Billing for your mobile and electronics shop in Goa
A phone left for repair, a charger bought on the way and a family paying for a television in parts.
Why a Goa mobile shop cannot say if the battery is in the drawer, what the beach season left or find the bill a service centre asks for
A flight at night and a battery the shop is not sure it has
On the last morning of a holiday a visitor brings a phone whose battery is dying within the hour. The owner thinks he has the battery for that model, goes through three drawers, and finds it is for the older model. The flight is in the evening. Had he known at the counter that the part was not in the shop, he could have sent for it while the visitor still had the day.
Power banks, pouches and chargers for the beach, bought in a hurry
When the beach is full, visitors come in for a power bank, a waterproof pouch for the phone, a charger left behind in a rented room. They want it now and they are going away. The stock of those goods runs down in a week, and the owner finds out when a customer asks for a pouch and the hook on the wall is empty. A pouch bought at six on the beach road is a sale the owner would like to repeat tomorrow, and he cannot, because he does not know how many he had.
The phone sold before the festival, and a service centre that asks for the bill
In the festival weeks a family buys a phone or a television. Months later it goes to a service centre, and the centre asks for the bill with the model on it. The family comes back to the shop to ask for a copy, and the owner has to find the page of the notebook, and write the model name again from memory. The family goes home with the television and the card in a drawer, and the bill is a slip in the shop's own file.
Tools for a counter of phones, covers, chargers and a repair bench
Bills on your phone
A screen fitted while a visitor waits is two lines on one bill, the part and the fitting, each at its own rate.
Low stock warnings
A warning when a phone model's battery falls to your mark, counted by model and not by drawer, so no customer is told yes and sent away.
Daily reports
The festival weeks of television and phone sales read day by day, apart from the beach weeks of chargers and pouches.
From a repair slip taped to a phone to a bill that stays on the buyer's own phone
The visitor with a flight to catch and a hired scooter at the door
A visitor with a cracked screen has a flight to catch and a hired scooter at the door. You do the work while she watches the clock, and she is gone in minutes. A month later, when she asks what was changed, the bill is there on her phone and the same bill is with you.
Power banks and pouches counted, so the hook on the wall is never the first to say it is empty
Make each power bank and each pouch an item with its own count. Every sale takes one off. In the weeks the beach fills, a low-stock warning names the ones nearly gone, and the order goes to the supplier while there are still a few on the wall. The supplier's boy is rung on the Monday, and the order is for what is gone, with the beach weeks still ahead.
The bill the service centre asks for, already on the family's phone
When the service centre asks for the bill, the family opens its own phone and shows it. The bill was sent the day of the sale, so the centre reads the day from it, and no one goes back to the shop to look through a notebook.
What a Goa mobile shop owner asks before starting
A visitor whose screen I mended comes back in a week with the same trouble. What do I do?
She is here only for the week, so be quick. Read what you changed first, tell her honestly whether the same part has failed again, and make the second bill under the same name so both visits sit together.
A family's television remote has gone a month after the festival. How do I find the one that fits?
Open the family's page. The television's model is in the item's name, so the remote you order is the one under that model, and you do not guess from the shape.
Visitors come off the bus with a charging port full of sand from the beach. Can the cleaning be a line on the bill?
Yes. Make the cleaning an item with its own rate. It goes on the bill beside a charger or alone, and the day's report shows how many phones were cleaned in the beach weeks.
The festival months and the loans behind the big sales
An older Herald report said Goa's white goods and television retailers make 35 to 40% of the year's sales in the festival season, the lead-up to Ganpati and Diwali, so the weeks before those two festivals carry much of the year for a shop that sells televisions.
The same older Herald report estimated that 60-70% of Goan white goods buyers use a bank loan, and companies offer zero-percent interest schemes in the festival season. A shop that sells on such schemes still makes a bill for each item and keeps each customer's page.