Billing for your toy shop in Rajasthan, from a ten-rupee top to a gift box
Small things sold by the piece and big gifts kept aside, all on one phone.
From the heap of tops to the gift kept aside
Each puppet and camel with a price written once on the phone
Enter the kathputli, the wooden camel and the kite with their prices once. At the counter the phone shows the price and the bill is made from it. At the end of the day you see how many puppets and how many kites went, not only the cash in the drawer.
Last Sankranti's kites, read before this year's order
The daily report keeps the kite and string sales of each day. A year later, before you place the order, open the days before Sankranti and see how many went, which colours went first and what was left on the 15th. Order to that, not to a feeling.
A gift box chosen weeks before the wedding, billed on a page with the wedding's name
A family chooses the gift box weeks ahead and will take it home on the day. Make the bill when it is chosen, on a page that carries the wedding's name. The box leaves your stock that day, so it is not sold to the next family, and on the wedding morning the page says what was paid and what is left.
Why a toy counter loses track of its ten-rupee things
Puppets, wooden camels and kites, each with a price said aloud
A Rajasthan toy stall sells kathputli string puppets, small wooden camels and elephants, kites and plastic toys side by side. The price of a puppet is said aloud and often changes with the customer, and no card is written. At the end of the day the shop knows its cash but not which puppets and camels earned it.
Kites before Sankranti, gifts before Diwali
In the weeks before Makar Sankranti children and grown-ups come for kites, string and spools, and the shop sells them by the bundle. Diwali is the next peak, with gifts, and the summer holidays bring a third. Each peak asks for different stock: bundles and spools for the kites, boxed gifts for Diwali, balls and games for the holidays.
The gift that waits for the wedding money
A family in the village takes a toy or a gift box for a wedding or a birthday and says it will pay the rest next week, or after the harvest. The gift goes home, and what was paid and what is due becomes a line on a slip kept under the counter. A small shop cannot afford to lose that slip.
Tools for a counter of small toys and big gifts
Low stock warnings
A warning when kites, string or marbles run low before a rush, not after the shelf is bare.
Daily reports
Each day's sales kept, so the kite weeks before Sankranti and the gift weeks before Diwali are read apart.
Your own online shop
A page of the wooden camels and the puppets with their pictures, which a visitor can open on his phone to choose from, before he reaches the stall or after he has gone home.
UPI payments
A QR at the counter for the visitor who picks a puppet while his group is walking on, and pays from his own phone before he catches up with them.
Online orders
Gift-box orders from relatives in other towns, placed from your own online shop and ready when the aunt comes.
Where Rajasthan's craft towns meet the toy shelf
Toys are made by hand in many places, and a toy shop hears about the craft towns of its state from the people who come in.
- Jodhpur is a big centre for carved wooden furniture, wrought iron and handicrafts, and it has a handicraft special economic zone at Boranada.
- Jaipur is known for block printing, blue pottery and gemstone jewellery, and Sitapura Industrial Area there is an export zone with wooden article makers and textile units.
- Udaipur is known for miniature paintings and marble carvings, and the Shilpgram craft village is in the district.
- Nagaur's cattle fair is held every November, and the district also trades heavily in dried red chillies.
- In Alwar the city's famous sweet is the milk cake, Alwar ka mawa, sold at Tripolia Market and the markets near Hope Circus.
- The Rajasthan Foundation lists dal, edible oil, cattle feed, granite tiles and PVC pipes among Sikar's local industries.
What toy shop owners in Rajasthan ask
A school group takes twenty small wooden camels. Is one bill enough?
Yes. One bill for the group, sent to the teacher's phone, so the school has the twenty camels and the day in its book. The rest stay on the count.
Kites come in a bundle and I sell them singly. How does the bundle become singles in the count?
Write the bundle in when it comes as that many kites. Each kite you sell takes one off, so after a busy day the count shows how many of the bundle are still with you.
The first family was told one price for the camel and the second family another. Which is on the bill?
The rate written on the phone for the camel, whatever was said aloud. Both families are billed at that rate, so the second is not cheated and the first is not shamed.
The wooden toy makers of Chittorgarh
The Ministry of MSME's skill-mapping sheet for Chittorgarh lists Basi as a wooden toys cluster, with a 6-week training course in design, surface finishing and varnishing. A wooden toy has a design, a smooth finish and a coat of varnish before it reaches a shelf, and each of those steps is something a maker can be trained in.
The same Ministry of MSME sheet lists a separate Chittorgarh Handicraft Cluster whose product is toys and dolls. So the district has two kinds of toy trade: wooden toys from one cluster, and toys and dolls from a handicraft cluster. A shop that stocks both keeps them as different items, because they are made differently and sold at different rates.