Billing for your kirana or grocery shop in Rajasthan
Loose atta, dal and oil weighed out, the wedding order and the neighbour's udhaar, all written once.
Where the scale, the slip and the udhaar book part ways
The scale gives the weight, and then the price goes in a pad
Atta, sugar, dal and oil are sold loose, so every sale is two numbers: the weight on the scale and the price worked out from the day's rate. Done in the head for twenty customers in a morning, a mistake in one of them is not noticed until evening, when the cash is short by an amount nobody can place.
A wedding order that comes in three loads
A family in the lane orders for a wedding: fifty kilos of sugar, tins of oil, tea, spices and a list that grows every day. The goods leave the shop in three loads over a week. By the end, the shop and the family each hold a different list.
The monthly trip to a wholesaler far away
A village shop often buys for a month in one trip to a wholesaler in the town. If sugar, oil or tea is left off the order, the shop is without it for four weeks, and the families who depend on that shop have nowhere else to go. The bus does not run twice for one forgotten sack.
Tools for a counter of sacks and scales
Bills on your phone
A bill that carries the scale's weight for atta, dal and sugar next to the price for that weight.
Low stock warnings
A warning on oil, tea and sugar counted after the feast's order has come off the shelf, so a promised sack does not hide a bare shelf.
Orders to suppliers
A separate order for the oil man and for the tea man, so what each one sent is noted against his own name.
Your own online shop
Your shelf online, so a wedding family can choose a week's sugar and oil from home and you pack while the lane is quiet.
Atta by the kilo, the wedding order and the distributor's visit
Loose goods billed as they are weighed
Count the cash box at noon against the bills made since morning. If the two differ, run down the bills and find the one with a weight keyed wrong, a kilo of atta billed as ten. A short box becomes one bill to look at, not a whole morning, and the afternoon starts clean.
A list sized to last until the next trip
The next trip is a month away, so the list is a month long. Read how fast each item went since the last trip, and ask for that many weeks of it, with the sugar the wedding weeks will take added on top.
Sugar and oil that do not run out in the wedding weeks
When sugar or a tin of oil falls low, the phone says so the same day. Before the wedding weeks you can bring in extra for the families that will ask, and you are not the shop that has no sugar in the week of a feast.
Rajasthan's districts, seen from a provision counter
A grocery shop sells what its district grows and makes, and it hears about the trade of each one at the counter.
- Nagaur has a huge trade in dried red chillies, and the cattle fair there is held every November.
- The Rajasthan Foundation lists dal, edible oil and cattle feed among Sikar's local industry opportunities, along with granite tiles and PVC pipes.
- Salt production is among Ajmer's mineral-based industries, with feldspar grinding, asbestos cement pipes, cement, marble and granite.
- Alwar's famous sweet is the milk cake, Alwar ka mawa, and it sells at Tripolia Market and the markets near Hope Circus.
- Johari Bazaar in Jaipur is the hub for gemstone jewellery, and Tripolia Bazaar is known for lac bangles and textiles.
- The HPCL refinery complex at Pachpadra in Barmer will process 9 million tonnes of crude a year, and had engaged about 35,000 workers by February 2023.
What Rajasthan kirana owners ask
A wedding family has taken five loads in a week. Where do I see the total so far?
On the family's page. Every load is there with its date and its amount, and the total so far sits at the bottom, so nobody has to add up five slips.
I buy oil from one distributor and tea from another. Can I order from each separately?
Yes. Keep each distributor as a supplier of his own, and make the order to him from the list of what is short. The oil list goes to the oil man and the tea list to the tea man.
What did the last trip to the town bring? Where do I see it when I write the next list?
Note each lot against the order on the day you are back from the town. When you write the next list, the last trip's order and what came with it sit side by side, so an item that came short is seen as short.
Alwar's kirana owners and their regulars
In Alwar, a kirana owner keeps his regular customers against Big Bazaar and Easy Day by giving them credit and delivering to their homes. Credit and delivery both work only when every amount is written down under the right name.
Alwar kirana owners also stock cheaper versions of big brands, because customers ask for packaged goods and some want a low-cost one. That puts the same kind of item on the shelf in several sizes and rates, and each one needs its own line.