Billing for your supermarket in Lakshadweep
Shelves that fill in lots, a long basket and a ship that does not keep a timetable.
Fewer ships, bigger lots and the cost of a wrong count
Hundreds of lines on one order sheet, and three people who disagree about it
A supermarket's order is a long sheet written from the shelves, the godown and what the staff say, and the three do not agree. With only a few ships and long gaps, one wrong line is not a missing item but an empty place on the shelf until the vessel after next. The sheet is written in a hurry on the eve of the ship, with half the numbers from memory.
The day after the ship, when every family does the big shop
When the ship has been and the shelves are full, families come with long lists and push full baskets to the counter. The queue grows, the bill for each basket is long, and the person at the counter is adding things up in his head. A mistake on a bill of forty lines costs the shop a sale or a customer's trust, and sometimes both.
The delivery that is not the order
Goods reach the island on more than one kind of vessel, and what arrives on a given day is not always what you asked for on a given day. A line you ordered is not there, or a line you did not expect is. When the boxes are carried in, nobody checks them against the order, and the first you know of a gap is a customer asking for it.
Tuna on the shelf and in the tin
Tuna is the islands' main catch, and a supermarket shelf is where much of it is sold on after it is processed.
- The tuna canning factory at Minicoy has been outsourced to private entrepreneurs to revive fish processing, says the Fisheries Department.
What came on which vessel, written on the day it came
What came on the barge and what came on the ship, on their own days
When a vessel's cargo is carried in, note what arrived against each item, on the day. The stock goes up by exactly that, whatever the order said. A barge's goods and a ship's goods are two separate days on your phone, so when a customer asks why oil is short, you can see which vessel was meant to bring it.
Each lot written with the boat that carried it, for the small shop's doubt
A smaller shop on the next island buys cartons from your shelf. Write the day and the boat on each lot. When its owner says a carton was short, you open the lot and the page, and the answer is on the screen, not in an argument at the jetty.
Baskets and lines in last year's day after the ship, read for this year's counter
Open the day after last year's ship and read that day's bills: how many baskets, and how many lines on each. A long basket takes the counter longer than a short one, so the lines tell you how many hands the counter needs before the families arrive, and what to shelve first.
Tools for a big shop whose goods arrive in lots
Orders to suppliers
The order for the ship written on the phone, with every arrival noted against its item on the day the boxes are opened.
Sell to other businesses
Small shops on other islands apply to buy from you on credit, and you accept the ones you trust, so wholesale from your shelves is a short list of businesses and what each owes.
Daily reports
Each day's sales line by line, so the day after the last ship can be read before the next one arrives.
A store for women's groups that moved from paper to live stock
What island supermarket owners ask
A line of my order came on neither the barge nor the ship. How do I make sure it is asked for again?
Look at the supplier's page. The line with nothing noted against it did not come. Write that line again on the next order you send, so the next vessel is asked for it.
A shopkeeper from the next island wants a sack of rice that came on the barge. How do I note it against his page?
Write the sack on his page with the day. Take the same sack off the count of the godown, so his page and your shelf agree about the barge's lot.
A small shop settles only when its owner next sails over. How do I read what each shop owes while I wait?
Open each shop's page. The last line shows what it owes, and the date of its last lot shows how long it is since it came. The shops that sail over seldom have the oldest dates, and you know whose boat to expect before the next ship.
Ships and a barge between the mainland and the islands
Residents told The Quint in July 2022 that the ships linking Lakshadweep to the mainland had fallen from seven to two over about two years. With so few ships, each one carries more of the supermarket's stock, and each order has to cover a longer gap.
In June 2021 the administration-owned barge Thinnakara made its first voyage from Mangaluru to the Lakshadweep islands carrying essential items. A barge is another way for goods to arrive, and what comes on it has to be noted on its own day, beside what came on the ships.