that is not real; missing from every record, you forget they belong to somebody.
He paid for ten kilos of flour. Must I keep that exact sack for him?
No, and you should not. Keep his money recorded against his name and weigh out ten kilos the day he sends someone. He gets fresher goods and your shelf keeps working.
What if the item is out of stock the day he finally arrives?
Tell him plainly, give a date, or offer the amount back. Because you took nothing off the shelf, you are short for a day rather than stuck with goods that aged in a corner.
He wants his money back on something I ordered specially for him?
Repeat what you agreed at the counter. If nothing was agreed, offer the amount as credit on his page, or sell the item on when you can. Then say that sentence up front on every special order.