Billing for your grocery shop in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands
Know what is left on the shelf and in the godown before you place the order that has to cross the sea.
An order built from the count, not from the last empty shelf
After a storm, the first morning's sugar, oil and tea
The first goods people ask for once the weather clears are sugar, oil and tea. You know from the storm days of last year how many kilos of each went on the first morning, and you set that much aside before the shutter goes up, so the first families are not sent away.
A late-ship day: the family that came for one thing gets the next size
On a late-ship day many families keep little at home. When the pack they came for has gone, the next size of the same goods has its own rate on the phone, so the offer is a price you can say at once, and the family leaves with the right size and not with nothing.
A slipped wage day, and three families settling at the door
The wage day slips by a week, and three families come in together. The elder does not ask what was taken. He asks which weeks the boat was late, and lines those weeks up against the dates of the bills on each family's page. When the late weeks and the dates agree, the matter is closed and the families go home.
A shop that paid for its rice with coconut
On some islands, what a shop sold and what it bought were two different goods.
- 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). The rice on a Nicobar shelf was, in a sense, paid for in coconut.
- 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. Your wholesaler's goods and your own order wait their turn at the same three harbours.
When sugar is found low by looking at the bottom of the tin
The packet you lack costs you the whole list
The customer who is told there is no tea does not buy the tea elsewhere and come back for the rest. On an island the next ship decides how long that packet stays missing, and she takes her whole list to the other counter, rice and oil and soap with it. You lose a basket for the want of a packet, and the loss is written nowhere.
Small packs for small purses, big packs for the ship
Customers buy small packs, a sachet or a quarter kilo, because money comes in lumps. The wholesaler sells big packs, because the ship carries big packs. So the shop buys in the size of the ship and sells in the size of the purse, and the two sizes meet on one shelf, one for the family that came on the wage day and one for the family that came well before it.
The families that settle when the wages come
Many of your customers are families you have known for years. They take goods on credit and clear it when wages come, and some of the wage days slip. In the weeks between, the notebook grows and the question of which bag was paid and which was not stays open, and the page is the only judge you have.
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Tools for a grocery shop whose wholesaler is across the water
Low stock warnings
The sugar and cooking-oil items carry a warning, so on Monday morning they head the list and the order goes to the wholesaler before the tin shows its bottom.
Branches and franchises
The main shop and a branch in the next village, each one's sales and stock side by side, so the branch's shelf is not a mystery until you visit.
Orders to suppliers
The Monday order to the town wholesaler written from the low list, with the day his goods came in noted beside it, so a short sack is seen the day it is lifted from the jetty.
A grocery seller that moved from paper bills to stock on a phone
Questions island grocery owners ask
Money comes in lumps here. Which of tea, sugar or oil should I ask the wholesaler to send in smaller packs?
Each pack size is its own item with its own rate and count. Read a few weeks of sales and see how many sachets and quarter kilos of each went; the goods that leave in small packs most often are the ones to ask for in small packs.
After wage day the small packs are gone and the big ship packs sit. How do I see the two side by side?
Make the small pack and the big pack separate items, each with its own rate and count. The day report for the days after wage day shows them side by side, the small packs gone and the big ones standing.
The day after a late ship docks, the shelves are rushed. How much earlier should I ask next time?
Count the days between the rush and the day you sent the order. That is how much earlier the next order must go, with the ship's delay on top.
Cargo from Chennai and Kolkata, and what runs out first
Goods reach the Andaman Islands by cargo ship from Chennai or Kolkata, and small grocery shops ran out of stock within days when ships and flights stopped. A grocery keeps its short list of must-never-run-out goods, tea, sugar and cooking oil among them, and reads their counts before the ship, not after the shelf is bare.
Normally at least three cargo vessels bring goods to the Andaman Islands from mainland India every week; storms delay them and vegetables, eggs and packed milk run short. The fast-moving goods are the ones a shop most needs to count, because they are the first to go.