The stock your supplier sent that you never ordered

Refuse it at the van, before anything is carried inside. Once the cartons are in your shop the bill is yours and the argument is over. Count against your own order slip while the driver is still standing there, send the extra back on the same vehicle, and get his signature on the line that says four went back.

The van that brought more than you asked for

You ordered six cartons. The van arrives, the boy starts unloading, and somewhere around the seventh you look up. There are ten. The bill in his hand already says ten.

He has an explanation ready, and it is always reasonable. The company is running a scheme. The seth sent extra because it will sell. The other size was finished so he brought this one instead.

You are in the middle of serving customers, the van is blocking the street, and the driver has three more stops. Every part of the moment is designed to make you say "leave it, we will sort it out".

That sentence costs more shopkeepers more money than almost anything else in their week, and it costs it quietly, because nothing goes wrong today. It goes wrong in six weeks when the stock has not moved and the payment is due.

Why it happens

It is worth knowing which of these you are dealing with, because the same firm answer works for all of them but the follow-up is different.

The commonest reason is a target. The salesman has a number to hit and your shop is a place to park the difference. He is not stealing from you. He is hoping you will sell it and never mention it, and most of the time that is exactly what happens.

The second is a genuine mistake. Two shops with similar names, an order taken by phone in a noisy room, a written slip nobody read back. These are real, they happen, and they are usually fixed without any argument at all if you catch them at the van.

The third is a slow habit. A supplier adds one or two extra units to every delivery for months, small enough that nobody bothers, and by the end of the year you have paid for a great deal of stock you never chose. This one is invisible unless you check each delivery against what you ordered.

The only moment when you have any power

Everything about this problem lives in one short window: the goods are on the vehicle, the driver is present, and nothing has been carried inside yet.

While that is true, sending goods back costs nobody anything. The van is going that way anyway. The bill can be corrected on the spot. The driver would rather take four cartons back than have an angry call in the evening.

The moment those cartons touch your floor, all of that reverses. Now returning them means arranging transport, catching the same driver on another day, and asking a supplier to reverse a bill he has already entered in his own books. You will be told to adjust it against your next order, and the adjustment will be forgotten by everyone except you.

So the rule is short. Nothing goes inside until it has been counted against the order. Shops that skip this step are also the shops where quantities never quite match later, which is one of the causes traced in when stock goes missing and nobody knows how.

What to say at the door

You do not need to be rude, and being rude usually costs you the supplier without getting the cartons off the bill.

At the van, before anything is carried inside

✓Say this

• I ordered six, the bill says ten. Take four back on the same van.
• Take four off the bill and I will pay the rest right now.
• I will keep them only if they go on a separate bill with a return date.
• Sign here that four cartons went back with you.

✕Not this

• Leave them, we will settle it next time.
• Fine, put them inside and I will call your seth later.
• Just adjust it against my old bill somehow.
• I am busy right now, unload everything.

Look at what the good column has in common. Every line is short, none of them argues about who is at fault, and every one of them ends with a specific action: take four back, cut the bill, sign here.

The last one matters more than it looks. A driver who takes goods away without writing anything has taken away your only proof. Get him to write "4 cartons returned" and the date on your copy of the bill, and put his name under it. Nobody refuses that, because it protects him too.

And keep the tone easy. This is not a fight, it is arithmetic. "I ordered six" is not an accusation, and a supplier who is treated that way about a genuine mistake will be more careful with you afterwards rather than less.

What the extra stock actually costs

If you find yourself thinking that four extra cartons are not worth an argument, put a number on it once.

Say four extra cartons at Rs 2,400 each arrive uninvited

Added to the bill you did not ask forRs 9,600

Cash you had set aside for another supplierRs 9,600

Weeks that stock will take to sell at your normal rateAbout 14 weeks

What you had to leave out of the next orderFast-selling goods

Real cost of saying "leave it"Rs 9,600 stuck for months

An example with made-up figures, not a claim about your shop. The point is that the loss is never the carton, it is the cash the carton locks up.

