Billing for your footwear shop in Puducherry
Every pair with its size, every custom sandal with its customer's name, all on one phone.
Why a Puducherry shoe shop keeps a size for every foot and a name for every custom sandal
After the visitors have tried everything, a pair is split between the wall and the box behind
Visitors try on both shoes of a pair and put them back wherever there is space. After a busy afternoon the left shoe of a style hangs on the wall and its right shoe waits in a box behind. The next customer wants exactly that style and stands at the counter while someone looks through the boxes. Sometimes the pair is found. Sometimes the customer has gone before it is.
The custom sandal that is promised for Thursday
Some customers want a sandal made to their foot, in a colour and a strap of their choice. You take the order, note a price, and take a part payment in cash. On Thursday the customer arrives, the maker is late, the part payment is remembered differently, and the order was on a slip that has been moved. The maker's delay is the customer's complaint, and the shop is the one that hears it, with nothing in front of it to show what was promised.
A sandal and a bag from the same maker, counted in two different units
The heritage-town makers who send sandals also send bags made of softer leather. A pair is counted as a pair and a bag as a piece, and one lot from one maker carries both. When the lot is put on the shelf the notebook has one line, 'leather goods', and nobody can say how many sandals and how many bags came.
Tools for a counter where every pair has a size, a colour and sometimes a name
Daily reports
The sizes sold in the first weeks after the schools reopen, set against the weeks before, so the school sizes are read from the days they sold, and the sizes that did not move are seen too.
Low stock warnings
A warning when the school sizes the first weeks after reopening need most are running down, while the odd sizes sit untouched on the wall.
Bills on your phone
A new sole billed beside the new pair, each with its own rate, so the bench and the counter are read as two lines in the night report.
Handicrafts at Yanam and cottage industries at Polagam: the other makers' regions
A footwear shop in Puducherry town buys from makers across the territory, and each region has its own small industries.
- Coir making and handicrafts are the small and medium industries of Yanam.
- Polagam is the area set aside as Karaikal's industrial hub, alongside several small cottage industries.
From the cobbler's bench to the strap colour chosen by the customer
Pairs counted at night, and the one style that does not agree
On a day when visitors from the French quarter try one style after another, the wall is in a muddle: a left shoe stays on the wall while its right sits in a box behind. At night count by pairs. The one style that does not agree with the shelf is the one to look at, and the left and the right are found in a minute and put together. Nothing is lost, only misplaced for a while.
The heritage-town maker's lot written once, in pairs and in pieces
Make the sandal an item by the pair and the bag an item by the piece. When the maker's lot comes, note it once on the maker's page, with its pairs and its pieces, and the notebook line that said only leather goods is gone. A customer on the beach road who takes a sandal and a bag leaves with one bill.
Last year's sandals on a shelf and a count of their own for the Pongal week
Name last year's sandals as items with their own lower rate and their own count. In the Pongal week, when families come for new footwear, the customer who wants a lower rate is sent to that shelf, and the new pairs keep their own count. After the week you can read how many of the old pairs went.
Questions a Puducherry footwear shop asks about repairs, hides and strap colours
A customer asks whether the sandal is made of the same leather as the bag beside it. Where do I write that?
In the item's name. Footwear is made of tougher cow hide and bags of softer goat hide, so write cow hide on the sandal and goat hide on the bag, with the size and the colour. The bill carries the words, and a customer who asks again is shown the same leather.
A customer picks the strap and the colour for her sandal and pays part now. How do I keep the promise for Thursday?
Bill the sandal with the strap and the colour in the item name, and take the part payment on the bill. The bill that goes to her WhatsApp holds the sandal and what she has paid, and the slip you keep with the sandal says Thursday. On Thursday you take the rest and hand the sandal over.
The maker brings sandals every month. Can I see which month's lot sold first?
Yes. Put the month in the item's name, so the March sandals and the April sandals are two items with a count each. When both are on the shelf, the counts show which lot is going down faster, and you know which strap colours to ask the maker for next.
Leather from Ambur, sandals from the heritage town and free shoes for pupils
Puducherry leather craftspeople in Shanmukhapuram, Muthialpet, Villianur and Auroville make shoes and bags, and heritage-town shoemakers make colourful leather sandals, including customised designs. A shop that stocks these sandals sells work with a maker behind it, and a customised pair is a sale that needs a record from the day it is ordered.
Puducherry leather-workers use tougher cow hide for footwear and softer goat hide for bags, sourcing leather from places such as Ambur and Ranipet. A sandal in your shop is made of leather that travelled to reach the maker, and the maker's rate for the pair has that journey in it.
Puducherry gives free footwear to every LKG to XII student in government and aided schools. So many of the school pairs that pass your counter in the first weeks of term are for children whose schools give none, and those are the sizes to count at that time.