When the down payment is an old item

He wants the qist plan and he has no cash for the first amount. What he has is his old fan. Take it, but not at his price: value it at what you can actually sell it for, minus repair and the weeks it will sit. Then write its condition down the day it changes hands.

Why that first amount is in the plan at all

It does two quiet jobs.

The first is that it puts something of his into the deal. A man who handed over Rs 3,000 before he carried the fan out has a reason to keep the plan alive. A man who paid nothing comes back only while he still wants the thing. That shows in month six, when his money is short and he is choosing whom to pay and whom to put off.

The second is a cushion. If the plan breaks halfway the item comes back used, and used is worth far less than new. The first amount is the part of that fall you already collected.

Goods weaken both at once. He parted with something he had stopped using anyway, not with money he needed. And your cushion is no longer cash in the galla: it is a second-hand fan at a value nobody but you has agreed, on a plan that has not been paid a rupee. The rest of the plan is built as it always was; only its first row is a number you invented. So price that item like a purchase, because that is what it is.

Three prices, and only one of them is yours

Every used item has three prices behind it, and they are never the same.

What he thinks it is worth. What he paid, minus a little for age. He remembers the receipt, not that the model has been replaced twice since.

What you can actually sell it for. The only real number, and your street sets it, not the item.

What it costs you to get there. Repair, cleaning, the corner it stands in, and the weeks your money sits locked inside it instead of inside stock that moves.

The second minus the third is the real first amount.

Ten past four on a Thursday afternoon. Waseem walked into Nadeem's shop wanting a ceiling fan. Cash price Rs 9,000; on a plan Rs 10,200, because Nadeem adds Rs 1,200 of his own profit once, on the day the plan is written, and never touches it again. He asks Rs 3,000 at the front. Waseem had Rs 300 and the fan off his own ceiling: "I bought this one for Rs 6,500."

Nadeem knows what that make sells for used in his street: Rs 2,200 on a good day, after Rs 350 of winding and a capacitor, and to move it inside six weeks he will let it go at Rs 2,000.

Say Waseem's old fan, counted the way a seller has to count it

Cash price of the new fan on the shelfRs 9,000

Nadeem's one-time profit, added the day the plan is writtenRs 1,200

So the qist price Waseem agrees toRs 10,200

What Waseem says his old fan is worthRs 3,000

What a used fan of that make sells for in this streetRs 2,200

Winding and a capacitor before it can be shownRs 350

What he drops to move it inside six weeksRs 200

The real first amount that old fan is worthRs 1,650

An example, never a claim about a real shop or a real customer. The three lines Waseem never sees are the repair, the wait and the drop, and together they are Rs 1,350 of the Rs 3,000 he asked for.

Rs 1,650. Not an insult: that is what the fan is worth to the man who has to sell it.

Saying it without arguing about his fan

Here is the trap. You say "this is not worth Rs 3,000", and now you are arguing about his fan. He has lived under it for four years, so whatever you say about that fan, he hears something about his house.

Never price the item. Price your own selling of it.

"I am not telling you what your fan is worth. I am telling you what I can get for it. In this street, cleaned and running, Rs 2,200, and it takes me a month or two to find that man. Repair is Rs 350. So Rs 1,650 goes on your plan."

Every number in that is about your street and your weeks, not about him.

Then hand him the door out. Most shopkeepers skip this.

"If you can get Rs 3,000 for it yourself, sell it yourself and bring me the cash. That is better for you than anything I can offer, and I will hold your new one for a week while you try."

He goes out, finds the street pays Rs 2,200, and comes back with your figure in his own mouth. Or he says keep it, because he does not want the trouble. Either way you never ran his fan down.

The sentences that close a trade, and the ones that start a fight

✓Say it like this

• I am not telling you what your fan is worth. I am telling you what I can get for it.
• Rs 2,200 in this street, less Rs 350 of repair, so Rs 1,650 goes on your plan today.
• If you can get Rs 3,000 for it yourself, sell it yourself and bring me the cash.
• I will hold your new one for a week while you try to sell the old one.
• The price on the plan is the same either way. Less at the front just means a bigger monthly.

✕Never like this

• That thing is old, it is worth nothing to anybody now.
• Fine, Rs 3,000, and I will just put a little more on the plan for you.
• Bring it in and we will decide the value later, once I see whether it sells.
• I am doing you a favour by taking this off your hands at all.
• Give me the motorcycle now, we will sort the papers out afterwards.

Change the plan, not the price of the old thing

His figure is Rs 3,000, yours is Rs 1,650, and that gap of Rs 1,350 is where these deals die. The mistake is to close it by lifting your own number. Buy an item above what you can sell it for and the loss is already booked.

Move the plan instead. Three honest ways, and all three keep the fan at Rs 1,650.

A small cash top-up. He brings Rs 1,350 and the front of the plan is the Rs 3,000 you wanted. Ask for this first. A man who can find Rs 1,350 in three days is a different customer from one who cannot. Same test as asking for an advance before you order a big item.

A shorter plan at a bigger instalment. The financed part is Rs 10,200 less Rs 1,650, so Rs 8,550. Keep nine months and the instalment moves from Rs 800 to Rs 950. He gave less at the front, so he clears faster.

One instalment brought forward. He pays Rs 950 today on top of the fan, so Rs 2,600 lands on day one and eight rows of Rs 950 follow. The total does not move.

