The rate you quote on the phone, and then regret

A rate you give on the phone is a promise, and he will hold you to it. So never name a number you have not just looked at. When you do name one, say three things together: the rate, the quantity it covers, and how long it holds. Then write it down.

The four things you did not know when you said the number

The phone rings at the worst hour. Two people are waiting at the counter, the drawer is open, and a voice you half recognise asks, "What is your rate for this?" You say a number, because saying nothing feels rude.

Look at what you did not know when you said it.

You did not know the quantity. A rate for one piece and a rate for twenty are two different rates, and he never said which he wanted.

You did not know the exact item. Three sizes sit on your shelf and two brands, and the one in his head may not be the one in yours.

You did not know whether it was cash or udhaar, the credit you give. A number that earns you something in cash earns less sitting in a khata for six weeks.

And you did not know your own cost. A delivery may have landed at a higher buying rate while you were busy, and your memory belongs to the delivery before it.

Four unknowns, one number. That is not a rate. That is a guess in a rate's clothing.

The picture in your head, the picture in his

At the counter you are not really quoting. You are looking. The goods are between you, he points at the one he means, you read the size off the box, and you can tell in three seconds whether this is one piece or a month's supply for a workshop. The number comes out of what you can see.

On the phone none of that is there. You are pricing a picture in your own head, and he is holding you to a picture in his. The two pictures agree until he arrives, and then they do not.

That is why the same call goes wrong the same way every time. You meant the small size, he meant the large one. You meant the shelf rate for one, he heard the rate for twenty. If you keep two rates for one item, a phone call is where the wrong one escapes.

The same question, asked at the counter and asked on the phone

At the counterOn the phone

Which item he meansAt the counterHe points at it. You read the size off the box.On the phoneOne name that fits three sizes on your shelf.

How much he is takingAt the counterYou see the bag, the box or the pickup outside.On the phoneUnknown until he walks in, and then it is your problem.

Cash or khataAt the counterYou know the face and the running balance.On the phoneA voice, and sometimes not even a name.

What the goods cost youAt the counterThe rate card is an arm's length away.On the phoneWhatever your memory kept from an older delivery.

What he carries awayAt the counterThe goods, and a bill with the rate on it.On the phoneA number he will repeat word for word for a month.

The three-part answer that costs you nothing

There is an answer that gives him a real number and still protects you. It has three parts and it takes six seconds.

Name the rate. Name the quantity it covers. Name how long it holds.

"For one bag it is Rs 1,450. For ten or more, come and we will talk. That is today's rate."

Nothing in it is unfriendly. He got his number, and he got the shape around it, so he cannot arrive with an order for forty bags and hold you to a rate you gave for one.

The habit underneath is smaller and matters more: never say a number you have not just checked. Five seconds on your phone, or a glance at the card taped inside the counter, before you speak. If you cannot look right now, say so and mean it. "Let me check and call you back in two minutes."

Then call back. That call is the whole thing. Most shops never ring back, so the one that does becomes the shop he phones first. Two minutes buys you a caller who stops shopping around.

The phone sentences that hold, and the ones that cost you

✓Say this

• "For one bag it is Rs 1,450. For ten or more, come and we will talk."
• "That is today's rate." A limit, said in four words.
• "Let me check and call you back in two minutes." Then call.
• "How many are you taking, and is it cash?"
• "It lands on Thursday. Phone me then and I will give you the rate."

✕Never this

• "Around Rs 600, I think." A guess becomes a promise the moment he repeats it.
• "The same rate as always." Your always and his always are two deliveries apart.
• "Whatever you paid the last time." Now he is setting your rate.
• A rate with no quantity attached to it.
• Your floor rate, handed to a voice you do not know.

The morning a Rs 12,000 order lost its margin

Nadeem sells paint and hardware. At eleven in the morning a contractor named Faisal phones and asks his rate on the enamel he usually takes. Nadeem is cutting a key for somebody else, so he answers from memory: Rs 600 a piece, because that is what he charged the last person who asked.

Faisal says he will take twenty and send a man at four.

What Nadeem has not thought about is the delivery that came in eight days ago. It landed at Rs 585, not Rs 520. The margin he believes he is quoting is not the margin he has.

A quote given from memory, against the same order at the real buying rate

Order quoted on the phone: 20 pieces at Rs 600Rs 12,000

Buying rate you remembered, from the older deliveryRs 520

Margin you thought you were quoting: 20 × Rs 80Rs 1,600

Buying rate on the delivery that has already landedRs 585

Margin you actually have: 20 × Rs 15Rs 300

Sending it across to his siteRs 250

What the Rs 12,000 order really left youRs 50

Only an example. Put your own order, your own quoted rate and your own last buying rate into the same lines; the shape holds.

