The first order terms sheet a founder fills before the walk-in

The nine lines, filled at your desk

I write mine on a Sunday and print two copies, and one goes in the sample bag. An owner reads it upside down in about twenty seconds, so it stays on one page with the numbers down the left.

Fill every line. The blank one is what the store will ask about, and I answer that badly standing up.

Keep the MOQ at one carton

My MOQ, the smallest order I will take, is one carton, and I would not raise it for a first order however keen the owner sounds. Twenty-four jars on a counter that sells four a week is six weeks of stock, and by week five the owner is reading the date on the pack instead of thinking about a reorder.

The second order can be two cartons, and the third can be whatever they ask for.

Say the margin in rupees

The sheet carries the MRP and the PTR, which is what the store pays. The difference is the line an owner actually reads. On a ₹250 jar at a PTR of ₹175 the owner keeps ₹75 a unit, and I say ₹75 out loud, because an owner who hears thirty per cent starts working out what thirty-five would look like. The margin calculator runs that back from any MRP.

Leave the scheme line empty on a first order. Later, one 10+1, eleven units billed as ten, does more for me than four points off the PTR, and I can withdraw it in November without touching my price.

Payment, and the credit question

No credit on a first order, and I say that before I load the scooter rather than when the invoice is in the owner's hand.

After two reorders I write fourteen days on the invoice and hold to bill-to-bill, where the last invoice clears before the next carton comes off the van. A store carrying two unpaid invoices is a store I stop supplying. I would rather lose that counter in month two than in month eight with two cartons unpaid and no way to ask for the money twice. If you are registered as a micro or small enterprise, the law sits on your side too: a buyer cannot agree to more than forty-five days of credit, and fourteen sits well inside it.

Returns, damage and the date on the pack

I take unsold stock back once, at the end of the first cycle, and the sheet says so in writing. On a ₹250 jar the write-off runs about ₹40 a unit, which buys me a counter I still want in a year. Damage in transit runs about 2 per cent for me, so I price it in and replace in the same week.

Copy the batch number and the date onto your own sheet as well. Under the FSSAI labelling rules the label carries a batch or lot number, and the date runs as day, month and year where the shelf life is three months or less, and as month and year where it is longer, though the full date is allowed there too. A pack marked SEP 2027 gives you a month of slack on the pickup, and on one marked 12/09/26 you are counting days.

The delivery day and the GST bill

Name one day and keep it. I would rather be the supplier who turns up on a Tuesday than the one with the better price, because a counter that runs out on Saturday has forgotten you by Monday.

Give a GST bill from the first delivery. Rule 46 of the CGST Rules lists what belongs on it: your GSTIN, a serial number of no more than sixteen characters that stays unique for the financial year, the date, the buyer's GSTIN where the buyer is registered, the HSN code, the description, the quantity, the taxable value, the rate and amount of tax, and your signature. A store keeping proper books will not take the stock without one.

You will not meet the e-way bill on a first order. That starts above ₹50,000 of consignment value, and one carton sits nowhere near it.

Where the terms bend

They push on four things: the margin, the credit, the MOQ and the return window.

I move on the MOQ and on the return window, because both cost me stock I can walk down the lane and sell somewhere else. I hold the PTR and I hold the payment terms, because those two follow the store into every conversation after this one, and a store that got fourteen days on day one will ask for thirty in March. When they will not buy on the terms, I ask when I should come back and I write the month on the sheet.

Fill the nine lines once and they carry into every walk-in after this one. You will still spend the month on the next thirty stores, working out which are worth walking into and what to write to each, and your first ten stockists is where I start. One number, with its limits: on a trial beat in Khan Market, Delhi, on 5 August 2026, run with a test product, ten drafts were judged and nine approved with the editor never opened. Approval is a founder agreeing a message is worth sending, which is not a café answering it. Mira does that finding and drafting. The nine lines stay yours.