Billing for your fruit and vegetable shop in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands
The kilo, the piece and the bunch on one bill, whatever the boat brought this week.
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Why one tomato has two prices on an island counter
Two prices for one vegetable
The tomato from a farm on the island and the tomato that came in a sack on the ship do not cost you the same, and the customer cannot see the difference. You write both rates on one cardboard, and by the afternoon somebody has been billed the wrong one. Then the customer who was billed the higher rate remembers it for a week.
A stall by the jetty sells to people on their way to a boat
A traveller wants four tender coconuts, a bunch of bananas and some beans in one bag, and the boat is boarding. The horn is blowing, the queue behind her grows, and the stall has a minute. A wrong total shows only when the cash box is short at closing.
The sack can wait for the boat, the leaf cannot
Potatoes and onions from the ship stay good for weeks, so a sack can be ordered for the month. Spinach, ripe bananas and fresh beans turn in a day or two, and there is no mainland market to send them back to. Order too many leaves and the bin takes them, order too few and the stall by the jetty stands bare.
Where the sacks come ashore
A vegetable stall's goods start their journey at a harbour.
- 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. Whatever your stall sells that the islands do not grow has come that far.
From the farm boat to the last bunch of the evening
The slow sack and the quick basket are ordered apart
A sack of onions off the landing craft lasts the stall for weeks, and a farmer's basket from a smaller island is gone in two days. Keep each as its own item with its own kilos, and a week of pages shows the sack moving slowly and the basket quickly. The next order to the landing craft and the next ask to the farmer are then sized separately.
Beans weighed, coconuts counted out, in front of the traveller
The traveller watches the beans weighed in kilos while her tender coconuts are counted out by the piece. Each is its own item with its own rate, so the line on the bill for each reads in the unit she saw, and nobody argues the total at the jetty.
The smaller island's farmer told the same night
Greens from the smaller islands come on the same boat as the sacks, and tired. When you note on the farmer's page what arrived and read your evening sales, you can tell him that night how many kilos went. He hears numbers, not a word that the greens were poor, and the next lot is cut in the right amount.
Tools for a stall that sells by the piece, the bunch and the kilo
Bills on your phone
On the morning the landing craft comes in, a customer's four tender coconuts, bunch of bananas and kilo and a half of beans land on one bill without a pencil.
Daily reports
Yesterday's kilos by vegetable, so the stall can see whether the island tomato or the sack tomato carried the day.
Orders to suppliers
A page for each farm that sends greens by boat, with the day and weight you accepted against its name.
Farmers' market stalls that moved their bills to a phone
Questions island vegetable sellers ask
How many tender coconuts does a traveller take on a boat day against an ordinary day at my stall?
Open the boat days and the ordinary days in the daily report. You see how many tender coconuts left each day, so you stock for the boat.
The baskets are bare for days, then the vessel comes and the greens do not keep. How do I tell what spoiled from what sold?
Open the sales for the day the vessel came and for the day before. Whatever you sold cheap shows as its own lower-rate line, and the kilos that came off the vessel less all the kilos sold are what spoiled. That figure, and not only the kilos sold, decides how much to take from the next vessel.
The landing craft was late and the onion sack is nearly empty. Whom do I ask in the meantime?
Open the page of the farmer on the smaller island whose greens come on the same boat. It shows the day and weight of his last lots, so you know what to ask him for. Send the order from the phone and note what arrives when the boat is in.
One customer asks for a gourd by its Bengali name, the next by its Tamil name and a third in Hindi. Can the item carry all three?
Yes. Write the names in the item's own name, as many as your customers use. Whoever is at the counter finds it by any of them, and the bill shows the same item whichever name was asked.
When the cargo vessel stops and the town runs short
Vegetable farmers of Shaheed Dweep depend on cargo vessels to send produce to Port Blair. When shipping stopped, tonnes of vegetables decayed while Port Blair ran short. A stall in town sees the other half of that break: bare baskets for days, then a flood on the day the vessel comes.
The islands' MP asked ANIIDCO to bring vegetables from the mainland because Andaman market prices were beyond common people, saying even after transport costs mainland vegetables would be cheaper. A stall that keeps a local rate and a shipped rate side by side can show a customer where each price comes from.