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Billing for your toy shop, from the craft toy to the new craze

A hundred small things on one counter, and the gift season in the same month every year.

A toy seller standing behind a counter heaped with toy cars and figures while a customer looks on, in Kolkata, West Bengal
A toy seller standing behind a counter heaped with toy cars and figures while a customer looks on, in Kolkata, West Bengal Photo: Biswarup Ganguly, CC BY 3.0

A toy shop that knows which shelf to fill before the gifting weeks

  1. Wooden toys for gifting between the diyas and the sweets

    In Panjim, Goa, a Diwali shopping festival at the Don Bosco Oratory puts wooden toys for gifting beside diyas, ethnic wear and sweets. Most buyers there are grown-ups choosing a gift. Each wooden toy is an item with its own rate, so you name the price at once and send the bill on WhatsApp for the person who will give it.

  2. A craze is bought small, and a craft toy is bought steady

    Keep each character toy and each wooden toy as its own item with its own stock. After a few weeks the evening count shows that the craze is gone from the shelf in a week and the wooden bird goes slowly and surely. The next order for the craze is small, and the next order for the bird is larger. A shop that buys the craft toys once a season from a workshop far away needs that count most. The shelf is then full of what moves and light on what does not.

  3. A playschool takes its toys for the term and pays when the term's fees come in

    A playschool that wants a set of toys for the term can apply to buy on credit. The whole set goes on one bill, each toy at its own rate, and the playschool's page notes what it owes. Until the term's fees arrive, the page shows the whole sum waiting, and the playschool need not pay out of its own pocket first. When the fees arrive, it pays, and the page shows the balance cleared.

Rows of painted wooden toy cars, trains and figures laid out in sunlight on a toy seller's cloth
Rows of painted wooden toy cars, trains and figures laid out in sunlight on a toy seller's cloth Photo: Pratheepps, CC BY-SA 3.0

Tools for a counter where everything costs little and there is so much of it

  • Low stock warnings

    A warning when the tops or the toy cars on the front shelf are nearly gone, before the shelf is empty and a child is crying. A busy Saturday does not empty a whole shelf before anyone has noticed.

  • Orders to suppliers

    The gift-week order to the workshop sent from your phone a month ahead, and what arrives noted against it.

  • UPI payments

    A child holds the box tight while the parent finds the phone. The parent scans the QR code on the counter, the bill goes to the phone, and the child need not put the toy back for want of cash.

A heap of brightly painted wooden spinning tops in Sawantwadi, Maharashtra
A heap of brightly painted wooden spinning tops in Sawantwadi, Maharashtra Photo: Art Projects MKCL KF, CC BY-SA 4.0
A painted wooden bird toy and a rocking elephant toy in Bhubaneswar, Odisha
A painted wooden bird toy and a rocking elephant toy in Bhubaneswar, Odisha Photo: Subhashish Panigrahi, CC BY-SA 4.0

The craze that sells out in a month and the wooden bird that sells for years

  • Which character to stock before the gifting season, when nobody can say

    Toys based on pop-culture characters such as Iron Man, Batman and Ben 10 are highly sought after in Delhi's toy market, IANS reported in 2020. Children ask for the character they saw on a screen, and a shop owner in a small town may not know its name. Before the gifting season starts, you must choose which character goes on the shelf, and nothing on the shelf tells you if the choice was right until the children come.

  • The craft toy arrives in uneven lots, from a hand that made each piece

    A painted wooden bird, a set of tops, a rocking elephant come from a workshop or a craft village in lots that are never the same size, and the maker's cost for each is a little different. The shopkeeper knows what he paid by heart for the first week and not at all by the third. A piece sells for a good price, and he is not sure whether it was good for him. Some pieces take a week to make and sell in an hour.

  • The festival crowd that buys a painted piece and the family that buys a plastic car

    Visitors who come for a festival buy a painted wooden bird or a set of tops to carry home. The child who lives next door asks for the plastic car and the cartoon doll. One shelf holds both, and the shopkeeper's notebook has the two jumbled together.

Questions a toy seller asks about craft lots, crazes and sets

A painted wooden bird sells a few at a time all season. How do I know when to ask for the next lot?

Every sale is kept, so open the days since the lot came and see how many went out each week. A bird that sells steadily shows a gentle line, and the count left tells you when to send the order to the maker.

A village workshop wants my gift-week order a month early. How do I know how many to ask for?

The workshop makes by hand and needs the month, so the order goes before the gift weeks begin. Ask for what the shelf is short of today, and tell the workshop a second lot will not come in time.

A mother in another state orders a toy online. Who pays for sending it?

Put the courier charge on her bill as a line of its own, with its rate, beside the toy. She sees what the toy costs and what the sending costs, pays both by UPI, and the toy's count comes down when you bill it.

More questions every shop asks

Where the toy comes from and where it is sold: a lacquered village and an island's festival months

Etikoppaka village on the Varaha River in Andhra Pradesh makes lacquered toys from soft Ankudu wood coloured with plant dyes such as turmeric and indigo, a tradition about 400 years old.

The tourism department of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands lists the Island Tourism Fest in December, the Sea Food Festival in January and the Beach Festival in April.