Take an advance before you order it

Ask for a part of the money before you order the goods. A special order takes your cash out of the shop weeks before it earns anything, and if the customer changes his mind you are left holding an item nobody else wanted. A written advance turns a wish into an order.

What a special order really costs you before it sells

A customer wants a washing machine you do not stock. A colour of tile you do not keep. Forty chairs for a wedding. He is sure, he is a regular, and you say yes.

Look at what that yes does. You pay the supplier now, or you commit to paying him. The item takes up money and floor space for a week or three. And it is not general stock: nobody walking in tomorrow was going to buy that exact machine in that exact colour, which is the whole reason you had to order it.

So the risk is not that the item is expensive. It is that the item is his. If he comes back, the deal is fine and you earn what you planned. If he goes quiet, you have paid full price for something that now has to be sold to whoever eventually turns up, usually at a discount, sometimes months later. That is the fastest way an ordinary shop grows stock that will not sell.

An advance fixes exactly this. It is not about doubting him. It is about making sure the money at risk is shared, so that "I changed my mind" costs both of you something instead of only you.

How much to ask for, and how to say it

Say a customer orders a Rs 62,000 machine you do not stock

What you pay the company for itRs 55,000

Advance taken while writing the orderRs 20,000

Your own money standing in it until he collectsRs 35,000

If he never returns and you resell it at a discountRs 6,000 lost

Balance he pays on the day he takes it awayRs 42,000

The numbers are only an example. Work out your own third row before you fix the advance, because that row is exactly what you are risking.

Start from your own exposure, not from a percentage somebody told you.

The useful question is simple: if he never comes back, how much of this do I lose? Ask for at least that much. For an item you could resell easily at full price, a small advance is enough, because your loss is only time. For something made to order, cut to size, printed with a name, or in a colour nobody else asks for, the advance should cover most of what you have paid, because there is no second buyer.

That gives you three honest bands. Ordinary goods you stock anyway: a token amount, enough to make the order real. Goods you must order in but can resell: around a third to half. Made to order, custom size, custom colour, or perishable: as close to full as the customer will accept, and say why.

Saying it is easier than shopkeepers expect, because the reason is not personal. "I have to pay the company for this today, so I will take Rs 15,000 now and the rest when it arrives." That is a fact about how your supply works. Nobody argues with it. What people do argue with is a percentage produced out of thin air with no explanation behind it.

And ask at the right moment: while you are writing the order, not after you have already promised to place it. Once the words "I will get it for you" are out, asking for money feels like a change of terms.

An advance is a promise, not profit

Here is the mistake that turns a good habit into a bad month. The advance arrives, the drawer feels healthy, and it gets spent on the week's ordinary buying. Then the item lands, the supplier wants his balance, and the money is gone.

Treat an advance as somebody else's money that you are holding. It is not this week's income and it is not your earnings on the deal. Your earnings appear only when the item is handed over and the account is settled.

The practical version of this is boring and it works: the advance goes straight to the supplier, or into the account you buy from, and never into the till you spend from. In a khata app like Wasoolo, put the advance on the customer's own account as money received against his order, so his balance shows what is still due and your cash record still shows where the money went. On paper, the same discipline needs one line in the order book and one in the cash book.

Do this and two things stop happening. You never spend the same rupee twice, and you never find yourself asking a customer for the balance while quietly hoping he does not ask for a receipt for the first part.

Write the order like a small agreement

Six lines that make an order an order

1. 1The item, in detail neither of you can argue withBrand, size, colour, model, quantity.
2. 2The full price you have both agreedAnd how many days you can hold that price for.
3. 3The advance received, with today's dateWritten the moment the money is handed over.
4. 4The balance still dueOne number, so nobody has to do arithmetic later.
5. 5The date you expect it to arriveAn honest date beats a hopeful one every time.
6. 6What happens if he does not take itThe line everybody skips, and the only one that matters on a bad day.

An order that lives only in a conversation is not an order. Six things on a slip, and almost every argument disappears before it starts.

The item, in enough detail that neither of you can be wrong about it: brand, size, colour, model, quantity. The full price. The advance taken, with the date. The balance due. The date you expect it to arrive. And what happens if he does not take it. That last line is the one everybody skips, and it is the only one that matters on a bad day.

Write it in front of him and give him a copy. If your record is in an app, the order sits on his account and the copy is a message or a printed slip with your shop's name on it. If it is on paper, use a duplicate book. A customer holding a copy is a customer who remembers the date, which is most of the problem solved.

Keep the language plain and human. This is not a court document. "Grey 8kg machine, Rs 62,000 total, Rs 20,000 received today, balance Rs 42,000 on delivery, expected in 8 days. If not collected within 15 days, the advance covers our cost of holding it." That is a whole agreement, and it took a minute.

