Selling a used item on a qist plan

Price the used item in cash first, then build the plan on that number. Take a bigger down payment than you would on new goods, keep the plan short, and write down every fault before the item leaves your shop. The markup is one figure, set at the start, never touched again.

The fridge nobody can price

Ten in the morning, and Riaz is at your counter with a problem you have seen a hundred times. His fridge died on Tuesday. A new one the size his family needs is Rs 90,000. He has Rs 8,000 in his pocket.

At the back of your shop stands a used fridge from a house that upgraded. It runs cold, it has a dent on the right door and no egg tray, and you could let it go for Rs 35,000. Riaz thinks he can find Rs 4,000 a month.

This is how a great many households buy the big things: not new, but a decent second-hand machine paid off over some months at the shop down the road.

A used item on a plan is not the same trade as a new one. On a new fridge you hand over a sealed box with a company standing behind it. If the compressor fails in month two, the company's man comes. On a used fridge there is no company. There is you.

So there is no printed rate to anchor the price, the value falls faster than the plan runs, the item may not outlive the schedule, and every complaint lands on your counter.

Work out the cash price before you say the word qist

The commonest mistake on second-hand goods is starting from the monthly figure. Riaz says Rs 4,000 a month, you say eight months, and a price of Rs 32,000 has been invented with nothing underneath it.

Build the cash price first, from four lines you can defend. What the item cost you. What you spent making it work: gas, a seal, the labour to clean it. What a comparable one sells for in cash in your area. And what you need to earn to make holding it worth the space.

Then say the cash price out loud, before any plan is discussed. "This one is Rs 35,000 if you pay cash." Everything after that has a floor under it. Setting a rate is hard enough on new stock, where the printed price does half the job. On used goods there is no printed price, so those four lines are your whole defence.

If he will not accept the cash price, stop there. A plan cannot rescue a price he believes is wrong; it only hides the argument until month five.

The one-time markup, and how to explain it

The installment price is higher than the cash price. That is normal, honest qist trade, as long as it is one number, decided once, at the start, and never touched again.

It is not a rate and it does not grow. It has nothing to do with whether a payment reaches you on the 5th or the 15th. Set it when the plan is made, write it into the total, and that total stands for the life of the plan.

On a used item, think about what the markup pays for. Your Rs 35,000 sits in somebody else's kitchen for eight months instead of buying stock. You carry the risk that the machine needs attention. And if the plan collapses in month four, you cannot resell a half-paid used fridge the way a company takes back and refurbishes a new one.

Say it in one sentence. "Cash it is Rs 35,000. On a plan it is Rs 39,000, because I wait eight months for my money and I stand behind a used machine." Every shopkeeper on his street works the same way.

Never add anything on top later because a payment came late. No late fee, no penalty of any kind: a charge for lateness turns a money problem into a bigger money problem, and a man who could have found Rs 4,000 in a week starts avoiding your shop. When a payment is missed, the answer is a conversation.

Say you sell a used fridge on eight installments

What the fridge cost you from the house that sold itRs 26,000

Gas refill, a new door seal, and a boy to clean itRs 3,000

Cash price you settled on, before any plan was discussedRs 35,000

One-time markup, added once when the plan is madeRs 4,000

Installment price, fixed from this day and never changedRs 39,000

Down payment taken before the fridge left the shopRs 10,000

Left on the plan, spread over eight monthsRs 29,000

Each installment, the same figure every monthRs 3,625

In hand by the end of month four: down payment plus fourRs 24,500

Still sitting in somebody's kitchen in month fourRs 14,500

Made-up figures, chosen to show the shape. Put your own item through the same lines and the answer comes out in five minutes.

Read the last line of that sum twice. Even running exactly as agreed, most of your money is still out in month four. That figure tells you how many used plans you can carry at once.

Write the condition down before it leaves

This is the real difference between a new plan and a used one, and it takes four minutes.

Before the fridge goes on the cart, both of you stand in front of it and make a list. The dent on the right door. The missing egg tray. The scratch on the top panel. The compressor was changed two years ago. It cools well. The light inside does not work. Read it out and let him add anything you missed. Then photograph it, faults included, with him standing there.

That is not distrust if you do it openly. It removes the sentence "it was already broken when you gave it to me" from month two, before anybody can say it.

Write this down before a used item leaves your shop

• The item, its age, and where it came from
• Every fault you can see: the dent, the scratch, the missing part
• What works and what does not, read out in his hearing
• Four or five photographs, the faults included, taken in the shop
• The cash price and the installment price, as two separate numbers
• The check period in days, and exactly what it covers
• The date, both signatures, and a copy or a photo for him

Now the promise. A short, exact check period beats a warm sentence every time. "Seven days. If the cooling fails inside seven days, bring it back and I repair it or return your down payment." That is a promise you can keep. "Don't worry, I will look after you" is one you cannot, because you never said for how long or for what. If you cannot stand behind the compressor, say so plainly, in front of the list.

A bigger down payment is your real protection

Everything else here helps. The down payment decides.

A customer with real money inside the item finishes the plan. In month six he is not paying out of goodwill; he is protecting the Rs 10,000 he already put in. Take too little at the start and you have given away a machine and kept a promise.

