Billing for your footwear shop in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands
Every size of every pair counted, so the box you open is the one the customer asked for.
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From the sixes that went first to the pair that was swapped
The largest and smallest pairs that never move
The ends of the run sit in the box month after month. Read the count a month after a carton came, and the largest and smallest sizes are untouched. Keep each as its own item and order no more of them until a customer with such a foot asks. The money saved goes to the sixes and sevens.
The exchange on Thursday starts from the size, not from the argument
A woman who guessed her size on the wet jetty comes back in the week with the slippers in her hand. Before you take the first pair back you read whether the next size is on the shelf, and you cancel her first bill and make a new one for the next size, so the exchange is a minute at the counter and not a search through the stock.
The mother who comes by the ferry once a term
A mother who lives across the water comes to town by ferry once a term. The page holds the size you gave her, so she names the child, you reach for the next size, and she is back on the boat with the pair.
The sea road a carton of chappals crosses
A pair of slippers has been on a ship before it reaches a foot.
- Port Blair has the Haddo, Wharf and Chatham harbours for ships to the mainland, about 1,190 km from Chennai and 1,255 km from Kolkata. A carton of footwear is one of many that cross that sea.
- Trade in copra, dried coconut kernel, has long been the mainstay of the Nicobar islands, which depended almost entirely on copra exports for outside goods (2010 report). Copra money bought most of what came back on the ship, a pair of slippers among it.
Tools for a shop where a pair has a size, a width and a ship behind it
Low stock warnings
The alert sits on the sizes that go first, so when the sixes reach their last pairs they head the list on Monday morning and the order is for them.
Bills on your phone
Each slipper billed with its size on the line and sent on WhatsApp, so a woman can show the bill next time and ask for the same for a cousin on another island.
GST bills
A GST bill for the school on a smaller island that orders black shoes for twenty children, every line taxed and the sizes on the bill.
A wet week sells rubber chappals and leaves the leather shoes on the shelf
A wet jetty is hard on leather soles
People who cross by ferry stand on stone jetties in the wet, and leather soles do not like it. They come in on the way to the boat for a cheap pair of rubber slippers in the size they guess, and they want it now. A wrong guess is a customer who comes back in a week, and the boat will not wait while you look. A customer who has put her foot in the wrong size on a wet jetty has already decided the shop does not understand.
The common sizes finish first, and the carton does not know it
In your lane the common sizes are six and seven, and they finish first while the sizes at the ends sit. The wholesaler packs the same run in every carton, and the ship brings it as packed. You ask for more of the few, and the carton that comes is the same run again, with the ends in it.
The ferry family that buys three pairs in one trip
A family from a far island comes across once in a while and buys for everyone at once: school shoes for two children and slippers for the grandmother. Each size is a guess made at home, and the ferry back leaves before anyone can try the pairs on. A wrong size is found on the island, a whole crossing away from the shop.
Questions island footwear shops ask about sizes and the rains
A family on a far island sends money with a neighbour and a note of sizes. Where do I write whose pairs they are?
Open a page in the family's name and bill the pairs on it when the neighbour collects them, each pair on its own size line. The page then shows what the family sent and what it got.
Leather soles come unstuck on a wet jetty. How do I tell a customer which pairs are leather and which are rubber?
Name each pair with its sole, leather or rubber. The list then shows the leather pairs apart from the rubber ones, so at the counter you can say which pairs are for the wet jetty and which for the shop floor.
A customer wants a size I do not have and will wait for the next ship. What do I write?
Note it on her page with the size and the day she asked. When the carton arrives, the page tells you who was waiting for which size.
The monsoon at sea and the ships from Chennai
The southwest monsoon normally sets in over the Andaman Sea around 22 May, the first sign of the rainy season moving towards mainland India. A footwear shop here sees the rains before the mainland does, and the rubber chappals sell first.
Chennai Port officials said most goods the islands need, clothing included, are shipped from Chennai, and past delays at the berth caused shortages. For a footwear shop a held carton is not one missing product but a missing run of sizes, and the customer in a six finds sevens and eights on the shelf and no six.