Billing for your mobile shop in Lakshadweep
A phone waiting for its part, a charger bought in a hurry and a second shop on the next island.
Tools for a phone counter that works between ships
Your own online shop
A page of what you hold, sent by message to a family on another island, so the crew knows what to ask for before sailing.
Bills on your phone
A bill that names the handset and its colour, sent to the customer's phone so that a later repair can find the sale it came from.
Low stock warnings
Chargers, cables and plugs, the fast movers, on the low list before the visitors' season and before the ship's order is written.
Daily reports
The cables and covers that sold each day, so the weeks after a cyclone warning or a festival can be read against the quiet ones.
A repair that travels, a page a visitor can open, a cable that can be traced
The job that travels with the boat, and the bill that goes ahead of it
Open a page in the phone owner's name, write what was done and the amount, and send the bill on WhatsApp to the owner on the other island while the mended phone is still on its way. The family reads what was wrong and what it cost before the boat is tied up, and nobody has to call. The family on the other island has the record of what was done, and so have you.
The charger types you carry, open on a visitor's phone before he lands
Make your own online shop page with the chargers, cables and covers you hold, so it shows the charger types you carry. A visitor on the arriving boat opens it, sees the cable his phone needs and sends his list before he is off the jetty. You have it in your hand when he walks up.
The failed lot goes back on the next ship with its dates
A cable that fails after a month has already crossed the sea once. Every sale is kept with its day, so the dates of the failed cables are on hand. If the supplier takes the lot back, the dates go on the next ship with it, and the order for its replacement is written beside them.
The screen that waits on the ship, and a charger needed before the boat
A phone that crosses the water to be mended
A family on another island sends a phone with a boat crew and a few coins. You open it, mend it or order the part, and send it back on the next boat. In between, the family rings or messages to ask what was wrong and what it costs, and the answer is in your head and nowhere the family can read it, so the same question comes again next trip.
A visitor on the boat asks whether you have a cable
A visitor on the deck of an arriving boat messages the shop to ask whether it has a charger. You are serving someone, the message waits, and when you reply the boat has left or he has bought a worse one from a cart. You answer from the shelf in your mind, and the shelf in your mind is out of date by a week. The second customer waits, the first is half served, and the visitor's boat does not wait for either.
The cable that failed in a month, and the supplier across the sea
A cable or a charger fails within weeks, and the customer comes back with it. Your supplier is on the mainland, so a faulty piece can go back only on the next ship, and only if you can say which lot it came from and when it was sold. Most owners say it from memory, and the supplier does not always accept memory.
Visitors and the phone counter
Tourism is counted as an emerging industry on the islands, and a phone counter is one of the places visitors stop in a hurry.
- The main occupations in Lakshadweep are fishing, coconut cultivation and coir twisting, and tourism is an emerging industry.
What island mobile shop owners ask
A boat crew brings phones from three families in one trip. How do I keep them apart?
Open a page for each family and put a bill on each; the crew only carries the phones. Each bill names the owner's phone model, so when the bag is opened on the other island each phone goes to its own family.
The supplier across the sea does not answer for weeks. What do I do with the failed cables meanwhile?
Keep the failed cables as an item of their own so they are not sold again and the shelf count stays true. The supplier may take weeks to answer; the item's count is the number you send back whenever the ship goes, and nothing is lost in between. The failed pieces are never counted as stock.
A phone fell in the lagoon and the screen, the battery and the charging socket all went. Can the bill list each part and what I charged?
Yes. One job, three parts: the screen, the battery and the charging socket go on the bill as three lines, each at its own rate, and your work as a fourth. Each part comes off its own count.
New towers, fibre and the phone shop
In June 2022 the Department of Telecommunications approved a package for 18 new 4G tower sites, upgrading 19 existing 2G sites to 4G, and 225 km of optical fibre for home broadband in Lakshadweep. A better signal brings more customers asking for phones that use it, and for the cables and covers that go with them.
BSNL launched 4G in Kavaratti before Airtel launched 4G in Agatti, Bangaram and Kavaratti, with other islands to follow gradually. Which network works best therefore differs from one island to the next, and a shop owner is asked about it by customers on every island he serves.