Billing for your supermarket in Chandigarh
Two shops and an online store, the cut-fruit boxes packed from the shelf and the van that carries stock on a slip.
Why one pack of rice has three counts, the cut-fruit boxes are packed from the shelf and the van carries stock on a slip
One pack of rice, counted in three places
The same pack of rice is on the shelf of the shop in one sector, on the shelf of the shop in another, and in the stock the online store shows to customers who order by phone. Each place has its own count, kept by whoever is there. A customer orders it online, the owner promises it, and the pack turns out to have been sold at the other shop that morning.
The cut-fruit and salad boxes packed in the shop each morning from the shelf
Each morning a woman at the back of the shop peels and cuts fruit into boxes for the office workers who come at lunch. The papayas, apples and cucumbers come from the same shelf the customers shop from, and the boxes are sold at one price for each. By evening the shelf has fewer apples than the count says, and nobody knows how many went into boxes.
The van that carries stock from the godown to the second shop on a slip
Every evening a van takes packs from the godown to the second shop, with a handwritten slip of what it carries. The man at the second shop counts what he receives against the slip in a hurry, and the godown's count and the shop's count are never made to agree. A week later the second shop is out of the pack that the first shop still has.
Women's shops that moved their records from paper to one phone
Tools for a grocery business with two shops, an online store and a van between them
Many shops, one owner
Both shops and the godown in one account, each with its own count of every pack, so a customer asking at the first shop about the second shop's shelf gets a true answer.
Online orders
Orders from the shop's own online store come into the same list as the counters' bills, so a pack of rice sold in the shop is no longer promised on the phone.
Godown stock
The godown's count falling as the van loads each evening and the second shop's count rising when the van arrives, with the slip's lines read against both.
From three counts of one pack to one list, a fruit box that counts its fruit and a van counted out and in
The online store selling from the same list as the shelves
Let the online store sell from the same list as the shops. A pack of rice sold at the first shop comes off the same count, so before you accept an online order you can see whether a pack is still there.
The fruit box as an item, with each fruit counted out of the shelf when the box is made
Make the box an item with its price, and note the fruit that went into the morning's boxes against the shelf's count. At night the apples and papayas on the shelf match what the count says, and you can see which fruit the lunch boxes use most.
The van's slip checked against the count at the second shop
The packs come off the van at the second shop in a hurry, and a handwritten slip is all anyone has to check them against. Enter what arrived beside what the slip says, and a short count is seen that evening, not at the next stock count. The pack that runs out first at the first shop is already on the van.
What a Chandigarh supermarket owner asks before starting
A customer orders a pack of rice on the online store and the pack was sold at the other shop an hour ago. Can that be avoided?
Yes, when both shops and the online store sit in one account. Each sale takes the pack off the count, and the online store shows what is left.
Cut-fruit boxes are packed from the same shelf that customers buy from. Can the fruit used in the boxes be counted?
Yes. The box is an item with its price, and the fruit is an item with its count. Note the fruit that goes into the morning's boxes, and the shelf's count stays true.
Which packs should the van carry to the second shop tonight?
Read the second shop's count and the godown's count side by side. Load first the pack that is thin at the shop and full in the godown, and the van is full of what the shop needs.
At night I want the first shop's evening and the second shop's side by side. Is that one list?
Yes. Each shop's sales are listed under its own name and can be read together in one list, so you see the two evenings next to each other.
A festive sales estimate for the tricity, and a grocer that grew from one shop
Traders' associations estimated that festive sales across Chandigarh, Mohali and Panchkula would cross Rs 250-300 crore ahead of Dhanteras and Diwali 2025, up 30-40% on the year before. A supermarket in those weeks has the most goods leaving the shelves in the shortest time of the year.
Peshawari Supermarkets began as a kirana store in 1957 and by 2017 ran shops in Chandigarh Sector 19 and Manimajra, plus an online store. A business that grew from one counter to two shops and an online store has three places to count the same goods.