Billing for your toy shop in Mizoram
A child's coin, a parent's gift list and a toy kept aside until payday, each written down once.
Wrap and ribbon sold with the toy, a toy kept aside with its advance and four children on one list
A toy kept aside, wrapped and named, with the advance on the mother's page
When the mother likes the doll and the train, make a bill for the advance she gives today and put it on her page, with the toys on it. It goes to her phone on WhatsApp. When she comes on the fifth, you take the rest and hand over the parcel. If a stranger asks for the train meanwhile, you can see it is spoken for.
Wrapping paper by the sheet and ribbon by the metre, as items you can count
Make the wrapping paper an item sold by the sheet and the ribbon an item sold by the metre, with a small rate each, and put them on the bill with the toy. Their counts come down as the toys leave. You know in the second week of December that the paper is short, and you can send for it while the shops are still open.
The parent's page remembers last Christmas's four toys
A parent who comes every Christmas for four children has a page of her own, with last year's four toys on it. When she reads out this year's list, you see at once which toy each child already has, so the list is not a repeat of last year's parcels.
Toys in a capital's streets and a border town's gadget trade
A toy shop sells to the families around it, and where they live depends on the district. Two of them.
- Aizawl's main market held 1,073 traders and sellers in 2019, and their children are the ones at the toy shop's door at the end of the day.
- At Champhai, the Zokhawthar trade centre handles essentials, soft drinks, bread, edibles and electronic gadgets for the border trade with Myanmar, so battery toys and gadgets pass through that road.
Tools for a toy shop that does half its year in one month
Offers for regular customers
A coupon for the family that came last Christmas, handed over with the first toy of the new Christmas week and good on the wrapping paper and ribbon.
Godown stock
The December stock kept in the room above or behind the shop, counted apart from the toys on the shelf in front.
Your own online shop
A page of this week's toys with their rates, so a village parent makes up the list for her four children at home and reads it out at your counter.
The gift wrap that runs out first, a toy kept aside and a relative who pays from far away
The wrapping paper and the ribbon run out before the toys do
In the weeks before Christmas every parent wants the toy wrapped, and a child's toy without paper is half a gift. The wrapping paper goes by the sheet and the ribbon by the length, and nobody counts either, because they are not sold, they are given with the toy. By the week of the crowds you have the toys and no paper, and the paper is what the customer asks for first.
A toy laid aside until a parent can pay for it
A mother likes a doll and a wooden train and cannot pay until the fifth. You put them on the high shelf at the back and say you will keep them. A week later another customer wants the train, and you cannot remember whether it is the same train. The mother returns and you both rely on what you said.
The week every house has a tree up and wants one more gift under it
Almost every house in Mizoram has a Christmas tree and a wreath, and churches and schools are hung with colourful buntings and lights. Every one of those homes wants one more gift under the tree in the same week. The shop that cannot say what is left on its shelf sends families away on the days they come.
Questions Mizoram toy shops ask about four-child lists, the glass case and toys kept aside
An uncle in another town pays for a toy by UPI and a cousin collects it here. How does she prove it is hers?
Show the uncle your QR code and take his payment. Make the bill in the cousin's name and send it on WhatsApp to her. When she walks in she shows the bill on her phone, you match the name, and the toy goes home with her.
A parent reads me a list for four children. Can I make four bills and take one payment?
Yes. Make a bill for each child on the parent's page. Each bill can be sent or printed on its own for the parcel, and the page shows the four together with one total.
A mother takes the best doll out of the glass case to look at it and puts it back. Does the count change?
No. The count of the case goes down only when a bill is made. A doll that is taken out, looked at and put back stays counted in the case, so the case never shows one too few.
Christmas crowds, a no-vehicle zone and a ban on crackers
District magistrates in Mizoram ban the import and sale of firecrackers and other pyrotechnic materials over Christmas and New Year, which a police officer called common practice.
In December 2019 Aizawl's streets were crowded with Christmas shoppers, and the state set a no-vehicle zone between Chanmari and Zodin Square, the capital's commercial centre.