Billing for your beauty parlour and cosmetic shop in Manipur
A facial, a tube of cream and a bride's advance: all on one bill and one page.
Business in Imphal East and farming in Ukhrul: the women a Manipur parlour serves
A parlour serves the women of its neighbourhood.
- Imphal East has 45,346 business establishments, of which 14,061 do handicrafts or handloom work (Economic Census 2013).
- In Ukhrul, cultivators are 64.6% of main workers (2011 Census).
- Thoubal is Manipur's largest sugarcane producer, and Khangabok is famed for kouna (tule) handicrafts.
- In Senapati, agriculture is the main occupation, with terrace farming of paddy, maize, cabbage and potato; 80% of the area is forest.
Why the week after Yaoshang fills a parlour and empties a cream shelf
After the colours of Yaoshang, the cleansing creams run out
After Yaoshang women come in for cleansing creams, face wash and a facial to take the colour off, and the shelf of those few creams empties in days. At the same time the chairs are full. You are billing a facial with one hand and looking for the last tube with the other, and you cannot say how many of each cream are left. The women waiting do not mind the wait if they can see the work going on, but they do mind a bill that is added up again at the end of an hour in the chair. In the days after Yaoshang the women of the market come in for their faces, and the parlour chairs fill in the afternoon.
Married daughters home for Ningol Chakouba, all wanting the same morning
In the week of Ningol Chakouba the married sisters of a house come home, and all want their hair and face done before the feast. The brother who is hosting pays for some of them and each sister pays for her own extras. By noon the slips show names but not who was paying for whom. The marriage season in the valley fills the parlour with families, and the trial of the makeup is booked on a day different from the wedding.
Small sachets for the market woman, a bottle for the feast
A woman who runs a stall buys one sachet of cream at a time, because that is what her day's takings allow, and a full bottle only before a feast. The sachets are sold in handfuls and the bottles one by one, and by evening nobody can say how many of either left the shelf.
From the bride's advance to the cream that was sold with the facial
The cleansing creams counted as each sitting ends
Make the cream its own item with a count. Every bill that carries it takes one off the stock, so in the Yaoshang week you see how many tubes are left while the chairs are still full, and you order again before the shelf is bare. If a client asks for the same cream the next week, you can tell her whether it is on the shelf before she has finished her sentence. The cleansing cream, the face wash and the moisturiser each have their own count, so the one that sells out first after the festival is clear.
The trial makeup on one day, the wedding on another
In the marriage season a family books a trial makeup on one day and the wedding makeup on another. Make the trial an item with its own rate and the wedding makeup another, and put both on the bride's page, each on the day it was done.
The tubes that left the shelf in the feast fortnight
After the feast fortnight, open the daily report and count the tubes that left the shelf, kind by kind. The daughters came home for the same morning, so the same tubes went together. By the next Ningol Chakouba you know how many to have ready.
Tools for a parlour that sells services and a shelf of creams
Low stock warnings
A warning on the face wash and the moisturiser, set at their own point, reaches the owner while the chairs are still full, so the cleansing cream is not the only one she thinks of.
Offers for regular customers
An offer for the sisters of a bride, set once and shown on each sister's bill when she sits in the chair.
UPI payments
In Ningol Chakouba week one married sister's makeup is a bill of its own, and a cousin in another town pays it by UPI, so it never lands on the host brother's page.
Questions Manipur beauty parlours and cosmetic shops ask
My creams for the family and the shop's creams stand in one cupboard. Can the shop's count ignore mine?
Yes. The count falls only when you make a bill. Make no bill for what the family uses, and the shop's count stays the shop's.
The stall-holder next door buys one sachet at a time, five or six in a handful. Must I make a line for each?
No. The sachet is an item with its own rate, so five sachets are one line with the number five, and the count of sachets goes down by five. The full bottle she takes before a feast is another item.
A woman buys one sachet each week and a whole bottle before a feast. Can her page show the two?
Yes. Her page shows every buy with its day: the sachet each week, and then the bottle before the feast. Open it and you read how she buys.
Ima Keithel, the women's market of Imphal
The women's union of Ima Keithel in Imphal runs a credit system that lets traders borrow money to buy goods. Your cream counter sells to the same traders, so the market's credit stands behind a woman's bottle before a feast.
Only married women may trade at Ima Keithel. For a parlour the point is the regular: the same women arrive week after week, and what each buys depends on how her stall did.