Rs 50 on a Rs 12,000 order, and a boy on a motorcycle carrying it across the city. Nobody cheated him. He quoted a rate that belonged to stock he had already sold, which is what happens every time a supplier raises his rate and the shopkeeper's memory does not raise with it.

When the number you already gave was wrong

Say it has happened: the number you gave was wrong. What now?

If the gap is small, honour it and take the loss.

Zubair keeps a feed and general store. At twenty past nine one morning a man he does not know, Arif, phones and asks the rate for a bag of feed. Zubair says Rs 1,450. By the afternoon a delivery has come and gone, the bag now stands him at Rs 1,430, and his own card says Rs 1,500. Arif walks in at half past four and puts down Rs 1,450.

Zubair takes it. He earns Rs 20 on that bag instead of Rs 70. He has lost Rs 50 and bought something worth far more: a man who now knows that a rate from this shop is a rate. Arif takes four bags a month and has not phoned another shop since.

There is a point where the gap is too big to swallow, and it is easy to name: when honouring the quote means selling under what the goods stand you at, or when the loss is bigger than the profit on the order. Then you talk. Talk about the goods and the cost, never about him.

"The rate I gave you was on my old stock. The delivery that came in stands me at Rs 1,430 a bag, so at Rs 1,450 I would be selling under my own cost. I can do Rs 1,470 today and hold that for you for the week."

There is no blame in that sentence. On a big order, take an advance and the rate is settled on both sides before anybody remembers it differently.

The caller who only wants a number to argue with

Some calls were never going to become a sale. He wants a number to carry to another counter.

You can recognise him. He asks for a rate and nothing else: no quantity, no size, no delivery, no question about whether you even have it. He will not give his name. He asks about the one item whose rate the whole bazaar knows, and he asks in your busiest half hour.

Do not be sharp with him. You are wrong about one caller in five, and a rude answer travels further. Give him the counter rate for one piece, say that it is the counter rate for one piece, and invite him in. "Come and see it, and if you are taking a quantity we will talk properly."

What you never do is give your lowest number to a voice you do not know. The floor rate is for a man with an order in his hand in front of you. A low rate handed to a stranger is repeated at three counters by evening, and by morning somebody is at your own counter saying you told his cousin something different. That is a harder argument than a customer asking for a discount, and it started with you.

Write it down before you put the phone down

A quote given is a promise made, and a promise nobody wrote is a quarrel waiting for a date.

Write five things and it takes fifteen seconds: his name, the item, the quantity, the rate, and the day. "Faisal, enamel, 20 pieces, Rs 600, Tuesday." Now when he arrives on Friday wanting forty, you are not arguing memory against memory. You are reading.

Wasoolo makes the five-second check possible, the part a notebook cannot help with. Every product carries its buying rate beside its selling rate, so the number you read before you speak is the number after your last delivery, not the one you remember. On the same item you can save a wholesale rate and a lowest rate, both staff-only, and if a sale is written under that lowest rate the app says so at that moment, not at the end of the month.

The other half is knowing who is calling. Search a name or a phone number and his khata opens with his running balance, so before you name a rate you can see whether this is a man who clears on Friday or one already carrying Rs 40,000. A quote for cash and a quote that will sit in a khata are not the same quote. Wasoolo is 100% free to download, and the rate you set with care in the evening survives the calls of the next morning.

Common questions

Should I just refuse to give any rate on the phone?

No. A shop that will not answer loses the call to a shop that will. Give a real number, with the quantity it covers and the day it holds for. What you hold back is your lowest rate, not the rate.

How long should a phone quote hold?

As long as you can promise without checking again, which for most shops is the same day. Say "that is today's rate" and you are not tied to a delivery you have not seen. On a big order, fix it in writing.

He says I told him a lower rate and I do not remember. What now?

If nothing was written, you are both honest and both guessing. Settle it small, split the difference once, then write every quote down from that same hour. Two lines in a notebook end this argument for good.

What if he asks for something I do not have in stock?

Say when it arrives before you say a number. A rate for goods you have not bought yet rests on a buying rate you do not know. "It lands on Thursday, phone me then and I will give you the rate."

Is it fair to charge a phone customer more than a counter customer?

No, and you do not need to. Quote your ordinary counter rate for one piece. A bulk rate is neither a punishment nor a prize: it belongs to a quantity he has not told you.

How can an app help with a rate I give in ten seconds?

It makes those ten seconds honest. The product screen shows the buying rate beside the selling rate, so the number you read is the number after your last delivery, and the customer's khata tells you whether the sale is cash or credit.

Got a quote that went wrong? Send us a message with the order and the two rates, and we will work out what it really left you.