Billing for your beauty parlour and ladies' shop in Punjab
The bridal chooda as a set, the lace by the metre and the earrings sold alone, each billed on your phone.
From the chooda set to the single bangle asked for after the wedding
The chooda set as one item, and each bangle in it as an item too
The chooda is chosen weeks before the wedding, in the bride's size and in the colours her mother picked. Bill the set when it is chosen. The singles of the same colours stay on the shelf as items of their own, so on the eve a cracked bangle is replaced from them and their count goes down by the one you gave.
A chunni held against the roll, and the pair of colours she picks for its border
A woman holds her chunni against the roll and picks two colours that sit well with it, one gota and one lace. Keep each colour as an item of its own, and her pair is two lines on one bill. The odd end of a few centimetres left on a roll is what the count still shows, so the next woman who asks for a short border is told yes or no without unrolling.
The tikka asked for alone after the wedding, a piece that never had a rate of its own
A woman who wore the necklace set at her wedding comes back for a tikka alone, a piece you never priced by itself. Give the tikka a rate of its own on the day she asks, and from then on it sells beside the set. The pieces that remain are counted as they are, and nobody has to guess what a loose tikka is worth.
Lac, textiles and the ladies' shop in Punjab
A ladies' shop in Punjab sells what the state's lac workers and its textile mills touch.
- Hoshiarpur is known for sheesham wood inlay furniture and lac turnery; around 100 to 150 artisans practise the inlay craft.
- Ludhiana's biggest industries are hosiery and textile, followed by cycles, cycle parts, machine tools and auto parts.
Why a Punjab ladies' shop sells a chooda set, a metre of gota and a necklace set that gets broken up
The bridal chooda: a set in the bride's size, and a bangle that is missing
A bride's chooda is a set of red and cream bangles, and the family asks for it in her size. You pick the bangles from different boxes and string them into a set. If one is cracked, you replace it from another box, and the set is a price that you made up on the spot. The same bangles sold one at a time cost differently, and you hold both prices in your head. A customer who comes back to ask for the same bangles in the same size is told a different amount.
A border cut for one chunni while another woman waits at the cash box with her cream
One woman stands at the tape, waiting for two metres of gota to be cut for her chunni. Another stands at the cash box with a face cream, and a third wants a bindi. The shop owner is at the tape, so the cash box waits, and the length that was cut is remembered by nobody. At night the roll is shorter than the sales say.
A necklace set sold whole, and the earrings that come back alone
A costume jewellery set is a necklace, earrings and a tikka, and it is priced as a set. After the wedding a cousin comes back wanting the same earrings alone. The set is gone, the earrings were part of it, and you do not know the rate of a piece that was never sold alone. She stands at the counter while you try to work it out.
Tools that fit a bangle, lace and parlour counter in Punjab
Daily reports
Metres of gota, sets of chooda and singles of each colour sold on each day, so the wedding weeks and Karwa Chauth can be opened and compared next year.
Offers for regular customers
A small discount on the chunni border for the bride's family that also takes the chooda from you.
Godown stock
The boxes of bangles and the rolls of lace at the back of the shop counted beside what is hanging at the front.
Questions a Punjab ladies' shop owner asks
The family wants a chooda made up with extra bangles for the aunts. Is that a bigger set or a new item?
A new item with its own rate, named for what is in it. It is billed as that item, and the singles of the same colours stay on the shelf under their own counts.
The gota roll ends in a few centimetres too short for a border. Can two ends be sold together?
Make the ends an item counted in metres, and bill two ends joined for a border as one length at the ends' rate. The roll keeps its own count.
I have never sold the earrings alone, so I have no rate for them. What do I start from?
Make the earrings an item and write a first rate, starting from the set's price and the part of it the earrings are. If a cousin asks for less, change the rate on that one bill and leave the item's rate alone.
Karwa Chauth in Jalandhar and Amritsar
On Karwa Chauth eve 2022, a Jalandhar cosmetic shop owner said shops in some markets stayed open till midnight as women looked for bangles, artificial jewellery and cosmetics. A shop that stays open late can make each bill as the customer picks, and see the evening's total in the morning.
At Karva Chauth in Amritsar in October 2024, beauty salons offered discounts on make-up and beauty treatments, while stalls in the walled city sold bangles in every colour. A bangle stall in that crowd counts each colour as an item of its own, so the colour that ran out first on the busy evening is known well before the next Karva Chauth.