The carton is not the loss. The cash is. Rs 9,600 that you did not plan to spend has left your galla and turned into goods that will drip back to you over months, and that same Rs 9,600 was meant for something else: a supplier who gives you a discount for paying on delivery, or the fast-selling line that empties every week.

That is the connection most shopkeepers miss. Accepting stock you did not order does not just add stock, it quietly removes your ability to buy what you actually need, which is the same squeeze described in buying stock on credit without choking your cash.

And if the goods are slow, they do not stay neutral. They become the shelf nobody looks at, the items that get damaged, and eventually the pile discussed in the stock that never sells.

When you decide to keep it anyway

Sometimes keeping it is the right call. The item is genuinely good, the rate is genuinely better, or refusing would damage a relationship you need more than you need the cash.

If you keep it, keep it on your terms, and say the terms out loud while the driver is there.

Put the extra on a separate bill with its own date, so the payment for what you ordered is not tangled up with the payment for what you did not. Ask for a return date, meaning a day by which you may send back whatever has not sold. Many suppliers agree to this readily for their own extra stock, because they know they pushed it.

And write the whole arrangement on your copy of the bill. Not in a message, not in your memory. One line: extra four cartons, separate bill, returnable until a stated date, agreed with a named person.

If none of those terms are available, that tells you what the extra cartons really are, and you should send them back.

The order record that ends this permanently

There is one habit that stops all of this, and it takes about twenty seconds per order.

Write your order down before you place it, even when you place it by phone. Item, size, quantity, agreed rate. Keep it where you will have it in your hand when the van arrives. That is the entire system.

A shopkeeper holding his own order slip is a completely different person at the van door. He is not arguing from memory against a printed bill, he is reading two documents side by side, and the conversation lasts thirty seconds instead of ten minutes.

Keeping those orders on your phone makes the yearly pattern visible too, because you can look back and see that one supplier has sent extra on nine deliveries out of twelve. That is a conversation worth having with him, and it is also how you decide whether he stays your main supplier, which is the choice worked through in one supplier or several. Wasoolo keeps each purchase with its date, rate and quantity against the supplier's own account, so the comparison is a screen rather than a search through old slips.

Common questions

The cartons are already inside and the driver has gone. What can I still do?

Call the supplier the same day, before the goods are opened or shelved, because a call on the day of delivery is treated very differently from one a week later. Say clearly what you ordered and what arrived, and ask for the bill to be corrected and the extra collected on the next visit. Keep the cartons sealed and separate so there is no question about their condition when the van comes.

My supplier says it is a company scheme and cannot be returned. Is that true?

Sometimes it genuinely is, and it still does not oblige you to pay for it. Ask for the scheme terms in writing or on the bill, and if the extra is part of a scheme, ask what the scheme gives you in return, whether that is a lower rate or a free unit. A scheme that only adds quantity to your bill is not a scheme, it is a sale you did not agree to.

I do not want to fight with a supplier I have used for years. Is it worth it?

Refusing four cartons is not a fight, and a supplier of many years will treat one clear correction as normal business. What actually damages a long relationship is silent resentment: you accept the extra, you pay late because the cash went into it, and he decides you are unreliable. Say it plainly on the day and the relationship survives easily.

He offers to adjust the extra against my next order instead. Should I accept?

Only with a date and a written note on the bill, because an adjustment that lives in a conversation is an adjustment that disappears. Write what is owed to you, on which bill, and when it will be applied. If he will not write it, ask for the goods to go back instead.

What if the extra stock is something that sells well anyway?

Then the question is not the item, it is the timing and the cash. Ask yourself whether you would have bought it on that day if he had asked first, and if the answer is no, the money is still coming out of an order you needed. Keep it if you genuinely want it, on a separate bill, and treat it as your decision rather than his.

How do I make the counting quick when the shop is full of customers?

Keep the order slip in one fixed place near the door so you are never searching for it, and count cartons at the vehicle rather than items on the shelf. Counting outer packs takes under a minute for most deliveries. If you truly cannot stop, tell the driver to wait or to come back, which is a normal thing to say and much cheaper than accepting a bill you have not checked.