Billing for your garment and cloth shop in Sikkim
Every size, every stitching slip and every udhaar page, together on your phone.
Handloom pieces no two alike, six outfits for one wedding and a loom that is free when it is free
No two handloom pieces are alike
A woven jacket or bag with a geometric pattern is made on a loom by hand, and the next one is never quite the same. A customer who likes the green one asks for the same in blue. You have the pattern, but not the colour, and the blue one is a different piece with a different rate. Counting them as one kind of jacket loses the difference. The same thing happens with belts and cushion covers, each woven in its own geometry.
Six festival outfits before Losar, one trip to the shop
In the weeks before Losar a family comes in for festival clothes for all of them, from the grandfather to the youngest child. The slip you write has six sizes and the date they must be ready, and the cash goes in the drawer. The two are rarely both right at the end of the day. If the grandfather's size is wrong the slip has to be found again, and the family, who walked up from the bus, stands waiting.
The weaver delivers when the loom is free
The weavers who supply you cannot work to a date, because a piece takes the time it takes. You ask for six jackets by the festival, and four come, a week late, with two belts you did not ask for. What was asked, what came and what is still due are written in three places, if at all. When you give the festival date to a customer, you are guessing.
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Every piece its own count of one, six outfits on one bill, and a weaver's order read against what came
One pattern in three colours is three pieces, each with a count of one
Give each piece its own item: the pattern, the colour and its rate. When it is sold the count goes to nought. A customer who asks for the blue one is told at once that the green is on the shelf and the blue is still with the weaver.
The Losar outfits read apart from the everyday ones
Put Losar in the name of each outfit made for the festival. After the week, those lines show how many festival outfits left the shop, apart from the jackets that sell all year, and the bill for the head of the family goes to him on WhatsApp.
The weaver's order and what actually came, on one page
The four jackets and two belts the weaver promised come when the loom is free, not on the day he named. His page shows over the months whether he comes late or on time. Give him a festival date from what the page shows, such as Losar, and the date you promise the customer is one the loom can keep.
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MG Marg, where Sikkimese handicrafts are bought on foot
A cloth shop is part of its street, and what is sold nearby decides what the customers ask for.
- MG Marg in Gangtok is a one-kilometre vehicle-free shopping street, popular for Sikkimese handicrafts, prayer wheels and flags, with food stalls and cafes.
Tools for a shop of cloth, ready-made jackets and handloom pieces
Orders to suppliers
The order to the weaver names the colours still missing from a pattern, so what he brings next completes the set of three on your shelf.
Daily reports
Handloom pieces sold in the visitor months set beside the wedding months, so you know which weavers to ask for what.
The whole shop in one place
Cloth by the metre, ready-made jackets and handloom pieces on one phone, with the weavers' orders beside them, so a shop that sells all three has one list and not a notebook for each.
Artisan stores that stopped keeping stock and sales apart
Questions Sikkim garment shops ask
The weaver sends his next lot at a higher rate. What rate do I put on the pieces already here?
Leave them. The pieces already here keep the rate they were added with, and the new lot is added at its own rate. A family that buys one of each pays two different rates, and the weaver's page shows why.
The family wants six outfits in one colour and I have only four. What do I tell them?
The phone shows four of that colour. Bill the four now. The weaver's page shows when the other two were ordered, so you can tell the family when the weaver is likely to have them.
A family in the village wants to know whether a particular pattern is in before it takes the bus. How do I answer?
Message the answer from the count on your phone. The walk down to the shop is a real cost for a village family, and one message saves it when the piece is gone.
A cushion cover is sold with or without its filling. Do I need two items?
Yes. The cover and the filling are two items. A customer who takes both has both on one bill, and the covers that sell alone show in their own count.
Handloom at Zero Point, Gangtok
The state's Directorate of Handicrafts and Handloom at Zero Point, Gangtok, set up in 1957, is a training-cum-production hub that also sells local handlooms.
Its shop sells traditional handloom bags, jackets and belts woven in geometric patterns, and bags and cushions made from typical Sikkim silk fabrics.