Billing for your grocery and kirana store in Manipur
Oil by the litre, black rice by the quarter kilo and a family's udhaar, all written once on your phone.
From the weekly count to the family's page and the loose-goods bill
The item that ran out last month is ordered first before the feast
Before a feast you look at what ran out last month, because the regular will ask for it. It is on the list with a count of nothing, so you order it first and early, and when she asks you can say it is here, and the rest of her list stays with you.
The Manipuri kitchen's goods as the top rows of the report
Make ngari, dried fish, black rice and puffed rice items of their own. After a few weeks the daily report shows which of the goods people here cook with are your best sellers, and you stock them before the plain staples.
Black rice by the quarter kilo and soap by the piece on one bill
Each item has its own rate and its own unit: black rice by the kilo, dried fish by the spoon, oil by the litre, soap by the piece. The queue gets one bill with every line on it, and you spend your time on the next customer instead of the sum.
Tools for a counter that stocks for the long road
Low stock warnings
Cooking oil, salt and soap listed as short while the next lorry is still on the road, not after the shelf is bare.
Sell to other businesses
A small shop in a hill village, whose own lorry is weeks on the road, keeps its rice and oil going from your stock on credit, and what it owes sits on its own page, apart from your families.
Credit book (khata)
The page of the stall-holder's family shows the rice and oil taken on the days she is at her stall and not at the shop, each with its day, so when her takings are counted the page is read from top to bottom.
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Why a Manipur kirana orders for a month it cannot see
Asked for what the shelf does not have
Before a feast a regular asks for an item you ran out of last month. You tell her it is coming, and it does not come in time. She buys it elsewhere, and everything else on her list goes with it.
The stall-holder's family that pays when her takings are counted
A woman who runs a stall in the market sends her family to take rice and oil from your shop. She pays when her own takings for the week are counted, and she is good for it. But a month of takes across a notebook is hard to total, and the family does not like to be asked the figure twice. She does not mean to be late, and you do not want to be the one who asks. The family does not mean to be late, and the stall-holder does not mean to forget, but a stall's takings come in the evening and a notebook is written in the morning.
Loose goods that go by the spoon and the quarter kilo
The Manipuri kitchen has its own items: dried fish, fermented fish, black rice and puffed rice, bought in small amounts. A customer asks for fifty grams of one and a quarter kilo of another, and the shop owner does the sum aloud while a queue forms. A mistake in either direction is small, but they add up over a day.
Where a Manipur grocery shop trades: Imphal's Ima Keithel and the Moreh gate
Two places set the rhythm for a grocery shop in Manipur: the market in Imphal and the trade gate at the border.
- At Ima Keithel in Imphal West, about 3,000 'Imas' run stalls, with groceries on the same side as the vegetables, fruits and fish.
- Moreh, the international trade centre of Manipur, lies at the southern end of Chandel, a border district with Myanmar.
- Imphal East has 45,346 business establishments (Economic Census 2013).
- In Senapati, agriculture is the main occupation, with terrace farming of paddy, maize, cabbage and potato.
A store for women's groups that moved its stock and bills off paper
Questions Manipur grocery shops ask
My next lorry may be weeks late. How do I know how long my oil will last?
The stock of oil falls with every bill. Open the sales of the last few weeks to see how much goes in a week, and set that against the count on your phone.
The king chilli pickle I buy from a village woman comes in a bottle with no label. What do I call the item?
Name it with the chilli and the maker, such as king chilli pickle from her village, and enter the bottles as they come. Each bottle sold takes one off the count, and the bill carries the same name.
I sell ngari by the spoonful. How does the count go down when a jar is not full?
Make the spoonful the unit of the item. Note the spoonfuls when a new jar is opened, and each sale takes its spoonfuls off, so the count says how many spoonfuls are left, not how many jars.
The long road into Manipur and what it does to a shelf
Landlocked Manipur depends almost entirely on road transport for food grains, vegetables, medicines and other essential goods that shops stock.
A Guwahati-Imphal truck round trip took about 3 to 4 days before the 2023 conflict; traders say it now takes 25 to 30 days. A shop that once ordered for a week now has to order for a month.