Billing and udhaar for every shop in Mizoram
Cloth, ginger, groceries or medicines: the bill and the udhaar move from the notebook to your phone.
Orange gardens, handlooms, teak and border gates: a few Mizoram districts
Every district of Mizoram makes its living in its own way, and a shop owner hears about it from whoever walks in. Here are four of them.
- Mamit is famous for its oranges and is often called the Orange garden of Mizoram.
- Thenzawl, 43 km from Aizawl, is a hub of traditional Mizo handloom weaving. A 2017 survey counted 2,003 looms and 1,847 weavers.
- Chhuanthar Tlangnuam (Baktawng) is known for carpentry. Almost 70 percent of its households depend on it, mainly working with teak wood.
- Siaha district trades with Myanmar's Rakhine and southern Chin states through the Khaikhy, Lomasu and Lodaw entry points.
What helps when the stall changes place and the crowd comes at once
Bills on your phone
A bill for a stall at the Chapchar Kut grounds that stays on your phone when the stall folds at dusk.
Credit book (khata)
One page for a big household where the parents, the married son and his wife each take goods, with one total at the end.
The whole shop in one place
Your products, your stock and your orders to the plains in one list, so the load that has to climb the hill road is ordered against the shelf.
Where a Mizoram counter loses count: the market move, two notebooks and the days before Chapchar Kut
The main market in Aizawl and its 1,073 traders
Aizawl's main market held 1,073 traders and sellers in 2019, when the government planned to move them to makeshift sites for a new market building. A seller who moves to a makeshift site loses the corner her customers knew, and the notebook left on the old shelf is the one with the udhaar in it. A shop here needs its bills and its credit pages to go wherever the owner goes.
Two counters, one family, two notebooks
In many families one person keeps the stall in the bazaar and another keeps the small shop at home. Each has a notebook, and the two never meet. When the family sits down at the end of the month, nobody can say which book is right, and the quarrel is about the books and not about the customers. Both people are honest; the books are the trouble.
The days before Chapchar Kut
Chapchar Kut is a spring festival, and the days before it bring families in together to buy food, clothes and gifts. Three people stand at the counter asking for three different things, and a fourth waits to pay for the house. By the end of the evening the sum on the paper under your hand belongs to nobody in particular, and the cash box and the paper tell different stories.
A shop that moves, a stall for the festival weeks and a supplier up the road
Your pages come along to the makeshift site
When the stall is carried to a makeshift site, the bills and the udhaar pages are already on your phone and need no carrying. The customer who finds you at the new corner finds her own page there, with what she took before and what she still owes, and her bill goes to her phone as soon as you make it.
A stall for the festival weeks, counted apart
Open a second stall for the days around Chapchar Kut as its own shop under your account. Note what you carry up to the stall, and when it folds at dusk what is left is what comes home in the cartons. The festival weeks stand apart from the year's bills.
The load that came up the hill, beside the load you asked for
Orders you have sent to the plains stay on a list. When the lorry climbs in, note what came beside what you asked, so a short load shows the same day and not at the month's end. The next order to the plains starts from that note and from what the shelf holds.
What shop owners in Mizoram ask before they start
A customer takes goods at the stall and pays at the house. Where does her payment go?
On her page. The bill from the stall and the payment at the house are lines on the same page, so neither notebook has to know about the other. The page shows what is left.
Can I see what is running low before the road shuts?
Yes. Open the list of what is running low and send the order to your supplier from the same phone while the road is open. Mizoram's road can shut for days, so the order goes the evening you see it, not the next morning.
What do I carry to the new site on the first morning?
Carry your phone and your QR code. Nothing else for the books needs moving. On the first morning, bill the first sale before you arrange the shelf, so the day at the new site starts with its first bill.
Border gates and farm work behind Mizoram shopping
Border trade with Myanmar runs through the Zokhawthar trade centre in Champhai. It handles essentials, soft drinks, bread, edibles and electronic gadgets, the same kinds of goods a small shop keeps on its shelves.
About 60 percent of Lawngtlai's people depend on agriculture and allied work, 37.9 percent on services and 2.4 percent on the secondary sector. A shop in a district like that sells to many families whose money comes from the field.