Billing for your cloth and garment shop in Puducherry
Cloth by the metre, sets by the piece, and the udhaar of every family, on one phone.
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Tools for a counter that cuts cloth by the metre and sells it by the set
Orders to suppliers
An order for the Pongal lungis and the Deepavali sarees to the weaver's agent, sent from the phone while the festival stock is still in front of you, with each bundle noted as it comes in.
Offers for regular customers
An offer for the family whose last Pongal bundle is on its page, so the same four pieces are put to her first, before the crowd comes.
Low stock warnings
A warning when the lungi check most asked for in Pongal week, or the colour of plain blouse piece that goes with the saree, is running short.
Yanam's handicraft makers and Mahe's traders: the other regions a cloth shop sells to
A cloth shop in Puducherry town also sells to the people of the outer regions, who live by their own crafts and trade.
- Coir making and handicrafts are the small and medium industries of Yanam.
- Mahe is described as one of Puducherry's growing trade and commerce centres, with small, cottage and medium industries.
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Why a Puducherry cloth shop sells the lungi, the shirt bit and the saree as one set
Four pieces, one bundle, one rate nobody can break down
At festival time a family wants the whole set: a lungi, a shirt bit, a saree and a blouse piece. You sell it as a bundle at one figure. Next day you are asked for the blouse piece alone, or for the lungi in another colour, and the notebook does not say how many of each went out in the bundles. A customer who wants only the blouse piece is told to wait while the bundle is broken, and she goes next door.
Every family wants the same four pieces in the same fortnight
In the fortnight before the festivals the lungi in the popular check, the white shirt bit and the plain blouse piece all go together. The cutting table is never clear and short ends pile up under it. The popular check is gone by the third day while another has not moved, and the cutting table is where you find out.
Is this one handloom? The ticket does not say
A customer lifts a saree and asks whether it is handloom or mill-made. The two sit on the same rail, at very different rates, and the maker's name is in your head, not on the ticket. The shopper who wanted handloom leaves unsure, and the one who paid the handloom rate for a mill saree comes back angry.
From the Pongal bundle to the handloom saree kept under a name
The aid set's four pieces are counted apart from the same pieces sold singly
At Deepavali or Pongal, ration-card families come with their yearly cash clothing aid for a lungi, a shirt bit, a saree and a blouse piece. Make each of the four an item with its own rate and unit, and put them on one bill. Give the pieces sold in the aid set a word like set in their name, and after the festival you know how many blouse pieces and lungis went in sets, and how many lungis are still folded for general sale.
The Pongal fortnight opened day by day, the lungi checks apart from the saree colours
After Pongal, open each day of the fortnight and read the lungi checks and the saree colours apart. You see on which day one check led and on which day a colour took over, and you know which days of the next fortnight the shelf needs them. The checks that stayed folded are plain in the count.
The family from Mahe or Yanam buying festival cloth for a relative far away
Many families buy cloth in town for a relative who lives in another of the four regions. The one who pays is at your counter and the one who wears it is far away. Put the relative's phone on the bill and it goes on WhatsApp to the one who will wear it, with each piece named, so the parcel and the bill reach the same house.
Craft stores in three cities that put their stock on one list
Questions a Puducherry cloth shop asks about festival sets, handloom orders and metres
A customer brings back a saree after the festival and wants her money. Can the phone give a refund?
No. It does not refund a bill. Write the return down as you do now, and make a fresh bill for whatever she takes instead.
A family wants the Pongal bundle but with the lungi in another colour. Can the bundle be changed?
Yes. The bundle is four items on a bill, so swap the lungi's line for the other colour, and the count of each follows.
A cousin pays for the saree from another city by UPI. Whose name goes on the bill?
The name of the one who wears it, since she will bring it back if anything is wrong. Send the bill to the cousin's phone as well as hers, and the UPI payment sits against that one bill.
A hundred and fifty weaving families and the Deepavali cloth aid in Puducherry
In August 2025 Puducherry's Chief Minister said only about 150 families still weave handloom, and urged people to buy and wear handloom products more often. A shop that stocks a handloom saree is buying from one of a very small number of makers, and a piece you cannot replace is one whose sale you want written down.
Puducherry pays poor AAY and PHH ration-card families a yearly cash clothing aid, matching a lungi, a shirt bit, a saree and a blouse piece, at Deepavali or Pongal. The four pieces of that aid are the four pieces many families come to a cloth shop to buy, so the festival counter sells in sets of four.