The Vendor Meeting
Or: how Indian retail discovered that "Friday" is not a day, it is a state of mind.
It is Wednesday.
Which means somewhere in India, right now, in a meeting room with one wobbly chair and a TV that has never been used for a presentation, a vendor representative is sitting across from a retail buyer and saying with absolute confidence, full eye contact, briefcase strategically open to reveal a glossy folder nobody asked for the four most repeated words in the history of Indian retail:
“Sir, by Friday. Guaranteed.”
The buyer nods. The buyer is not nodding because he believes him. The buyer is nodding because he is mentally calculating which Friday he means.
There are several candidates.
This Friday. Possible, but mathematically improbable. Next Friday. More realistic, but still optimistic. Some Friday between now and Diwali. This is what “by Friday” statistically refers to in 70% of vendor commitments documented in Indian retail since 2003. “Friday in the metaphysical sense.” Reserved for vendors who have already missed three Fridays this quarter.
The buyer does not ask which Friday. He knows from experience that asking will only result in additional confidence, not additional clarity. However, prepare his mind for the worst weekend ahead.
He has been here before.
He will be here again.
He has, somewhere in a drawer, a folder labelled “Vendor Friday Commitments — 2024.” The folder contains 47 broken promises. He does not throw the folder away. The folder is her shield against optimism.
I have sat through approximately 3,000 vendor meetings.
Possibly more.
I have been on both sides of the table, the retailer being promised the impossible, and (in my earlier corporate years) the manager who had to go to the vendor and re-promise the same impossible thing to head office. It is a closed ecosystem of cheerful lies, sustained by tea, biscuits, and the mutual unspoken agreement that nobody benefits from telling the truth in this room.
Allow me, as a consultant who has nothing to lose, to break the agreement.
The Eight Universal Vendor Promises That Are Mathematically Impossible
1. “100% on-time delivery, sir. Guaranteed.” There is no vendor in the history of Indian retail who has ever delivered 100% on time. The statistical ceiling is approximately 73%. Above that is folklore. Below 50% is normal. Below 30% is a partnership in distress. Below 20% is a relationship.
2. “Direct factory price, sir. No middleman.” There are always middlemen. The middleman may be invisible, but he exists. He has a desk. He has a son who will inherit the desk. The price has been marked up three times before it reached you. You are now negotiating with the fourth mark-up. “Direct factory price” is a spiritual claim, not a financial one.
3. “We will give you exclusive territory.” He will give the same exclusive territory to two other retailers in the same city. You will discover this in November, by accident, when one of them sends you a screenshot. The vendor will then explain that exclusivity was always category-specific, store-format-specific, and weekday-restricted. The fine print, you will be told, was implied.
4. “New stock arriving on Monday.” There is no Monday. There has never been a Monday. The Monday referenced in this sentence is theoretical. It exists in the same calendar dimension where vendor commitments are kept. You and I cannot access this dimension. Only vendors can.
5. “Sir, full credit policy. 90 days.” The 90 days are real. The enforcement of the 90 days is not. At day 87, you will receive a phone call. At day 89, you will receive a visit. At day 90 morning, you will receive a photograph of his children, sent via WhatsApp, asking when payment will arrive. The 90 days were always aspirational.
6. “100% replacement guarantee on defective units.” This guarantee comes with conditions. The conditions are: the defect must be reported within 48 hours, in writing, with photographs, witnessed by an unrelated third party, and accompanied by a notarised affidavit that the defect was not caused by the customer, the staff, the humidity, the season, or “normal wear and tear during transport.” By the time you have collected all of this, the warranty has expired.
7. “We have invested in the latest technology, sir.” He has bought one tablet. The tablet has not been switched on since the demo. The latest technology is being run on a Windows 7 desktop in a back office in Coimbatore. The desktop has been making a clicking sound since 2019. The clicking sound is now part of the company’s identity.
