Billing for your footwear shop in Meghalaya
Gumboots by size before the rains, football boots in the dry months, and a repair left on the shelf.
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Tools for a shop that sells gumboots, trek shoes and a child's Christmas pair
Orders to suppliers
The order for the gumboots and the trek shoes, with each carton ticked against what you asked for as it arrives.
Daily reports
The first week of last year's rains, pair by pair and size by size, opened beside this year's.
Online orders
A visitor back home orders the same grip shoe in another size from the shop's own online page, and you pack it. The visitor writes from home, and the pair goes to the post the next morning.
Paddy in Ri Bhoi, tea in the Garo Hills: the feet that walk into a Meghalaya shop
Feet in Meghalaya are working feet, and these two districts show where they work.
- In Ri Bhoi's Umling block the main occupation is cultivation, so the people who come for boots are often walking to a field.
- A jackfruit processing unit opened at Rongara in South Garo Hills in February 2024, and the state says about 8,000 farmers will earn more from it.
Sizes in three systems, the re-soling counted as a line, and a winter pair sold with its socks
A trek shoe with its size in three numbers
A girl from the next valley asks for a European 39, and the box says an Indian 6. Name the trek shoe with its sizes in all three systems, such as Trek shoe, grip sole, 8 UK, 42 EU, 9 US, and she is not turned away. A trekker says any one of them, the helper finds the item on the screen, and the pair that comes out of the box is the pair that was asked for, the first time.
Re-solings counted by the month after a wet season
Soles go flat in one wet season here, so the months after the rain are the months for re-soling. The shop that holds soles in the sizes the lane wears has the work, and the shop that waits for a wholesaler's lorry has none. Stock soles before the rain ends, in the sizes of the boots sold in the wet.
The next size up, swapped when a child's feet have grown in the rains
In September the rubber boots in the June sizes are the ones nobody asks for, and the sizes above them are the ones that go. Move the June sizes to the back and put the next sizes up on the wall, so the child who has outgrown the June boot finds the new size at the height of his eyes.
Where it rains almost all year, a trekker's size in a foreign number, and a sole worn flat in one season
Rubber boots in a state where the rain hardly stops
Over the last two decades the rain at Cherrapunjee has ranged from 11,995 mm to 14,189 mm a year, the state profile says. In a place like that the gumboot is the shoe that sells, and it wears out faster than anything else on the shelf. The sizes run out in the first week of the rains, and children's sizes go first. A boot that is wet through for three weeks begins to split at the sole, and the customer's first thought is of the shop. A shopkeeper who sold the last pair of a size at two in the afternoon cannot order the next until the wholesaler's taxi comes.
A trekker asks for a grip and gives a size in numbers you do not use
Visitors come for the root bridges and the long steps down to them, and ask for shoes that will not slip. They give their size in UK, US or European numbers, while your boxes carry Indian ones. You work it out against a chart on a scrap of paper, and the pair that is brought out is the wrong one half the time. A customer who is leaving by the afternoon taxi cannot wait for the second trip to the box room.
Soles wear flat in the wet, and the cobbler's work never reaches the book
In a state where the rain hardly stops, the soles of a pair go flat in one season, and customers ask you to put a new one on. It is not an item on the shelf, so the money goes into the box with nothing written. At the month end the box is more than the sales, and you cannot say which part of it was the cobbler's work.
Questions Meghalaya footwear shops ask
A trekker's taxi is waiting and the right size is in the box room. How do I know before I walk there?
The taxi will not wait, and a slow answer costs you the sale. Check the phone first: the name carries the sizes in all three systems and the count shows if the pair is in, so you walk only for a pair that exists.
A visitor leaves his shoes for re-soling and takes the afternoon taxi. Can he pay now and send a friend for them?
Yes. Bill the re-soling when he leaves the shoes, with his name and the day, and take the payment then. The page shows it paid, so whoever collects the shoes needs only the name, and nothing is owed on the day.
I have one shop in the cool Khasi Hills and one in the warm Garo Hills plains. Can I see what sells in each?
Yes. Read the sandals of the plains beside the boots of the hills. The climate decides which pairs each shop sells, and the order you send each shop follows it.
Anti-slip shoes and the climates of Meghalaya
Meghalaya Tourism advises visitors to pack anti-slip shoes for the monsoon, and thermals, jackets, gloves, socks and comfortable footwear for winter.
In the Khasi and Jaintia Hills the climate is neither too warm in summer nor too cold in winter. The Garo Hills plains are warm and humid except in winter.