What never moves is the Rs 1,200 Nadeem added when the plan was written. It is one-time profit, set on the day, part of the qist price he quoted. It does not grow because the first amount came as goods, nor because a row arrived behind its date. You re-date that row; the fan's price stays where it was.

The four things you hand straight back

Four items are a loss wearing a friendly face.

Before you agree a value, all five of these have to be true

• Somebody who walks into YOUR shop would buy this thing
• You can judge its condition by looking, or you had it opened first
• Its ownership is something you can actually check, papers and all
• He can still earn his living after he hands it over
• You have already said out loud what happens if it has not sold in a month

Anything you cannot sell in your own street. Half past seven on a Saturday evening, Zahid stood a sewing machine on Iqbal's counter against a plan for a fridge. Iqbal sells fridges, coolers and fans, and in twenty years nobody has walked in asking for a sewing machine. He took it at Rs 2,800 anyway, because the fridge was a Rs 40,000 sale. Fourteen weeks it stood under a cloth, until a man from the next street took it at Rs 1,900. Rs 900 gone, plus a corner he needed.

Anything whose condition you cannot judge. You can look at a fan and know. You cannot look at a phone and know what its battery has left, or at a motor and see its winding. When the truth is inside the item you are gambling, not valuing. Get it opened by somebody who knows, or value it so low that being wrong costs nothing.

Anything whose papers you cannot check. A motorcycle with no file. A phone with no box, no bill and a story about a cousin. The man it truly belongs to may walk in one day, and then the item, the money and your good name go together.

Anything worth more in his hands than in yours. He offers the cycle he rides to work on, or the machine he earns with. Take it and you have taken the income that was going to pay your nine instalments.

What goes on paper the minute it changes hands

The trade takes two minutes. The argument arrives two months later, when two memories have walked in different directions. Write it at the counter while he stands there.

• The item, named properly. Not "old fan". Make, size, colour, and any number printed on it.
• Its condition, in plain words. "Runs. Body dented on the left. Slowest speed sticks. No regulator." Write the faults, not the good parts. The faults are what gets disputed.
• The value you both agreed, in rupees, and that it stands as the first amount on the plan.
• The date, and who is holding it.

Then a photo on your own phone, right there. One of the whole item, one of whatever is broken.

That condition line does more work than it looks. Two months in, a plan goes wrong, he comes for the fan, and the sentence that always arrives is "it was running perfectly when I gave it to you." With one written line and one photo that lasts ten seconds. Without them it lasts a week and costs you the customer too.

It is stock now, and stock has a clock on it

The moment you accept the fan it stops being part of a plan and becomes a thing you have to sell.

Do not put it behind the counter. An item under a cloth never sells, because nobody sees it. Put it where a customer's eye lands, with a rate on it and the word "used" said plainly.

Price it off your own cost, then check that against the street. You are in it for Rs 1,650 plus Rs 350 of repair, so Rs 2,000, against a street price of Rs 2,200. That thin window is why you valued the fan low. Never list a used item at a new one's price minus a little: that is a rate set backwards.

Give it a date before you own it. Decide at the counter what happens if it has not sold in a month. Drop the rate once and properly, to Rs 1,900, not by Rs 50 at a time. Or take it to the second-hand dealer in your market at his figure. Doing nothing is how dead stock begins.

The trade is finished only when the fan turns back into cash. Until then you have lent against a first amount, not collected one.

Keeping the plan and the traded item on one record

Both halves belong in one place: the plan he owes, and the item you hold.

In Wasoolo a qist plan carries its down payment as its own amount, and that amount lands in the account you pick. When the first amount arrived as goods, that choice is worth two seconds of thought, because your cash box did not actually grow. The plan's instalment rows carry their own dates, and changing one row re-divides the rows below it, so a plan re-shaped at the counter still adds up to the same total.

The one-time profit you add when the plan is made posts as its own entry on the khata, named as installment profit, so what you earn sits on the page instead of hiding inside the price. A guarantor attaches to the khata the plan sits on, not to one row, so one name covers the whole plan. And the old fan can go into stock as a product with its own buy rate and a photo, so the day you set a rate for it, what you really paid is in front of you. Wasoolo is 100% free to download.

Common questions

He says his fan is worth Rs 3,000 and I say Rs 1,650. Who decides?

Neither of you, by arguing. The street decides. Tell him what you can sell it for and what the repair costs, then offer to hold his new item for a week while he tries his own figure.

Should an old item cover the whole first amount, or only part of it?

Part is safer. An item is only ever worth what it sells for, so if that lands under what you wanted, ask for a cash top-up or shorten the plan. Even Rs 1,000 on the day tells you something.

What if the item never sells and I am stuck with it?

Decide the way out before you accept it: a date one month ahead, a lower rate, and a dealer you will offer it to after that. What you agreed is not a real first amount until it turns back into cash.

Can I add something to the price because he paid me in goods?

Your qist price already carries the one-time profit you add on the day the plan is written, and that is the only addition there is. It is set once and never touched again. If his item falls short, change the plan.

He wants to give me a motorcycle with no file, and it is worth a lot.

Hand it back, however good the deal looks. An item whose ownership you cannot check may be one you cannot sell, and the man it truly belongs to can still walk in.

The plan broke and now he wants his old item back. Must I return it?

You bought it. It was the first amount, and it paid for the part of the deal he has already had. Say on the day of the trade that the item is sold to you, not held for him.

Got a case like this in your own shop? Send us a message with the numbers and we will work it through.