Billing for your toy shop in Delhi
The carton for a visiting retailer and the single toy for a child have their own rates on one shelf.
Tools for a toy counter that sells to the child at night and to the retailer by day
Sell to other businesses
The retailer you do not know pays at the counter. The one you know has his cartons put on his own page, to be paid later.
Credit book (khata)
A page for each retailer with the cartons he took on each visit, each dated, and what he still owes from the last.
Orders to suppliers
The order for the next film's toys, kept small, sent from the phone with the stuck toys' sales beside it.
Daily reports
Each toy's sales week by week since its film ended, so the flat line of a stuck toy is read before the stocktake.
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From the retailer's carton rate to the film toy that stopped selling
The retailers' morning and the fathers' evening, two lines of one day
At closing, the day's sales show the retailers' morning on the carton lines and the fathers' evening on the piece lines. The cash in the box splits by the bills that made it, so you know how much came from the retailers and how much from the fathers before you count the notes.
The visiting retailer applies, and you say yes or no before the tempo is loaded
A retailer you know applies to buy from you on credit, and you accept him. What he takes on this visit goes on his page, and what he owes from the last visit is already there. A retailer you do not know pays at the counter, and nothing is left on a promise.
The film toy goes into the retailer's tempo on the last lines of his bill
When the retailer from another town has filled his tempo with what sells, ask him about the film toy that sits on the upper shelf. If he takes it, its cartons are extra lines on the same bill and on his page with the rest of the visit. The shelf is cleared in one visit, and the money in the stuck toy moves to the toys that sell.
Why a Delhi toy shop's carton rate, visiting retailers and film toys sit in three different heads
A carton rate for the retailer and a piece rate for the child, for the same toy
A toy shop near the wholesale lanes has two kinds of customers at one counter. A retailer from another town buys a carton, and a father buys a single piece for his child. The carton has its rate, the piece has another, and the second is higher by a margin you work out each time. A helper who is new, or in a hurry, quotes the wrong one, and the shop either loses on the carton or loses the retailer.
The retailer who visits twice a year, buys many cartons and wants to pay half now
Retailers from smaller towns come to the old city's toy lanes a few times a year, fill a tempo with cartons, and want to pay part now and the rest on the next visit. You know a few of them. You do not know the rest, and the list of who owes how much, from which visit, is in a book that is not always beside you when the next one arrives.
The film toy that sold out in March and has not moved since
Toys tied to a film or a cartoon character sell in a rush, and then the show ends and the toy is yesterday's. Cartons of it sit on the upper shelf for a year. The shop finds out only at the annual stocktake, and the money in them cannot be moved to the toys that are selling.
Questions Delhi toy shop owners ask about the two tempos, the film's sequel and the stuck toy
A retailer wants the cartons packed for two tempos on two days. Can the order be two bills?
Yes. Make one bill for each day's tempo, both under the retailer's name. They sit together on his page, each with its date.
A retailer says the film toy is stuck in his shop as well. Can I see how many cartons of it went to him?
Yes. His page lists every bill, so open it and the film toy's line shows how many cartons he took and on which day. You can set what he took against what he says is left.
A film's sequel arrives and the first film's toy must be sold cheaper. Can the old and the new stock share a name?
Yes. Make the old toy and the sequel's toy two items, each with its own rate and its own count. The old stock goes at the lower rate and the new at the full one, and the two never mix.
Dolls, cars and puzzles go in one tempo, and the retailer asks how many of each went. Where do I look?
On the bill. Each carton is its own line with its count, so the bill shows how many of each toy went in the tempo, and the stock of each has gone down by the same number.
The toy market of Old Delhi
Sadar Bazaar, beside Khari Baoli road in Old Delhi, is one of the capital's biggest toy markets, IANS reported in September 2020. A shop that buys its toys there by the dozen sells them across its own counter one at a time, and each toy is an item sold by the piece.
A Sadar Bazaar traders' federation leader said in 2020 that 70% of the toys sold there before the lockdown were made in China. Whatever a toy's make, a bill names it and gives its rate, and the count of that toy goes down by the pieces sold.