Billing for your toy shop in Chhattisgarh
A toy bullock for Pola, a Bastar doll for the visitor and a dozen for the shop in the next town.
Tools for a toy counter that sells by the piece, the pair and the dozen
Sell to other businesses
The next town's shopkeeper takes a dozen dolls on credit and pays after his festival sales, on a page apart from the visitor's one doll.
Low stock warnings
The toy bullocks of Pola shown as running out on the second day, while the maker can still make another lot.
Bills on your phone
Two cells and a paper bag added to the toy car's bill in two taps, so the small things stop being given away.
Offers for regular customers
A discount for the family that takes two pairs of bullocks on Pola eve, one for each child, noted on its bill.
Why the Pola bullocks are gone in three days and the cells go without a bill
Pola week: toy bullocks on wheels, and the lot that is gone in three days
In the days before Pola children ask for wooden toy bullocks on wheels to pull on a string, and they sell in pairs. The maker needs time to turn out a new lot, so an order placed when the pairs are already gone reaches you after the festival. You order from what you remember of last year, and by the third day the pairs are gone.
One doll, two buyers: the visitor takes one, the shopkeeper from the next town wants a dozen
A Bastar doll bought by a visitor at the stall is sold by the piece. The same doll is wanted by a shopkeeper from another town by the dozen, at a lower rate, and he asks you to wait for the money until his own festival sales. The rate, the dozen and the waiting are all in your head, and the visitor beside him hears the dozen rate and asks for it too.
The toy car that needs two cells, and the cells that go without a bill
A child chooses a toy car, and the father asks if it comes with cells. You take two from the box under the counter and add them, saying nothing about the rate. Cells, string, a spare wheel and a paper bag are given in a hundred small ways, and none reaches the notebook, so the toy margin is smaller than the toy sales look.
From a dozen Bastar dolls on credit to a coupon for the next Pola
The dozen rate for the shopkeeper and the single rate for the visitor, never on one line
Make the dozen of Bastar dolls an item with its own lower rate, apart from the single doll the visitor takes. At the stall the shopkeeper from the next town hears the dozen rate and the visitor the single rate. Each bill carries only its own, so nobody argues over the price of the same doll.
Pola's bullocks counted from the first day, not after the festival
Put the pairs you have in as stock before the festival week. Each sale takes one pair off, so by the second day the phone shows how many pairs are left, and you ring the maker that evening instead of after Pola. The next lot comes while children are still asking for it.
A coupon for the family that bought last Pola's bullock, kept for this year's
Open the page of a family that came for a toy bullock last Pola and see its bill. This year give it a coupon of your own for the festival, from the offers you set up. The child who got a bullock last year comes back for the next toy, and the coupon is the reason it is your shop.
Wedding gifts and steel families: who buys toys in Chhattisgarh
Toys here are bought as gifts and for festivals, and the families who buy them live by very different work.
- Champa town in Janjgir-Champa is known for the finest Kosa silk sarees with zari borders, in demand across India for weddings. Its weavers number in the thousands.
- Raigarh is home to Jindal Steel's flagship integrated steel complex, with 3.6 million tonnes a year of steelmaking capacity and its own coal mine.
Questions Chhattisgarh toy shops ask
A family pays a part for a pair of bullocks on Monday and will take them on Pola eve. How do I keep the pair for them?
Put the part-payment on a page in the family's name with the day. On Pola eve the page shows the balance, the family pays it and takes the pair, and the page tells your helper the pair is spoken for.
A toy bullock's wheel comes off after the festival. Can I sell the wheel on its own?
Yes. Make the wheel an item with its own rate and count, apart from the bullocks. The family pays for the wheel only, and no bullock leaves the count.
A school wants toy bullocks for its Pola programme on a set day. How do I bill the pairs it takes?
Open a page in the school's name and write the day of the programme in it. Bill the pairs on the day they leave the shop, so your count of pairs falls that day and the families who come later are not promised pairs that the school has taken.
Bastar's dolls and the state's craft emporiums
In Bastar, tribal dolls are sold during local haats, the weekly markets. A shop that keeps them has a doll to sell by the piece and the same doll to sell by the dozen.
The Chhattisgarh Handicraft Development Board, set up in 2001, sells state crafts through Shabari emporiums and runs India's first Mobile Emporium. A shop that travels, like the Mobile Emporium, is a shop whose stock moves with it.