Billing for your clothing shop in Jammu and Kashmir
Every pheran, shawl and pair of gloves at its own rate, and every weaver's account on its own page.
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The crafts and lanes that dress Jammu and Kashmir
A clothing shop in Jammu and Kashmir sells work from these places, and customers often know where a piece was made.
- Srinagar's traditional crafts include Pashmina shawls, hand-knotted carpets, walnut wood carving, papier-mache, sozni embroidery, Kani shawls and copperware.
- Basohli paintings and Basohli pashmina are Kathua district's One District One Product, chosen for popularity and export potential.
- Lal Chowk is Srinagar's central commercial area for textiles, handicrafts and souvenirs; Polo View Market is known for handicrafts and carpets.
- Budgam district has 74 government handicraft training centres teaching about 1,840 people a year, and an artisan credit scheme gives loans of Rs 2 lakh.
Why a Kashmir wedding order of twelve matching pheran is lost in a pocket slip
A wedding party's twelve pheran, all to match
A family fixing a wedding comes in for twelve pheran, one for each of the men in the house. The colour must match and the embroidery at the neck has to be the same on all twelve, so the pieces must come from one lot. They pay a little then and the rest after the function, and by the time they come back nobody can say which twelve were chosen.
Pheran in so many cuts that no two bills match
One pheran comes plain, embroidered at the neck, embroidered all over, with a pocket, without. Women ask for one cut, men for another, and a child's pheran is a third item. Each has its own rate, and the helper at the counter writes the short name on the slip, so the evening count never agrees with the shelf.
The shawl that arrives on a promise
The weaver or the embroiderer brings shawls and wants his money once they sell. You write it down in a notebook that also holds the family credit, the rent and the festival list. When he comes to ask, it takes a long time to find which shawls were sold and which are still on the rail.
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From the pheran with a hundred cuts to the shawl you owe the weaver for
The embroidered neck kept apart from the plain one
An embroidered pheran costs more than a plain one of the same size. Keep them as separate items, each with its own count and its own rate. A bill then says which one was sold, and the rack shows how many embroidered ones remain, apart from the plain ones.
Caps, mufflers and gloves sell in numbers in the first week below zero, pheran one by one
When the cold sets in, the small things go fast and the pheran go one at a time. Keep the caps, mufflers and gloves as items sold in numbers and the pheran as items sold singly, and the day's sales show the two apart, so a rush of small things is not read as a rush of pheran.
Shawls that come one at a time as the needlework is finished
An embroidered shawl takes weeks of needlework, so the weaver does not bring a lot. He brings one or two as each is finished, over the whole winter. Each piece goes on his page the day it comes, and when he asks for money you read down the pieces in the order they arrived and name the ones sold.
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Tools for a counter that sells shawls by the piece and mufflers by the dozen
Bills on your phone
A bill for a pheran, and a second bill under the same name when the alteration is done, so the customer takes both bills home.
Low stock warnings
A warning when one size of plain pheran runs low before the first snow closes the road.
Your own online shop
A page of your shawls and pheran that a family living far away opens to choose wedding gifts, with a photograph of each piece, before anyone rings you to ask what you have.
A craft trust whose stores, stock and online orders came to one place
Questions Kashmir cloth and pheran shops ask
A son brings his father's pheran to be cut smaller for him. Can that work be billed as its own line?
Yes. Make the alteration an item with its own rate and put it on the bill under the name of whoever pays. The day's sales then show the alteration work apart from the pherans sold.
A family orders a pheran with embroidery done to their own pattern. How do I bill the order?
Bill the order when it is taken, in the family's name, and put the family's pattern in the item's name. The embroiderer works at his own speed, and when the pheran comes back you check the neck against that name before the family arrives.
A customer asks for the cap he bought last winter in the same colour. How do I find it?
Open his page. Last winter's bill names the cap and its colour. Then search that colour among the caps, and the count shows whether the same one is still here.
What the cold does to a clothing shop in Kashmir
With harsh winter in Jammu and Kashmir, people buy more warm clothes; mufflers, caps and gloves are sought after as temperatures dip below zero. For a shop, that means the small items sell in numbers while the big ones, like pheran and shawls, sell one by one.
Pheran, Kashmir's traditional unisex wear for the Valley's cold winters, has become a signature fashion trend and now comes in different designs, hues and cuts. Because it is worn by men and women alike, one shop's stock has to cover many ages and tastes, and each design is a separate thing to keep count of.