Billing for your garment shop in Himachal Pradesh
Coats, shawls and caps, each with its own rate, and every family's last winter on its page.
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Tools for a woollen counter, from the weaver's lot to the winter bill
Credit book (khata)
A page for each family that comes once a year, so last winter's coat, size and rate are there when the cold returns.
Orders to suppliers
A page for the tailor next door, with the cloth you sent and each lot of coats that came back.
Offers for regular customers
A discount note for the families who bought in fair week, ready to use when the first cold returns.
Low stock warnings
A warning when one jacket size runs low early in the cold, while the road is open and an order can reach you.
A shop that earns in the cold: the family that comes once a year, the tailor's lots and fair-week prices
The family that comes once a year and remembers nothing
Some families walk down from their village only at the first cold. The father wants a coat, and he cannot say which size he took last year or what he paid. You remember his face but not the number. He tries on four coats, and the one he finally takes is the one he took before, at a price that is not the price he is quoted now.
Coats stitched next door, brought back in lots
You give the tailor next door woollen cloth by the metre, and what comes back is coats, in twos and threes over a week. Metres out and coats in are two different counts, and neither of you wrote down the metres or the day each lot came. When he says the job is done, you count fewer coats on the hangers than the cloth should have made.
The fair-week price that follows the customer home
In fair week you cut the price of coats and sweaters to pull the crowd in. A month later a customer walks in and says he paid less last time. You cannot show him what the price was that week, so you either lose the sale or lose the difference.
From last winter's coat on the family's page to the coupon after the fair
The fair-week rate and the cold-season rate, said plainly
Coats cost less in fair week than they do when the cold comes, and a father who bought then remembers only the lower figure. Say so plainly: the fair-week rate was for the fair, and the rate on the shelf now is for the cold season. Say it before he asks, and the talk ends with a coat in his hand.
The coat sizes counted as the tailor's lots return
Coats come back from the tailor in twos and threes, and each lot adds its sizes to the stock the day it arrives. When a father asks for his son's size, the phone answers from the count on the hangers, and the coats still with the tailor are not promised to him.
A coupon for the family that bought in fair week
Change the rate of coats when the fair opens and change it back when it ends. A bill keeps the rate it was made with, so the fair price stays on the fair bills. The families who bought that week can get a coupon for the next cold season, and the customer who says he paid less is shown the bill.
What garment shop owners in Himachal ask
The son has grown a size since last winter. How do I find the coat he took then?
Open the family's page. Last winter's coat is there with its size and its rate, so you start from that size and try the next one up. The new coat goes on as a fresh line, and the old size stays on record.
I give the tailor cloth by the metre and he brings back coats. How do I see that the cloth and the coats agree?
Keep the cloth as an item in metres, and what goes to him comes off the shelf. The coats that come back are noted on his page. When the season ends, the metres given and the coats returned are in one place, and a short lot shows now and not in the spring.
A customer takes a coat home on approval to show her husband and brings it back next day. How do I hold it?
Leave the coat on the shelf count until she decides, with her name on a slip and the day. If she keeps it, make the bill then, at the rate of that day. If she returns it, nothing was sold and the count never moved.
Fair-week coats and hand-woven shawls in Himachal
At the Kullu Dasehra market people generally buy coats and jackets for around Rs 500, and sweaters and cardigans for around Rs 250, at discounted prices. A customer who walks into your shop the next week remembers those numbers, so what the tag says and what the bill says have to agree, coat by coat.
Himachal's hand-woven shawls come from weavers in Kullu, Kinnaur, Chamba, Kangra and Sirmaur, and a Kinnaur shawl can take seven to eight months or a year. A shop that stocks one is holding months of a weaver's work on a single hanger.