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Billing for your footwear and chappal shop in Odisha

Children's sizes in the Puja week, a carton of mixed sizes counted in and the haat-day pairs, each on its own line.

A seller reaching up for a pair from shelves of chappals and juttis while a woman customer shops
A seller reaching up for a pair from shelves of chappals and juttis while a woman customer shops Photo: Scott Dexter from Brooklyn, US, CC BY-SA 2.0

Prawn ponds, steel towns and leaf plate lanes: where Odisha's footwear shops sell

Footwear sells wherever people walk to work, to the field or to the market. A few districts, and what the people there do.

  • Balasore district has been declared Odisha's production and processing cluster for scampi, the freshwater prawn.
  • Sal and siali leaf plates are a main trade in Mayurbhanj, and Betanati in the district is one of Odisha's two main leaf plate trade centres (2008 report).
  • Sundargarh is an industrial district of Odisha, with a steel plant, a fertilizer plant, a cement factory and spinning mills.
  • Cuttack is home to silver filigree, and its craftsmen get business from the city's Durga Puja, which had 165 puja committees in 2019.

From the Puja week's sizes to the prawn ponds' sandals and the haat evening's pairs

  • The Puja week's sizes, read after the first evening

    Every pair sold goes on a bill with its size. At the close of the first Puja evening the list shows the children's sizes that ran out. The next morning's order to the wholesaler carries those sizes and none of the ones that did not move.

  • Salt-water sandals for the prawn ponds, counted by size

    Near the coast, fishermen and prawn-pond workers buy rubber sandals and gumboots that stand the salt water, and they buy them in the same weeks. Keep each kind and size as its own item, and by the second week the count shows which sizes the ponds are wearing out, so the next order brings those and not the ones still on the shelf.

  • The haat evening's pairs read before the mat is packed

    Bill each pair sold on the mat as it goes. When the sun goes down, open the day's sales and read how many pairs left the shop, then count what is left in the carton. The two numbers agree, and you do not carry home a doubt.

Floor-to-ceiling shelves of embroidered juttis and shoes inside a footwear shop in Amritsar
Floor-to-ceiling shelves of embroidered juttis and shoes inside a footwear shop in Amritsar Photo: Silverrays, CC BY-SA 4.0

Tools for a counter of gumboots, chappals and cartons of mixed sizes

  • Daily reports

    The haat day's sales on one screen at sunset, so the pairs sold from the mat are read before they are packed.

  • Orders to suppliers

    An order to the wholesaler for boots before the planting week, and a line for each size when the carton arrives.

  • Offers for regular customers

    A better rate for the family that buys chappals for the whole house before the festival, set once and applied on every bill.

Pairs of tan and brown Kolhapuri chappals hung in rows on a white display wall
Pairs of tan and brown Kolhapuri chappals hung in rows on a white display wall Photo: Vis M, CC BY-SA 4.0

Why an Odisha footwear shop loses sizes in the Puja week, miscounts cartons and the haat day's pairs

  1. Durga Puja, when every child wants new shoes in the same week

    Before the Puja, parents bring the children for new shoes, and every family comes in the same few evenings. The children try pair after pair, the boxes pile up on the floor, and the size that fitted the eldest is gone when the younger one's turn comes. After the rush you cannot say which sizes ran out and which sat on the shelf.

  2. The carton of twelve pairs in mixed sizes

    The wholesaler sends a carton of twelve pairs in assorted sizes, and with the haat day near the cartons stack up behind the counter. The mat wants its pairs before the carton is checked, and on the haat morning the helper takes the pairs he can see from the top of the stack. The lane shelf gets what is left. Nobody writes what came out of each carton, so the shelf in front waits for whatever is on top. At night nobody can say which carton the mat's pairs came from.

  3. The mat at the haat and the shelf in the lane

    Two places sell your pairs on the haat day: the mat at the market and the shelf in the lane. Pairs sold on the mat go without a slip, and pairs sold in the lane go with one. At night there are two piles of counting and no single count, and you cannot say how many pairs left the shop that day.

Questions Odisha footwear shops ask about planting-week boots, cartons and haat days

A carton of twelve mixed sizes is opened on the morning of the haat. Which pairs go to the mat and which stay in the lane?

Count the carton in by size first. The pairs you carry to the mat go on the mat's own count, so the lane shelf shows only what stayed behind, and a customer in the lane is not sold a pair that is on the mat.

The gang leader calls out the sizes across the lane for the planting week. How do I write them down fast?

Write each size as he calls it, one line for each size with the number of pairs, and read the lines back to him before he lifts the boots. A call across a noisy lane is easy to mishear, and a read-back catches it at the counter.

Can I take the rubber boots off my list in the dry months and put them back for the planting week?

Yes. Items can be taken off and put back whenever you like. The bills already made keep the boots, and in the planting week you put them back on with their rate and their count.

More questions every shop asks

Evertrade's factory in Bhubaneswar and the ore of Keonjhar

Evertrade, a footwear maker, opened its first Indian factory in Bhubaneswar in March 2024, to make sports and lifestyle footwear. A footwear shop in the state can now sell pairs that are made in its capital.

Keonjhar is one of Odisha's top mineral districts. Iron ore covers most of it, and manganese ore is found at Joda East and Barbil. A footwear shop in a mining district sells to the people who work there.