Billing for your footwear shop in Mizoram
Every size is counted, and the gumboots are marked before the first rain comes.
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A left of one size and a right of another, a sole stitched by Friday and the last pairs of a size cleared
A left in seven and a right in eight, on one bill, and both counts right
Keep each size as its own item of pairs. When the customer takes a seven and an eight, make one bill with half a pair of each, or one line for each size, as you choose. The two odd shoes you were left with are written down as what they are, and the next customer with feet like hers is told you can do it.
Each pair left for stitching described on its bill, so the right brown shoe goes home
Make a bill for each pair left for the cobbler, in the owner's name, and tie a slip to the shoe that describes it: brown, left heel worn, size nine. On Friday the three brown pairs on the shelf each have a slip and a bill in the owner's name, and each man takes his own.
The last pairs of a size cleared, at a rate you chose and can see
When a size is down to its last two pairs and a season is ending, set a lower rate on those. Each bill shows what went at the lower rate, and the count shows how many pairs are left. By the next season you can see which models you cleared at a loss and which you should not order again.
Tools for a shoe shop where the size is the stock
Orders to suppliers
The order to the dealer for the gumboot sizes, written before the rains with the sizes that came last time beside them, since the hill road brings them late.
The whole shop in one place
Every pair sold or swapped comes off its own size's count, so the shelf never promises a pair that has already left the shop.
Online orders
A family in a far village sends its order for slippers and sandals from your online shop page, with the size, and it waits on your phone when you open the door.
A capital's footwear counters and the farm families who walk into town
A footwear shop sells to the families who walk to town in its district. Two of them.
- Aizawl's main market held 1,073 traders and sellers in 2019, and a stall owner on her feet from early morning needs a good pair.
- About 60 percent of Lawngtlai's people depend on agriculture and allied work, so many of the pairs sold there are for work in the field.
Two odd shoes in the back, a sole left for stitching and the pair nobody asks for
A left gumboot with no right, in the week the rains start
In the week the rains start, farmers come for gumboots and the boxes are opened one after another. A left goes back into the wrong box, and a right sits beside it. By the week's end the back room holds odd gumboots in boxes that look full, and the next farmer is told his size is there.
A worn sole left at the counter for the cobbler on Friday
A man leaves his work shoes at your counter to have the sole stitched, because the cobbler comes on Fridays. He has no slip, and you have only your memory of whose brown shoes are on the shelf above. On Friday three brown shoes are waiting for three men, and each of them says his are the ones with the worn heel.
The nine you do not have and the eleven you do
Size nine is the size you sold out of last month, and size eleven is the box on the top shelf, bought because the maker packs a run and the run had an eleven in it. The money in that box could have bought the nines. Each time you dust it you add up what it cost, and put it back on the shelf.
Questions Mizoram footwear shops ask about odd feet, soles for stitching and a farmer's credit
After a woman takes a left in seven and a right in eight, what do I do with the two odd shoes left in the boxes?
Give each odd shoe an item of its own, named odd left or odd right with its size, and a count of one. When another customer with the same odd feet walks in, you know the two are on the shelf and can make her pair from them. The boxes with one shoe are no longer counted as full pairs.
Three brown pairs are waiting for the cobbler. How do I tell whose is whose?
Tie a slip to each pair with the colour, the worn part and the size, and put its bill on the owner's page. On Friday you read the slip and the bill against the shoe in your hand.
A farmer needs gumboots in a size I do not hold before the rains start. Can he pick the size from my online shop?
Yes. List the gumboots in your online shop with a line for each size. He picks his size, and the order reaches you with the size on it. Write that size on your next order to the dealer, so the pair is on the shelf when he comes to collect it.
A pair has stood on the top shelf for a year. At the end of the season, how do I know it did not sell?
Open the month's sales and look for the pair's name. If it is not there, and its count is still what it was the day it came in, it did not sell all season. That is the pair to bring down and clear at a lower rate, before it takes another year of shelf.
A quiet year, a December rush and a city that dresses well
An Aizawl footwear shop owner told Eastern Mirror in 2013 that sales are minimal all year but rise sharply from the first week of December, when real profits are made.
Eastern Mirror described Aizawl's people as highly fashion conscious in 2013.