Billing for your footwear shop in Manipur
Gumboots in the rains, woollen shoes in the cold: every size counted, every exchange on a bill.
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Tools for a shop that sells gumboots in the rains and woollen shoes in the cold
Low stock warnings
The gift sandals for sisters listed as short before Ningol Chakouba, so the brother who comes in the last days is not told they are finished.
Daily reports
Gumboots in the rainy weeks and woollen shoes in the cold ones as separate rows, kept day by day for next year's order.
Orders to suppliers
The woollen shoes from Kakching noted as they arrive a few pairs at a time, each lot under its maker's name, so the next order follows what sold, and which hands made it.
The Ima Keithel lanes and the workshops of Imphal East: the markets around a Manipur shoe shop
Shoes are sold in the market lanes and in the towns around them. Two districts show where the trade is.
- Ima Keithel in Imphal West is an all-women market with about 3,000 'Imas' running stalls, with handlooms and household tools on one side.
- Imphal East has 45,346 business establishments, of which 14,061 do handicrafts or handloom work (Economic Census 2013).
- Thoubal is Manipur's largest sugarcane producer, and Khangabok is famed for kouna (tule) handicrafts such as mats, stools, chairs and hand bags.
- In Ukhrul, cultivators are 64.6% of main workers (2011 Census).
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Why the size that sells out is never the size you thought
One father, four pairs, four feet
Before a feast a father buys for the whole house: four pairs in four sizes for four people. He tries two, takes all four, and later one pair is wrong. You cannot say which pair went to which child, and the child has gone back to the village. In the days before Ningol Chakouba the shop is full of brothers choosing for sisters and fathers choosing for children, and each of them wants the shoes ready before the feast eve.
A parcel with the wrong mix of sizes
You ordered a dozen pairs and the parcel has all size nine. Nobody opens the box until a customer asks for a size seven. By then the order cannot be changed, and the shelf is full of the one size nobody wants. On a good market evening the Imas buy in the last minutes before their stalls close, and your counter is the last stop on the way home.
The Imas who come for shoes in the last minutes before the stalls close
In the last minutes before the stalls close, the Imas come for shoes. The day's sale was good, the neighbours' shutters are coming down, and the buyer wants her pair now. You cannot ask her to wait while a notebook is found, and you know the sizes only by sight. If the pair is not there, she is already walking to the next shop.
From the size-eight count to the exchange made at the door
The gift pair chosen by a brother and changed by his sister
A brother who hosts Ningol Chakouba buys sandals for his sister without knowing her size. The bill names the sandal and its size, so when she comes to change them you read the bill and not the shop's memory, and the exchange is quick. A sister who returns in the same week finds her exchange takes a minute, and the brother does not have to come back himself.
Flip-flops by the dozen for the festival crowd, by the pair for the rest
Before the feast the market stall buys flip-flops by the dozen and the shop sells them by the pair. Make the dozen an item with its own rate and the pair another, each with its own count, so when a family takes six pairs the dozen's count is not touched and you can still see how many dozens are left to sell on the stall.
The market woman's pair, paid across two market days
A woman who sells at the market buys shoes for her daughter on the day her stall did well, and pays part now. The part is written on her page with its day. When the next market day does as well, the rest is written beside it, and the shoes left the shelf count on the first day.
Questions Manipur footwear shops ask
The same sandal comes in black and in brown. Is that one item or two?
Two items, each with its colour in the name. The report then shows which colour sells out first, and the next order follows it.
Woollen shoes from Kakching arrive with no size marked. How do I enter them?
A woollen shoe has no number on it, so measure it with a customer's foot in front of you. Name the item for its maker and the size you measured. The next pair from the same hands is measured again, since no two pairs from a hand-made lot come out the same.
Hand-made woollen shoes arrive a few pairs at a time. Can I keep their count apart from the factory shoes?
Yes. Give them their own item names, and they are counted and sold on their own rows, however few pairs arrive.
Nagamapal Market and the woollen shoe of Kakching
Imphal's Nagamapal Market is an important commercial centre selling fresh vegetables, fruits, spices, accessories, footwear and colourful attire. A footwear shop there sits among sellers of everyday goods.
Moirangthem Muktamani Devi of Kakching, Manipur, makes shoes from woollen yarn and won a Padma Shri in 2022. A shop that stocks such shoes has a kind of footwear that no factory makes.