8. “You are our most important client, sir.” He has said this to 47 clients this week. You are number 31 on the list. You will discover your actual ranking the next time you call him at 3 PM on a Thursday and he picks up on the seventh ring. Important in vendor-speak is a sliding scale calibrated to who has paid most recently.
Now, here is the part nobody wants to say out loud.
Most of these promises are not lies. They are aspirations dressed up as commitments.
The vendor is not deliberately deceiving you. He genuinely believes, in the moment, that he can deliver 500 units by Friday. He has not done the math. He has not checked his own warehouse. He has not asked his transporter. He has read the room, seen that you want to hear “Friday”, and offered Friday as a gift. It is telling someone ‘I’ll be there in 5 minutes’ when it’s a 30-minute crawl to the next building in Bengaluru.
This is not malice. This is optimism inflation. And Indian retail runs on it.
The problem is that you, the retailer, also know this. Which means you build in a buffer. You agree to “Friday” but mentally plan for “next Tuesday.” The vendor knows you are doing this, so he commits to Wednesday hoping you will plan for Friday. Now both sides are negotiating in code. The actual delivery date is determined by a third party usually a transporter named Murali, who is unaware of either commitment.
This is why nothing in Indian retail arrives on time.
It is not a logistics problem.
It is a language problem.
So what does a good vendor relationship actually look like?
Four things. Brief. Real.
1. Replace “commitment” with “checkpoint.” Do not ask “can you deliver by Friday?” Ask “can you give me a status update by Wednesday 5 PM telling me whether Friday is possible?” The honest vendor will say “yes.” The dishonest vendor will say “yes” and then disappear by Wednesday afternoon. You now have information four days earlier than before.
2. Reward truth, not promises. The vendor who tells you “Sir, Friday is not possible, but Monday is” should be celebrated, not penalised. Most retailers do the opposite, they reward the vendor who promises the moon and quietly forgive him when the moon does not arrive. Flip this. The honest vendor is the long-term asset. The optimistic one is the short-term risk.
3. Keep the folder. Yes, the folder I mentioned earlier. Every retailer should maintain a Vendor Reality File, a quiet, unshared, internal record of what each vendor actually delivered versus what they promised. Update it monthly. Reference it before every new commitment. The folder is the only honest document in your office.
4. Pay on time. This one is uncomfortable but necessary. Retailers love to complain about vendor unreliability, but the truth is most retailers also pay late. The 90-day credit becomes 110, then 130, then “check with accounts.” If you want vendor commitments to mean something, your commitments must mean something first. The relationship is mutual. The promises are mutual. The delays, sadly, are also mutual.
There is one more truth.
The vendor in the meeting room is not your enemy.
He is also exhausted. He is also under pressure. He is also being shouted at by his head office. He is also, like you, surviving the industry by making promises he cannot fully keep and praying that some of them will land.
When you remember this that the vendor is not lying, he is hoping the relationship becomes manageable. You stop expecting Friday. You start asking for honest checkpoints. You build a folder. You pay on time. You shake hands. You move on.
In Indian retail, the vendor relationship is not transactional.
It is theatrical.
The trick is to know which scene you are in.
Note: The “Vendor Reality File” idea is real. I have personally maintained one since 2008. It now spans three hard drives and one suspicious Excel sheet. I do not share it with anyone. It is the most valuable document I own. It has saved approximately ₹14 crores of bad decisions across my career. I am not joking about the number.
Also: the line “Friday in the metaphysical sense” came from a conversation I had with a vendor in 2017, when, after missing three Fridays, he sincerely told me and I am quoting verbatim “Sir, Friday means different thing in our company.” I have not recovered from this sentence. I am not sure I want to.
If you are a retailer reading this and quietly remembering a vendor who has been promising you Friday since 2022, you are not alone. The folder helps. Start one today.
If you are a vendor reading this please pay no attention. Continue to deliver on Friday. The Friday after this Friday. The Friday in our hearts.
Strip 08 lands Monday. Another story on the smallest mistake becomes the loudest story.
Bring tea. Bring buttermilk. Bring patience.