Billing for your mobile and electronics shop in Delhi
The electrician's list for a flat, the single bulb from a box and the phone with its bill all have a page.
Bhagirath Palace and the lane of switches, wires and bulbs
A phone shop sells a lot more than phones, and some of what is on its shelf comes from one old Delhi lane.
- Bhagirath Palace in Old Delhi is described as Asia's largest market for electrical goods. A phone shop that also sells bulbs, cables and switches may fill that corner of the shelf from there, and each of these is its own item with its own rate.
Tools for a counter where the electrician's boy comes with a list
Credit book (khata)
A page in the electrician's own name for the small buys he does not give to any flat, a fan regulator here and a holder there, so they never get added to the total of a flat he is rewiring.
Bills on your phone
Eleven metres of lights, a plug and two holders on one bill, each at its rate and unit, sent on WhatsApp to the shopkeeper.
GST bills
A GST bill in the flat owner's name for everything the electrician bought for one job: wire, switches, holders and regulators, each on its own line.
Low stock warnings
A warning when the charger or cover that sells fastest in Diwali weeks nears your mark, before the lane fills.
Why a Delhi electronics shop loses track of the flat's wiring, the box of switches and the price agreed at the counter
The electrician's boy comes with a list for a flat that is being redone
Many Delhi flats are opened up and rewired, and the electrician sends a boy to your counter, day after day, with a list: a coil of wire, six switches, a holder, a fan regulator. Each day's list is for the same flat, but it is billed as if it were new. By the end of the job nobody can say what the flat's wiring cost, and the electrician says the total is higher than it should be.
A box of switches bought whole and sold one at a time
From the wholesale lane you buy a box of ten switches, or a dozen bulbs. Across your counter they go one at a time. The price you paid for the box is on a slip in the drawer, the price you sell at is in your head, and when the box is half sold you cannot say what the other half is worth.
The price said aloud and the price agreed are not the same
In a market where a dozen shops sell the same cover and the same charger, nobody pays the first price. The customer says it is cheaper next door, you come down a little, he comes up a little, and the sale is made at a figure that is nowhere written. The helper does the same on his own, and at night the takings are lower than the shelf rates say, with no way to see which sales were bargained down.
From a flat's wiring on one page to the price that was really agreed
The boy's daily list goes on the flat's page, whoever carries it
The boy who comes with the day's list is not the electrician. Each list is added to the flat's page with its date, so the electrician is never asked what the boy took. When the work is done the total is one number he can show his client.
The sealed box and the single switch are counted apart
Make the box of ten one item and the single switch another, each counted in its own unit. A bill for a box takes a box off and a bill for a single takes a single off, so you see the sealed boxes in the godown and the singles on the counter as two numbers.
Earphones and power banks bought together by hostel friends
In Diwali week the coaching students buy earphones and power banks as gifts for home, often three friends together. Make a bill for each friend, so each has his own on his own phone. Every earphone and power bank is an item with a count, and the shelf is not bare on the last evening.
Questions Delhi electronics shop owners ask about the electrician's job, the box and the second counter
The electrician also buys small things for himself, like a tester, on the day of the flat's fittings. Where do they go?
On a page of his own, not on the flat's page. The flat's fittings stay on the flat's page, so the owner of the flat never pays for the electrician's tester.
A student leaves a phone for a new screen and collects it later. When do I make the bill?
When he pays, or when he collects it, as you choose. The screen and the work are two lines with their own rates, like a cover or a charger. If he pays later, the bill stays on his page.
A customer bargains a charger down to a lower price. Do I change the charger's rate for everyone?
No. Change the rate on that one bill only. The charger's own rate stays as it was for the next customer, and the bill shows the rate it was sold at.
Delhi's phones and its Diwali spending, in two numbers
Delhi had 185.56 telephone connections for every 100 people on 30 June 2024, according to TRAI data given by the communications ministry. A shop here often sells to people who already own a phone, so what goes over the counter is a cover, a charger, a new screen or a repair.
The Confederation of All India Traders forecast ₹4.25 trillion of business across India for Diwali 2024, with Delhi alone expected to contribute ₹75,000 crore. For a phone shop, Diwali is the season of earphones, power banks and covers bought as gifts, and the day's sales show which of them went.