Billing for your cosmetics and bangle shop, from the bindi to the bridal set
Bangles by the dozen, a packet of kumkum and the bride's family that pays after the wedding.
How a counter of small, bright things stays counted
Lac, glass and conch are separate items from separate suppliers
Put each kind of bangle in as its own item, and each supplier as its own page. When the lac bangles run out you order from the one who makes them, and the glass ones are not mixed into the same count. A new girl at the counter can see at a glance which kind is low.
What is in the godown and what is on the tray
A bangle seller keeps the full boxes in a godown and a small tray at the counter. Count the godown and the counter as two places under one account. A size that is empty on the tray is then seen to be full in the godown, and nobody goes to the wholesaler for a box that is already at the back.
A bridal set is ordered from last season's bills
A bride's family picks the colours of a bangle set weeks before the wedding. Keep each family's set on one bill under their name, and after the season those bills show which colours were asked for and how many dozens went. Before the next season you read that list against the shelf and order the colours that went first, in the dozens that were asked for. The kumkum and bindi packets sold with each set are on the same bills, so they are ordered from the same list.
The Karva Chauth rush, the wedding bookings and the box of bangles that came broken
The festival where every woman needs the same things in the same two days
Delhi's packed Karva Chauth markets included Chandni Chowk, Sadar Bazar, Sarojini Nagar, Lajpat Nagar, Karol Bagh, Rajouri Garden, Kamla Nagar and Pitampura, CAIT said. A stall in such a market sells most of its month in those few days. The queue is long and every rate is small, so the sums are many and none of them is large. By the time anyone has counted what is left, the shelf is already empty, and the month's order is guessed from memory.
A season that fills the book and empties the shelf
As Kashmir's wedding season starts in early autumn, beauty salons see a surge in demand, and one Srinagar salon owner said their bookings were full for the next two months. The shop that supplies a salon or sells bridal makeup and bangles to the same families has the same two months. The bookings are in a notebook and the goods are on a shelf, and neither knows what the other has promised. A mehendi artist who has the same hand booked twice is a small crisis, and a shop that has promised the same bangle set to two brides is a bigger one.
Every region sells its own bangle, and each comes from its own wholesaler
A lac bangle, a glass bangle, a conch bangle and a kumkum packet are not the same business. A shop in Hyderabad sells the lac bangles of the city, one in Kolkata sells conch bangles, and a stall in Narsobawadi in Maharashtra sells heaps of kumkum. Each comes from a different supplier with a different lot size, and the owner who tries to remember all of them cannot. A shop that sells only one of them sees the others sold by the stall across the lane, and has no way of knowing what it lost.
Tools for a counter of bangles, bindi cards and makeup
Bills on your phone
One slip for a dozen red bangles, a card of bindi and a hand of mehendi, the goods and the work each at their own rate. Nobody has to remember the rate of a cone.
Low stock warnings
A warning when the red or green bangle in the size most brides ask for runs low, so that one is ordered first and the box is not found empty on the day a set is wanted. Kumkum and sindoor, which are cheap but asked for first, get the same warning.
Online orders
Orders for bridal bangle sets from your own online shop, so a family can choose the colours from home and collect the box.
Questions a bangle seller and a beauty counter ask
A box of bangles comes with some broken. How do I count only the whole ones?
Note the dozens that arrived whole when you note the delivery. The stock starts at the number you can actually sell, and the broken ones are not counted as stock.
Kumkum, sindoor and bindi are small packets at small prices. Do they all need to be counted?
Yes, each as an item. A packet is cheap, but a counter without kumkum on the first day of a festival loses the customer who came for the whole list, so the warning is for these too.
The bride's family takes the set today and pays after the wedding. Where do I write what they owe?
Give the family a page in the credit book and put the bangles, bindi and kumkum on one bill under that name. The bill shows what they took and what they have paid so far, and the rest stays against their name until the day they come to pay.
The festival is over and some bangle sizes are still in full boxes. Which sizes stayed?
Keep each size of bangle as its own item. After the festival, each size's count shows which boxes are still full. Next season's order leaves those sizes light.
A chain's store in the hills and the lac bangles of Khunti
Indian Retailer reported on 28 December 2022 that a branded beauty store had opened in Arunachal Pradesh.
In Khunti district of Jharkhand about 400 to 450 self-help groups make lac bangles, mementos, sealing wax and button lac for their livelihood.