Billing for your footwear shop in Bihar
The gumboots before the paddy, the sandals for the wedding and the strap you stitched while the customer waited.
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What a Bihar footwear counter keeps on its phone
Bills on your phone
A bill with a pair of gumboots in size nine, a pair of sandals in gold and a stitched strap, each on its own line.
Low stock warnings
A warning when size nine of the gumboots or size six of the gold sandals is nearly gone, in the weeks that sell them.
Daily reports
The evening's total on a day of several bargained pairs, each at the rate it was sold, so the number is the one the counter really earned.
Credit book (khata)
A page for the contractor listing each pair of his gang by size and day, so the next trip's sizes are chosen from the page.
Fields, jute and cattle: where a Bihar shoe is worn
A footwear shop in Bihar sells to farmers, wedding parties and town families, and each of these districts has its own working life.
- In East Champaran, agriculture is the main income, with rice and sugar cane as major crops, and fishery is a popular small industry.
- Samastipur has many sugar mills and a large jute mill, and it is a major potato producer with over 20 cold storages.
- The Sonepur cattle fair in Saran meets each November on Kartik Purnima, where the Ganges meets the Gandak, and is one of the biggest cattle fairs in Asia.
- Patna has long been a major farm hub and trading centre, with grain, sugarcane, sesame and Patna rice as its busiest exports.
Gumboots before the paddy, a labour gang's rubber chappals and a price bargained at the counter
Gumboots go in the days before the paddy goes in, and the size nine goes first
Farmers come for gumboots and rubber chappals just before the paddy is planted, and in a few days half the stock goes. The size nine is bought out on the first morning while the size seven you have six of stays on the shelf. Whoever comes on the third day finds only the sizes nobody wanted.
Twenty pairs of rubber chappals for a labour gang
A contractor who hires farm and brick workers comes for twenty pairs of rubber chappals at once for his gang, and says he will pay on pay day. The pairs are of different sizes, some are bought in the morning and a few more in the evening, and the contractor remembers twenty while the notebook shows eighteen.
A price bargained at the counter, and three prices for one pair
In a Bihar lane nobody pays the first price. A customer holds a pair, you say a figure, he says a lower one, and the two of you meet somewhere between. The boy at the counter heard the first figure, the customer remembers the second, and the cash box gets the third. At the end of the day the pairs sold do not match the money, and nobody can say where the difference went.
From the first rain to the last pair of wedding sandals
The size nine bought a few boxes deeper before the paddy goes in
The paddy goes in and the size nine goes first. Bring the nines in before the planting week, a few boxes deeper than the other sizes, and keep the sizes that sit on the top shelf out of the order. When the week comes the nines are on the shelf, and the boxes up high grow fewer.
The labour gang's pairs, billed once on the contractor's page
Give the contractor a page. The twenty pairs are billed on it with their sizes and the day, and the pairs he comes for in the evening go on the same page. On pay day you read the page down together and tick it off, and the twenty is twenty.
The lowest price on last season's pairs, set before the bargaining starts
Give every pair its rate as an item. Last season's pairs you are happy to let go cheaper get a lower rate of their own. When the customer bargains, the helper starts from the rate on the phone, and the lowest price you will take is settled before anyone asks.
What footwear shop owners in Bihar ask
Gumboots come in sizes five to eleven. Do I need an item for each size?
Yes, one item for each size, so the count of each comes down with its own sales. If all sizes cost the same, set the same rate on each of them. The size you are out of shows before the boy goes to the back.
A kiln owner takes twenty pairs for his workers in two trips. One page or two?
One page. Bill the first trip on his page with the sizes and the day, and the second trip on the same page, so his twenty pairs are read down together on pay day.
A farmer comes back for the same gumboot he took before the last planting. Can I find it?
If he buys on udhaar, his page lists his bills with their dates, so you open it and see the size he took and the rate. You pick the same size from your items and bill it, and he need not remember.
Samastipur's sugar mills keep their hands busy for weeks, and the workers come for strong shoes then. Can I read those weeks apart?
Yes. Open last year's weeks when the mill hands came in the daily report and read the shoes size by size. The order before the next busy weeks is then made from them, not from memory.
The leather park at Mahwal in Muzaffarpur
Bihar's Industry Minister said in September 2026 that the Mega Leather, Footwear and Allied Products Park at Mahwal, Muzaffarpur, can build a strong footwear manufacturing base. A shop that sells footwear in Bihar may one day buy pairs made in its own state, and one that keeps its own sales count can tell the maker which sizes the district really buys.
Chief Minister Samrat Choudhary inaugurated the Rs 140.95 crore Mega Leather, Footwear and Accessories Cluster at Mahwal, Muzaffarpur, on 15 October 2026, UNI reported. It is a cluster with a date and a cost on record, and a shop that keeps its own sales count can compare any new local maker with the pairs it already sells, size by size and week by week.