Billing for your toy shop in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands
Count what came out of the carton, and know what is left before the birthday rush.
Tools for a shop of small things in many price steps
Bills on your phone
A bear, a puzzle and a ball at three different rates on one bill that goes to the traveller's phone, so the receipt travels home with the gift.
Low stock warnings
The ball, the puzzle and the doll that sell all year carry warnings, so each is ordered before its last few go.
Online orders
A grandmother on another island chooses a gift from the shop's own online page and sends her choice, and it is packed before her grandchild's birthday.
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How a toy gets to a Port Blair shelf
Even a rocking horse reaches this shelf by sea.
- 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. Toys made on the mainland cover that distance before they reach a child here.
- 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). A toy that reached a Nicobar child was, in a sense, paid for in coconut.
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From the opened carton to the gift wrapped for a birthday
The steady sellers need no worry
A ball, a puzzle and a doll sell all year. Their order can be small and the same each time, and the thought you save goes to the toys that come and go with the visitors.
The small gifts that wait through the quiet months
The small gifts sell in the months visitors come and hardly move in the rest. In the quiet months the count of each small gift shows how many are still standing on the shelf, so you leave them there for the next visitors and do not buy another lot while a box is half full.
Last year's birthday, one line above this year's
The family's page holds each year's bill with its date. When the child turns another year you read what was bought last time and pick something new, and the shop is not offering the same bear twice.
A broken toy and a carton that cannot go back across the sea
A toy arrives broken and nobody can swap it tomorrow
The carton is opened at the counter, and two cars have lost their wheels. The supplier is on the other side of the sea, so the swap is a letter, a wait and another ship. The child who was promised the car goes home without it, and the broken one stays on the shelf until the ship comes, or is sold at a loss.
A traveller's gift chosen in the last hour
In the months when visitors come, the toy shop sees people who leave tomorrow. They want a gift for a child at home, small enough for a suitcase, and they decide in minutes. You need the rate and the count of ten small things fast, while she is holding the door open for a friend. The suitcase is small and the time is shorter, so every minute spent finding a rate is a gift not sold.
A woodworker's pieces beside the factory ones
A woodworker leaves a few painted pieces on your shelf and they stand beside the factory toys. When a customer asks for one you have to know which rate is whose and which pieces are his, and a month later he asks how many have gone. The woodworker is neither a supplier nor a customer, and that is why the shelf is hard to read.
Questions Andaman toy shop owners ask
A visitor wants a gift small enough for a suitcase. Can the item's name tell me which toys are small?
Yes. Put the size in the name when you set the toy up, such as small wooden boat, with its own rate and count. When the visitor asks, the small ones are the lines with that word.
A woodworker leaves painted pieces on my shelf and asks a month later how many have gone. Whose page are they on?
His own. He is neither a supplier you order from nor a customer who buys, so give him a page, note the pieces he leaves and the day, and make each piece an item at its own rate. What has gone is the count you read out to him.
A gift goes to another island by ferry with a neighbour. How does the family there know what is in the parcel?
Send the bill on WhatsApp to the family on the other island before the ferry leaves. They open the parcel with the bill on the phone, the toy named and the day beside it.
Island makers and the months visitors come
Around 500 artisans make handicrafts from local raw materials in the islands, but they struggle with marketing and transport; the Sagarika Emporium in Port Blair helps them sell. A toy shop that stocks a maker's work gives the maker one more counter besides the emporium, and its own bills show which pieces sell.
The Andaman and Nicobar tourism department says October to May is the ideal time to visit, with clear skies and balmy breezes. Those are the months when a toy shop sees gifts bought for children who are not from here.