Billing for your footwear shop in Delhi
The maker's pairs left on sale, the groom's juttis in a dozen sizes and the laces in the bag each have a line.
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Tools for a counter that takes the maker's pairs on sale and sells juttis by the baraat
Orders to suppliers
The maker's bundle noted against the order on the day it arrives, one item for each design, with the pairs counted in.
Daily reports
Pairs sold of each design since the maker's last visit, read when he returns so that he is paid on the count.
Credit book (khata)
The wedding family's page lists the juttis by size with the advance already shown, and stays open until the morning of the baraat.
Bills on your phone
Five pairs in five sizes for a migrant family catching a train home, each size on its own line of the one bill.
Why a Delhi chappal counter pays the maker from memory, loses the baraat's sizes and gives away the laces
The maker's cartons come on a handcart, and the fortnight's count is a guess
A small maker from a lane in the city sends two or three cartons of chappals on a handcart, and the arrangement is that you pay him from what sells. A fortnight later he stands at your counter and asks for the number. You walk along the shelf and count the gaps, but a pair was tried and put back, a carton was opened and not shelved, and your number is the one you hope he accepts.
A groom's family wants a dozen pairs of juttis, and the sizes keep changing
Juttis are bought by the pair, and a pair has a size. The sizes reach the family by phone, a few at a time over many days: three of nine, two of eight, one of ten, and then one of the nines becomes an eight. Each change sends one pair back to the shelf and takes another out, and you hold only a few pairs of each size. You write the sizes on a paper, and a week later you cannot tell which pairs are set aside and which are free to sell.
Laces, polish and socks that go into the bag with the pair
A customer buys a pair of shoes and you drop in a pair of laces, a small tin of polish, and a pair of socks, saying that is included. Some of it is given free to a regular, and some should have been charged. None of it is written, and the small things on the counter go down by the dozen with no sale to show for them.
From the maker's pairs counted as they sell to the laces and polish that reach the bill
The maker is paid on the number of pairs sold, design by design
Add the maker's bundle to the stock when it arrives, one item for each design. Each bill takes its pairs off. When he returns, open the report and read, design by design, how many pairs sold, and what is left on the shelf. He is paid on that number, and neither of you counts the shelf.
The baraat's juttis are one bill with every size on it, and the advance is on the page
Put the family's sizes on one bill, nine, eight and ten each on its own line. Note on the family's page what has been paid. When the family collects the juttis, the page is open, the bill is ready, and only what is left is taken.
The laces, the polish and the socks reach the bill as their own lines
Make laces, polish and socks small items with their own rates and counts. When you give a pair of laces free, put it on the bill at nothing, so it is seen. When it is charged, it is a line. Either way the count of laces goes down by the pairs that left, and the tin of polish does not vanish from the counter.
Questions Delhi footwear owners ask about the maker's pairs, the baraat's juttis and the laces
A maker's carton is opened at the counter and the pairs wait in their wrapping for days. Are they counted yet?
Not until you add them. Add the pairs when you open the carton, design by design, not when you put them on the wall. The phone and the carton then agree, and the maker's count starts the day they came.
A groom's family wants a dozen juttis, and then a nine becomes an eight. How do I know which pairs are set aside?
A dozen set aside waits for the baraat, sometimes for weeks. While it waits the count shows those pairs gone from the shelf, and a nine that becomes an eight is a change to one line, not to the dozen.
The maker comes on his round with a bundle. What do I tell him to leave out?
Tell him the design that stopped selling. Hold the unsold pairs of that design as one item at a lower rate, so the next bundle is for designs that sell and the old pairs go out first.
Laces and polish go free to a regular and are charged to a stranger. How do I bill both?
The regular gets his at nothing: change the rate on his bill to nothing and leave it as it is on the stranger's. The count of each falls the same for both, so the laces given free do not leave the count wrong.
Delhi as a place where footwear is made, and what households spend on it
Delhi is among India's major non-leather footwear production centres, along with Chennai, Agra, Kanpur, Ludhiana, Karnal and Sonepat, says Invest India. A shop in Delhi that sells rubber and plastic chappals buys from makers in its own city, and each design of theirs is an item in its own right, in its own sizes.
Clothing and footwear carry a weight of 5.43% in the consumer price index for industrial workers in Delhi, says the Economic Survey of Delhi 2025-26. For a worker's family that is a pair here and a pair there through the year, and a shop that keeps the family's page sees them come back.