When he never comes back for it

Some orders die. Plan for it once, calmly, and you will never have to improvise while angry.

Call in the first week, not the third. A cheerful call the day the goods land does more than any clause you can write: "It has arrived, when are you coming?" Most disappearances are not decisions, they are a person who is short of money this week and embarrassed to say so, and that call gives him a way to talk to you.

If he genuinely cannot take it, offer the exit you already wrote on the slip. Common and fair: hold the item for a stated period, let him take something else of the same value, or return part of the advance and keep the part that covers your real cost of ordering and holding it. Say which one applies before the argument, not during it.

What you should not do is keep the whole advance without a word, on a large amount, when the item is easy to resell. It feels justified in the moment and it costs you the customer, his family and everyone he tells. Keep what your loss actually was, hand back the rest, and say so plainly.

For an order that is very large relative to what the customer normally spends, the advance is not always enough on its own. That is a case where asking for a guarantor alongside the advance is reasonable, as long as you do it at the start and say why.

When the balance becomes a qist plan

Very often the customer can pay the advance and not the balance. That is not a refusal, it is a plan waiting to be written.

The advance becomes the down payment, and the rest is split into dated parts. Nothing about your risk changes: you already hold his money, he already has a reason to come back, and now the balance has dates on it instead of a hope.

Two rules keep this clean. The item is handed over on the terms you decided in advance, and both of you know which terms those are: some shops give the goods at the down payment, some at a certain point in the schedule, and either is fine as long as it is said at the start. And if the instalment price is higher than the cash price, that difference is a one-time profit you set when the plan is made, said out loud and written on the slip. It is not interest and it never grows because a payment came late. A qist plan built the fair way starts exactly here, with a real advance and dates a working man can actually meet.

If you are not sure whether a big item should go out on plain credit or as a proper plan with parts, that decision has its own answer and it is worth making before the customer asks.

When not to ask for an advance at all

When the advance protects you, and when it just annoys people

✓Ask for a real advance

• Made to order, cut to size, or printed with a name
• A colour or model nobody else in your area asks for
• A large amount against what this customer usually spends
• A first-time buyer with no history at your shop
• Anything you must pay the company for before it ships

✕A written order is enough

• Small orders of goods you stock and sell every week
• An item you could sell to the next person at full price
• A regular whose monthly spend dwarfs the order
• Amounts so small the asking costs more than the risk

There are honest cases where asking costs you more than it protects.

Small orders of things you sell anyway. If it will move within a week regardless, taking money in front for a Rs 900 item makes you look like a shop that does not trust its own customers, and it saves you almost nothing.

A long-standing customer, on an item you can resell, where the amount is small against what he spends with you every month. The relationship is the security. Use judgement rather than a rule, and keep the written order even when you skip the money.

And any situation where the customer is right to be nervous about you: a first-time buyer, a big amount, no shop history between you. There, the fair move is a smaller advance plus a clear written date, so the trust is built in both directions. Once he has taken one order from you and it went well, the second one is easy.

The rule that survives all of these: always write the order, even when you take nothing. The paper is free, and it is the part that prevents the argument.

Common questions

What if the customer refuses to give any advance?

Then order only what you can comfortably sell to somebody else, or tell him honestly that this one has to be paid in front because it is made to his size. A refusal on a custom item is useful information: it usually means he is not certain yet, and it is far better to learn that before you have paid the supplier.

Is a token advance of Rs 500 on a Rs 50,000 order worth taking?

Yes, but not as protection. A small amount makes the order real in his mind and gets both of you writing down the details, which is most of its value. Just do not confuse it with cover: if he vanishes, Rs 500 does not pay for a Rs 50,000 machine sitting in your store room.

Should I give a receipt for the advance?

Always, even to a relative, and especially to a relative. Two lines with the date, the amount and what it is for. It protects him as much as you, and the shop that hands one over without being asked is the shop people come back to for the next big item.

The supplier's price went up between the order and the delivery. Who pays?

Whoever the slip says, which is why the slip should say. The fair habit is to quote a price you can hold for a stated number of days, and beyond that agree in advance that the price is the one on the day it arrives. Deciding after the goods land turns a normal cost into a fight.

Can I keep the whole advance if he cancels?

Keep what it actually cost you: the supplier's charge you cannot recover, delivery, the price you have to drop it to now. On a made-to-order item that can be everything. On something you will sell next week to somebody else, keeping the lot is not defensible, and the story travels much further than the amount.

How long should I hold an ordered item before I sell it to someone else?

Whatever you wrote on the slip, and say it out loud when you take the money. Fifteen days is common and fair for ordinary goods. Then call once before you sell it on, because a single call has rescued more orders than any deadline ever has.