Billing for your stationery and book shop in Delhi
A new book, a used one bought back and a ream for an office each have their own line and stock.
From a used Class 9 book bought back to the notes copied and bound in an hour
The office near the lane takes a ream every month and pays on the first
Open a page in the office's name and bill each ream under it with the day. The page holds the month's reams, and the clerk reads the same lines you do when he comes to pay on the first. The students who copy their notes a page at a time never touch it.
The mock-paper set that follows each guide is read from his page
A student preparing for an exam takes his stack in an order: the guide first, then the set of mock papers that goes with that guide, then a notebook. Put each on his page with the date. The page shows which mock-paper set he took with which guide, so next month you hand him the next set and not the one he already has.
Notes copied and bound are one bill, by the page
Make a copied page an item with its own rate, and the spiral binding another. A student's forty pages and one binding are one bill in the time it takes the machine to finish. At night the pages billed are read beside the machine's meter, and a gap between them is a number you can talk about.
Nai Sarak, the lane for school and college books
A Delhi book counter has a wholesale lane behind it, and its new stock often starts the day there.
- Nai Sarak in Old Delhi sells school and college textbooks, wholesale and retail. A bookshop in a colony that fills its shelves from there orders a whole class's set at once, and notes what arrived against the order.
Why a Delhi book counter buys, sells and buys back the same textbook, and copies notes by the page
A used set priced against the Sunday book market at Daryaganj
A student brings last year's set and says the Sunday book market in Daryaganj would pay him more. You offer a price from your own head, and the set goes on a shelf for next year's class. The notebook records only the new books you buy from the wholesaler, so in March you cannot say how many used sets you hold or what each cost you.
The student preparing for an exam takes a stack every month and pays when the stipend comes
A student who is preparing for a competitive exam does not buy one book. He takes a guide, a set of mock papers and a notebook, again next month, and the month after, and pays when money comes from home. He is at your counter at nine at night, and his month's total is a thing you remember by his face.
The copier at the back of the counter, and the pages nobody counts
Most stationery shops in a Delhi colony also run a photocopier. A student brings his notes to be copied, a clerk brings a form, someone wants a set bound with a spiral. The rate is by the page, plus a charge for binding, and the pages are counted from the meter on the machine at the end of the day. Whether the meter and the money agree is something you find out only when they do not.
Tools for a counter where one book can be sold three times and a page costs a few paise
Bills on your phone
An office's ream of paper and a student's guide on two bills in the same minute, each from its own item at its own rate, and each sent to its own phone.
Credit book (khata)
A page for the student preparing for an exam, each book dated, kept open until the money comes from home.
Low stock warnings
A warning that the paper for the copier is almost gone, before the machine stops in the middle of a student's notes.
Daily reports
Notebooks and covers selling first and the textbooks following, read day by day beside the copier's meter, so the opening weeks show what sold on which day.
Questions Delhi bookshop and stationery owners ask about buy-backs, copied pages and the two schools' books
At night the billed pages and the copier's meter do not agree. Where do I look?
Open the day's bills and add up the pages on the copying lines. If the meter shows more, those pages were never billed. If it shows less, a bill was made twice.
A ream is half used. Does it count as one ream or as half?
Count the paper by the sheet. Every bill for copies takes its pages off, so a half-used ream shows as the sheets that are left.
A coaching centre orders guides for each of its batches and wants one bill per batch. Can I make that?
Yes. Make a separate bill for each batch in the centre's name, with every guide as its own line and its own count. The GST is worked out on each, so the centre's accounts match the list of the batch it was bought for.
The first school's parents clear a shelf in one rush. How do I know what is left for the second school?
Look at the count of the second school's books after the first rush. If it is low, order those books that same day, before the second school's parents come in.
The school session and the book lists in Delhi
In April 2026 Delhi's Education Department told private unaided schools not to force parents to buy books, notebooks or uniforms from set vendors, and to give class-wise lists. The list for a class is read down your counter line by line, and a line that a used title can fill sits beside the new title in the same list, each with its own rate and its own count.
Delhi government schools were due to get textbooks by 20 April 2026, after a slight delay at the start of the session caused by a printing tender process. In those weeks a shop's stock of notebooks, covers and stationery sells first, and the textbooks follow.