18 June 2026 · Ploy Rattanapong
A rain-week count is a different room
The same grocery on Seri Thai Road holds a different stock picture when the lane is flooded with umbrellas and the supplier waits until the rain eases.
The lane becomes part of the shop
In a dry week the count starts at the shutter and ends at the back wall. In a rain week the first cartons are often still on the pavement under a plastic sheet, because the truck would not come down a flooded soi and the driver left them at the mouth of the lane. If those cartons are skipped, the back room looks short. If they are counted as shelved stock, the facing looks healthier than the afternoon trade will find it.
We write them as a third place: not floor, not back room. The drawing has a small mark for the lane. Owners who have lived through many rainy seasons already know this. The page is for the week when a nephew is covering the counter and does not.
What sells changes before the card does
Basins, ponchos, instant noodles, and the small bottles of water move first. The stock card, if it is updated on Sundays, still describes Thursday's room. A count taken on Friday of a rain week will show those lines lower than the card and will show umbrellas higher, including umbrellas that were last year's colour and have been pulled forward from a high shelf.
That is not a verdict on the buyer. It is two dates. We do not advise a panic reorder from a single wet Friday. The second visit, booked for a clearer afternoon, shows whether the dip lasted.
Booking the second day
If the first visit had to happen in the rain because the order deadline would not move, the second visit should not be another storm morning. Tell us the supplier's habit. Some drivers skip Khlong Kum until noon when the sky is dark. A count that starts at nine will spend its first hour watching a truck that has not come.
The fee does not change because of weather. The span sometimes does. We would rather add two days than draw the lane as if it were a shelf.
If the season itself is the question, a seasonal shelf study is the shorter file. A full stockroom reading still needs a second day that is not the same weather.