Chennai, Dec 24: Demanding blank-cheques is not a new practice in the Tamil Nadu distribution business. This has been in practice for quite a long time in many areas, however in 2013, the ‘blank-cheque’ culture has started reaching the end-customer level.
“Many of our customers are not willing to pay the money in a single shot for high-price products. I get 10 blank leaves from the customers and a photocopy of their account statement. Some customers give minimal amount while buying, while some don’t even do that”, says a dealer, who added that this creates problem while paying the money to the distributor.
“I get Rs. 7,000 while selling laptops. I take a photocopy of their original ID proof and allow them to pay it in instalments. In this dry situation, we have no problem in handling such practices. However, the issue comes when our customers stop paying the EMIs when they have service issues for which the vendor is solely responsible”, says another partner, who had faced such problems and is thinking of shifting the business.
In 2012, many channel partners across the state have diversified their business and invested in real-estate, educational institutions, cultural halls and agriculture and more number of partners are expected to reduce their IT business percentage in 2014.