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Billing for your fruit and vegetable shop in Karnataka

Kilos, bunches and coconuts on one bill, and the hotel's morning order ready before you open.

A market fruit stall in Bengaluru with heaps of watermelons, oranges, apples and grapes under a tarpaulin
A market fruit stall in Bengaluru with heaps of watermelons, oranges, apples and grapes under a tarpaulin Photo: Ed Seymour, CC BY-SA 2.0

Where the vegetables of Karnataka are grown, bought and sold

A vegetable shop sits between a farm district and a town, and the district tells you what is coming in.

  • Tumakuru district has 9 APMC market yards, at Tumakuru, Tiptur, Gubbi, Sira, Huliyar, Pavagada, Madhugiri, Kunigal and Turuvekere, so the buying and selling of produce there is spread over many towns.
  • In Ballari, 75% of workers depend on farming, in a district that also holds 25% of India's iron ore reserves and has JSW's Vijayanagar steel works at Toranagallu.
  • Kalaburagi is famous for toor dal (pigeon pea), so many of its farm families grow a pulse and not only vegetables, and the district also has large limestone deposits.
  • Belagavi has 24 sugar factories and 200 foundries producing over 70,000 tons of automotive and industrial castings, and the families paid by them buy vegetables every day.
Sellers and buyers around heaps of tomatoes, cauliflower and beans on the ground at Devaraja Market, Mysuru
Sellers and buyers around heaps of tomatoes, cauliflower and beans on the ground at Devaraja Market, Mysuru Photo: Ryan from Toronto, Canada, CC BY 2.0

Why a Karnataka vegetable shop is weighed against the weekly santhe

  1. The Sunday santhe and the yard in the dark

    A family that buys at the weekly santhe on Sunday stands at your shop on Monday and compares. The santhe is open in daylight with many sellers, and your lot was bought at the yard in the dark of the morning, from the lorries that came first. She wants to hear why it is different, and a regular does not take "that is the rate" for an answer.

  2. The soppu bunch counted twice

    Soppu, the leafy greens like dill, methi and spinach, goes by the bunch, and a bunch counted twice is a bunch given away. A customer picks soppu, beans and coconuts in one go, and the shop owner keeps the count of bunches in his head while the next customer waits with her bag open. The loss is small each day and nobody sees it, but it repeats every day.

  3. The lorry that comes late after rain

    After heavy rain the lorry from the farm district reaches the yard late, and the load reaches your shop at nine and not at six. The early customers have gone to the next shop, and the vegetables that came last evening are all you can sell. Some of the greens are already tired, and a customer who comes at seven for fresh soppu finds the shelf of yesterday.

The hotel order at dawn and the tomato that pays the rent

  • The hotel's sack of onions and greens, packed beside the lorry

    The hotel cook wants onions by the sack and greens by the bundle before the lunch rush. His list is on your phone before the lorry is open. Pack his sack while the lorry unloads, the greens last because they wilt. When the boy leaves, the bill is made and the hotel's page is one line longer.

  • The Kolar tomato that changes its rate by the day

    Tomato comes from Kolar and changes its rate from one day to the next. Note the rate you paid when each lot came and the rate you sold it at. At the week's end the report shows which days of the swing paid you and which days you sold at yesterday's rate, while the onion bag and the coconut hold steady beside it.

  • Sunday at the santhe, and what it does to your Monday

    When the weekly santhe pulls your customers away, the day-by-day report shows it plainly: fewer bills on that day and a rush on the next. After a few weeks you know how much to buy for Monday and how much to leave at the yard on Saturday, instead of carrying home what the santhe sold to your own customers.

A seller sitting with a scale between big heaps of green beans and chillies at Devaraja Market, Mysuru
A seller sitting with a scale between big heaps of green beans and chillies at Devaraja Market, Mysuru Photo: Paul Arps from The Netherlands, CC BY 2.0
A vegetable cart seen from above, with trays of tomatoes, beans, carrots and potatoes and the seller at his scale
A vegetable cart seen from above, with trays of tomatoes, beans, carrots and potatoes and the seller at his scale Photo: Sharvarism, CC BY-SA 4.0

Tools for a shop that sells soppu, beans and coconuts

  • Online orders

    The hotel's list for tomorrow's sack of onions, tomatoes and greens, sent from your own online shop page and waiting on your phone when you reach the shop.

  • Sell to other businesses

    Hotels, hostels and small messes apply to buy from you on credit, and each one gets its own account and its own monthly total.

  • Daily reports

    The takings of every vegetable, day by day, so you can see the santhe week and the festival week side by side.

  • UPI payments

    The early customer with both hands full of bags pays by UPI at the counter, and the bill closes without any coins.

A women's group that left fair-day paper bills

In Maharashtra, women's self-help groups working with Swateja Mart kept their bills and stock on paper and sold only at fairs and weekly markets. With Bharatrath their bills, stock and online orders came to one place.

Questions Karnataka vegetable sellers ask

The hotel owner wants to read what he took in his own words. How do I give it?

Send him the sacks he took, one line for each morning, in the words he uses for them, and the total at the foot. He reads his own sacks, not a slip with figures he cannot place.

The lorry came late after the rain. What does that do to the soppu at seven?

Soppu that rode in late is tired by seven, and the bunches wilt faster in the stall's damp. Sell it first at a lower rate, and set the day beside the same weekday a week before to see what the late lorry cost you.

I buy soppu by the bundle and sell it by the bunch. How do I avoid counting a bunch twice?

Keep the bundle and the bunch as two items. When you untie a bundle into bunches, move the count from the bundle to the bunch item once, and from then on sales run down the bunch only. A bunch is then never on both lists.

More questions every shop asks

HOPCOMS shops and the Kolar tomato

HOPCOMS, the horticulture growers' co-operative, brings over 70 tonnes of vegetables and fruit a day from Bengaluru Urban, Kolar, Chikkaballapur, Ramnagar and Bengaluru Rural, and sells at fixed prices in its own shops. A private vegetable shop in the same city is measured against that fixed price by the customers who walk past both.

Bengaluru's tomato comes from Kolar district, flat beans (avarekai) from Chintamani, Srinivaspura and Ramnagar, and leafy greens from Anekal. These are the places the lorries start from, so a glut or a shortage there reaches the shelf in the city within days.