A visi cooler is sized on how much stock you need visible at once, not on how much you sell in a week. Get that number right and the shop runs for years on one unit. Get it wrong and you either lose sales because shelves are empty, or you overpay for capacity you never fill.

1. Count what sits on the shelf at opening

Walk to your counter at 9 a.m. and count the bottles, pouches, tubs and packs that must be visible to sell. Multiply by the pack volume. A dairy booth holding 120 one-litre pouches needs roughly 120 litres of usable space — but usable space is about 60–70% of the rated capacity once shelves, the evaporator housing and air gaps are counted.

So a 120-litre requirement is really a 180–200 litre cooler. This single correction is where most sizing mistakes happen.

2. Add the restock rate

If you sell 200 litres a day and restock twice, you do not need 400 litres of display — you need enough for the busiest stretch between restocks. For most Indian retail that is 4–6 hours, so peak display stock is roughly half a day of sales.

Display requirement ≈ half a day's sales ÷ 0.65. A shop selling 200 litres a day therefore wants about 150 litres of rated capacity, not 400.

3. Decide the door count from the queue, not the catalogue

One door serves one customer at a time. If two or three people reach for the cooler at once — a busy sweet shop at festival time, a supermarket aisle — a double-door unit pays for itself in throughput alone. A quiet booth with one product line is fine with a single door.

4. Plan for May, not for January

A cooler that holds 4 °C in winter can drift to 8–10 °C in a 45 °C shop with the door opening every two minutes. Size for the hottest month and keep the unit out of direct sun and away from the tandoor or the fryer. If the site is an open-front shop, ask for a model with a heated frame or a night curtain.

5. Check the boring things before you pay

  • Doorway width — a double-door cooler will not go through a 2 ft 6 in shop door; check before delivery.
  • Power point — most units run on 230 V single phase, but confirm the rated load and whether you need a stabiliser.
  • Floor level — coolers must stand level; a sloping floor stresses the compressor.
  • Service access — leave 10 cm behind the unit for the condenser.

A worked example

A sweet shop in Muzaffarpur sells 150 litres of milk, curd and cold drinks a day, with a rush between 5 and 9 p.m. Half a day's sales is 75 litres; divided by 0.65 that is about 115 litres of rated capacity. Two product lines and two people serving point to a double door. Recommendation: a 200–250 litre double-door visi cooler, not the 350 litre unit the dealer would prefer to sell.

If you would rather not do the arithmetic, send us your daily sales in litres and the products you display. We size it in one call and quote two or three options at different price points.