On new goods a fifth of the price down is often enough. On used goods take more: a quarter to a third is fair, and on anything electrical that has already lived one life, a third is not greedy.

The value also drops fastest early in the plan. Take Rs 10,000 down on a Rs 35,000 fridge and what he still owes stays close to what the machine would fetch if it came back. Take Rs 3,000 down and you are behind by month two, which is exactly when plans fail.

If he cannot manage it today, that is information, not a refusal. Holding the item against an advance works on used goods too: keep it aside three weeks while he brings Rs 3,000 a week. If that is truly his limit, ask for a guarantor rather than shrinking the down payment.

Keep the plan shorter than the item's life

A used fridge with a few good years left does not belong on a two-year plan.

Stretch a used item too far and you invite the worst version of this trade. Month nineteen arrives, the machine has stopped, and he is still paying you for it. Nobody wins that argument, and he feels cheated even when he is not.

The same qist plan, on a new item and on a used one

A new itemA used item

Who stands behind itA new itemThe company, with a card in the boxA used itemYou, and nobody else

Where the price startsA new itemA printed rate the whole street knowsA used itemA cash price you have to build yourself

Down payment worth takingA new itemA fifth of the price is often enoughA used itemA quarter to a third, and never less

Safe length of planA new itemTwelve to eighteen months is normalA used itemSix to ten months, twelve at the outside

What the page must carryA new itemModel, price, down payment, scheduleA used itemAll of that plus faults, photographs and a check period

If it fails halfway throughA new itemThe company's man comes and repairs itA used itemIt lands at your counter, and the answer must be yours

If the plan collapsesA new itemIt can be sold again as a returned pieceA used itemA half-paid machine comes back older and worth less

The plain rule: the plan should end well before the item is likely to need serious repair. Six to ten months on a used appliance, twelve at the outside on something big and solid. If the monthly figure will not fit into that many months, he needs a cheaper item, not a longer plan.

Short plans also protect the thing you have least of. Eight months at Rs 3,625 brings your Rs 35,000 back inside the same year. Twenty-four small installments mean one fridge has eaten your buying money for two years.

When it stops working in month three

Half past seven in the evening, and Riaz is at your counter again. He is not smiling. The fridge stopped cooling on Sunday. He has paid three installments, Rs 18,125 is still to come, and he wants to know what you are going to do.

This is the hardest conversation in the trade.

First, do not argue about the plan. The plan is not the problem, the machine is. Get the list and the photographs out, look at them together, then go and see the fridge yourself.

Then put real options in front of him, out loud. Repair it at your cost and pause the plan for a month. Repair it at half cost and take the rest at the end. Swap it for another used one and adjust what remains. Or, if the machine is finished, stop the plan, count what he paid against the months he used it, and put the balance towards something else.

None of these is written in any law. All of them keep a customer.

What you must not do is threaten. No shouting, no talk of sending anybody to his house, nothing added for the trouble. A threat turns a man with a dead fridge into a man who will never pay and will tell the street why.

Handle it well and Riaz tells his cousin, the cousin brings his brother-in-law, and the next five plans on that street start at your counter.

Put the plan somewhere both of you can see it

A used-item plan carries more than a new one, so it needs a proper page.

That page holds the cash price and the installment price as two separate numbers, the markup between them, the down payment with its date, what is due and when, the condition list, the photographs, the check period, and the guarantor if there is one. A ruled page in a register, signed by both of you, does the whole job.

A qist khata in Wasoolo holds the same page: cash price, one-time markup, down payment and the full schedule, so the total he agreed to is fixed and visible to both sides from the first day. Photographs of the item's condition and a guarantor's details sit on the same plan. There is a separate customer-side app, so Riaz can open his own login and see the identical schedule, which ends most arguments that begin with "I thought it was seven months". Nothing in that plan ever charges a man for being late, and nothing should.

Register or app, the test is the same. A year from now, can the two of you read the same numbers off the same page and agree? Build the plan carefully at the start and you rarely have to find out.

Common questions

How much should I add on top for a used item on a plan?

There is no fixed figure, because you are pricing your own risk. Weigh how long your money is tied up, how likely the item is to need repair, and what you lose if the plan stops halfway. Turn that into one flat amount, add it at the start, and never revisit it.

Should I give any guarantee on a second-hand item?

Give a short, exact one instead of a vague one. Seven days on cooling, thirty days on the motor, nothing on the paint. A small promise you will honour is worth far more than a large one you will argue about later. Write it beside the price.

How much down payment is right on used goods?

Aim for a quarter to a third of the cash price, more than you would take on a new item. A customer with real money inside the item finishes the plan, and a big first payment keeps what he owes below what the item is worth.

The item broke in month three. Do I still collect the rest?

Not as though nothing happened. Look at the condition list, see the machine yourself, and offer real choices: repair at your cost with the plan paused, repair at half cost, a swap for another piece, or stopping the plan and settling fairly for the months he used it. Then write the new figures down.

What if he stops paying and refuses to return the item?

Go and talk before anything else, because most stopped plans are a cash problem rather than a decision. Offer a smaller installment over more months instead of nothing at all. If there is a guarantor, this is what he is for.

Is a used-item plan even worth the trouble?

For most shops, yes, as long as the price and the paperwork are right. It sells items that would otherwise sit at the back, and it serves customers who cannot reach the new price.