Billing for your supermarket in Mizoram
A packet with its printed price and a gourd with yours, on one bill and one count.
A capital's supermarkets and a border town's goods
A supermarket draws customers from the towns and villages around it. Two districts, and what runs through them.
- Aizawl's main market held 1,073 traders and sellers in 2019, and a supermarket in the capital shares its streets with them.
- The Zokhawthar trade centre in Champhai handles essentials, soft drinks, bread, edibles and electronic gadgets for the border trade with Myanmar, and some of those goods reach the town's shelves.
A lower door for the lorry and an upper door for the customers, a weekend offer and a count at the year's end
The lorry unloads at the lower door and the customers come in at the upper
On a hill street a store can have two doors on two levels. The lorry unloads at the lower one, and the boys carry the cartons up a flight of steps to the shelves. By the time the last carton is up, nobody can say how many came in or whether anything was left on the road. The shelf looks full, and the supplier's slip is in a pocket.
The weekend offer that costs more than the shop thought
On Saturday a row of tins is put at a lower rate for the weekend, and the weekend's takings look good. At the month's end the owner sees less money than the tins should have brought. He cannot say whether the offer cost him, or the wholesaler's carton, or a rate that stayed low after the weekend, and nobody can say who bore the difference.
Forty tins that nobody knew the store had
At the end of the year the whole store is counted, shelf by shelf, and the owner finds forty tins in a corner of the room below and a carton of soap behind the sacks. They were bought and forgotten. The count takes a day with the shutters down, and the same thing happens next year.
Tools for a store built up a hill street, with its stock below and its shelves above
Orders to suppliers
The order to MIZOFED or the wholesaler, sent in the weeks before the Christmas crowd, with the items that ran out last year written first.
Low stock warnings
A mark on rice and cooking oil, so the warning is read at the shelf upstairs while the stock waits in the room below, before the shelf is bare.
UPI payments
The desk upstairs is where the family with full bags pays. No cash left after the climb? They pay by UPI, and the bill is on the phone before the steps.
A delivery counted at the lower door, an offer that ends on Monday and a stock-take that is only a check
The driver's slip entered against your order before the first carton goes up
The lorry stops in the street at the lower door, and every carton goes up the long flight of steps on a boy's shoulder. Count the cartons at the lower door against the driver's slip before the first one goes up. A carton lost on the steps or left in the street is missed that evening, not at the month's end.
An offer that ends on Monday because the rate goes back once
Set the lower rate on the row of tins on Saturday, and change it back on Monday morning. The bills made on Sunday carry the offer rate and the bills made after Monday carry the usual one. The sales for the weekend are a plain list of what went at the offer.
A stock-take that is only a check
Count the stock into the app as it comes in and out through the year, in the room below and on the shelves above. At the year's end, you walk the shelves with the phone and tick what you see against what the count says. The forty tins are in the list before the day starts, and the shutters can stay up.
A group of Maharashtra women whose shop records moved onto a single phone
Questions Mizoram supermarkets ask about two doors, weekend offers and the year-end count
Shoppers come up the steps with a list and the boy runs down for the items. Can I see which items he fetched most?
Each item's count falls with every sale, so the day's sales show which items went most. At the next lull the boy goes down for those first.
Can I put a weekend offer on some tins and take it off on Monday?
Yes. Set the lower rate on those items on Saturday and the usual rate on Monday. Each bill keeps the rate it was made with, so the weekend's bills stay as they were.
The wholesaler sends the same goods in cartons of different counts. Do I enter the carton or the piece?
When a carton comes in at the lower door, add its pieces to the count of the room below. Keep the item in the unit the customer buys, so a carton of twelve is twelve in the count, whatever the wholesaler sent.
A state federation and the crowd before Christmas
MIZOFED, the state co-operative marketing and consumers federation, deals in petroleum oil and lubricants, LPG, and essential commodities and consumer goods. It reported a Rs 9.77 crore profit for 2025-26.
Eastern Mirror reported in 2013 that Aizawl fills with shoppers before Christmas, the biggest festival, as families from rural areas come to the city to shop.