Billing for your mobile and electronics shop in Manipur
A phone left for repair, a cover for every model: each one on a bill, not on a slip.
Imphal's market and the towns around it: the districts that fill a Manipur phone shop
Phones are sold in the market of the capital and in the towns of the districts around it.
- 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).
- Moreh, the international trade centre of Manipur, lies at the southern end of Chandel, a border district with Myanmar.
- Thoubal is Manipur's largest sugarcane producer.
- In Ukhrul, cultivators are 64.6% of main workers (2011 Census).
- In Senapati, agriculture is the main occupation, with terrace farming of paddy, maize, cabbage and potato; 80% of the area is forest.
.jpeg){kind=link}
Tools for a counter of 5G phones, chargers and covers
Low stock warnings
Chargers for the 5G models named one by one, so the one a customer asks for is on the hook. The charger given free with a phone is a line at no price, so the stock of chargers stays true.
Daily reports
The day's count of phones mended, beside the parts on hand, tells an owner whose parts arrive late how many repairs are waiting on a part and how many are only waiting on the bench.
Sell to other businesses
A counter in a market town that sells recharge cards takes chargers and covers from you on credit, because a blockade can leave it with no phones to show. Its page keeps each lot by day.
From the phone on the repair bench to the cover that fits it
The night bus after a blockade: more waiting phones than screens
When a blockade lifts, the screens and batteries for the repair bench come together on the night bus. Note each part in the morning, and its count stands beside the pages of the phones waiting on the bench. You see at once that there are more phones than screens, and which customer is rung first.
The cheap handset and the costly one read in separate rows
The same counter sells a handset for a first-time user and another for a customer who wants the best. Make each its own item. The daily report keeps their rows apart, and you see which kind of customer your counter really serves.
The second-hand phone for the girl going to study in another city
A girl going to study in another city buys a second-hand phone with her father's money. Name it second-hand in the item and send the bill to his phone, so he sees the model and the day, and she carries a message she can show in her new city if the phone fails.
Why a repair slip goes missing before the phone is ready
The phone from a hut on the Loktak phumdi
A fisherman who lives in a hut on the floating phumdi of Loktak comes in once a fortnight with a phone that has stopped charging. He has one hour before his boat goes back, wants the price and the repair at once, and pays part of it now. By the time he comes back with the rest, the figure you gave him is nowhere but in his memory.
The display handset that a customer wants to buy
One handset stands in the window for show, and a customer wants exactly that one. You sell it, and the stock still says it is on the shelf. A week later another customer asks for the same model and the list says yes, and the shelf says no.
A friend's phone in a photograph, and a shelf of handsets that look alike
A phone leaves with a cover, a charger and a screen guard, all cut for one model. They go home in one bag with the phone, and the shelf is left with gaps that nobody can name. The customer knows only one model name, from a photograph of a friend's phone, and the shelf is full of handsets that look the same. A month later he comes for another cover and neither of you can say which model he took.
Questions Manipur mobile shops ask
A customer says the window handset is cheaper in the next shop. What do I tell him?
Look at the two handsets side by side with him: the model, the memory and the colour. The lower rate next door is often an older model or another memory size. Tell him what yours has that theirs does not, and let him choose.
A school buys three phones for its staff room. One bill or three?
Open one page in the school's name. One bill with a line for each phone goes to the school's number, so the office holds the record.
Can I see which memory size sold best in the weeks of the feast gifts?
Yes. Name each handset with its memory size, so the feast weeks show which size the gift buyers chose, and the next order follows.
Mobile networks in Manipur, from a ban to 5G
In late 2024 the Manipur Home Department extended a mobile internet ban till 3 December in nine districts, including Imphal West and Imphal East. A shop in those districts sold phones to people who could not use mobile data for days.
Airtel's 5G network was formally launched in Imphal on 21 December 2022, making Manipur the first Northeast telecom circle to get 5G. A customer who wants a 5G phone asks for one at the counter, and a shop keeps those models apart from the older ones in its stock.