Billing for your maligai or grocery shop in Tamil Nadu
The monthly list, the loose quantities and the udhaar, on one phone behind your counter.
Market-day buyers from the village, loose dal by the hundred grams and chillies bought in bulk, sold in twists of paper
Market-day buyers from the next village
On market day the families who came by the one bus have an hour at your counter and no more. You run short of change and of small packets just when they need them, and a family that misses its bus has a long walk home.
Fifty grams here, a litre there
Half your lines are loose: a hundred grams of dal, fifty of tamarind, a quarter of sugar, oil by the hundred millilitres. The rest are packed goods at a fixed price, sachets of shampoo and biscuits. A bill that mixes both has eight or ten lines, and every line is a chance to read the scale wrong.
Chillies and tamarind bought in bulk, sold in twists of paper
You buy dry chillies, tamarind and spices in big lots at the market and sell them in small twists of paper by the fifty grams. Some of the weight dries away on the shelf, some sticks to the scoop, and the price you charge per twist has to carry both without the customer noticing.
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Cane, tapioca and grinders: what the districts around a Tamil Nadu grocery buy
A grocery in Tamil Nadu sells what its district grows and grinds. Here are three places where that shows on the shelf.
- Viluppuram is called the sugar bowl of Tamil Nadu, and its sugarcane supplies all the cane for 7 sugar mills in the district, so sugar and jaggery are close to home for a grocery there.
- In Salem, tapioca is grown widely and used mainly to make starch, and the Malgoa mango is the district's pride.
- Coimbatore has more than 700 wet grinder makers, and a household that grinds its own batter buys rice and urad dal every week.
From the basket packed on market day to a bill the family can read
A bag of rice and a quarter of tamarind, totalled together
A bag of rice, a hundred grams of tamarind and a bottle of oil are the family's whole errand, and the one bus home will not wait for a slow total. The sum is ready by the time the money is counted out, so the family keeps its seat on the bus and you keep its custom.
Dal and chillies start Monday's order
Monday's order begins with the two loose goods that go by the hundred grams, dal and chillies. Their counts fall in small steps, so Saturday evening shows how near the end they are. Open those two first, add the rest, and the order is ready.
The tea stall's sugar, tea powder and milk powder, read apart from the counter
The tea stall next door and the canteen down the road take sugar, tea powder and milk powder every day. Put their bills on pages in their names, and each day you read how much of the three went to them, apart from what went over the counter.
Grocery counter tools that count loose and packed goods together
Bills on your phone
A bill with a twist of tamarind and a twist of dry chilli, fifty grams each, beside the dal by the hundred grams, every line at its own unit and rate.
Many shops, one owner
The stall you set up on market day in the next village, billed apart from the shop under the one account.
Low stock warnings
A warning when the idli rice and the urad dal run low, the two things every Tamil kitchen buys each week, so the batter day never finds an empty sack.
Orders to suppliers
Monday's order of idli rice and urad dal written from the shelf's low list, so the salesman who calls that day brings a delivery and does not count the shelf.
Offers for regular customers
A standing offer for the family that buys the full month's provisions in one visit.
Questions Tamil Nadu grocery owners ask about loose goods and monthly lists
On market day I run out of change and small packets just as a family must catch its one bus home. What do I do?
Keep the small packets families ask for on market day as items, and count them the evening before, so the shelf is full when the family arrives. Say the total clearly, so the family can pay with the notes it has and not miss the bus.
My vegetable corner's price follows the Koyambedu rate of the morning. How do I set it each day?
Set the vegetable items' rates each morning from the Koyambedu rate, before the first customer, and leave the dal and rice rates alone. At night the day's report shows the vegetables on their own lines, apart from the grocery.
Tamarind and dry chilli weigh less on the shelf after a month than when I bought them. How do I see the loss?
Enter the lot by its kilos when it arrives. Every twist sold takes its grams off, so the count left after a month, set against what the scoop and the shelf really hold, is the loss.
Rice and urad dal rise and fall week by week. Where do I see what I paid on each lot of the two?
On the supplier's page. Each week's order carries the rate per kilo you paid, so you read the rice and the dal lots one under the other. These are the two goods every kitchen buys, so the dear weeks are the weeks families felt.
Koyambedu and Ambur: two yards that shape a grocery's month
The Koyambedu Wholesale Market Complex, built by CMDA on 295 acres to decongest central Chennai, has 3,194 shops for perishables. A grocery that also sells vegetables sets its price against what this yard charges that morning.
Vaniyambadi and Ambur, in the old Vellore district, are leather centres making finished leather, shoes and garments for export. A grocery in a town like this has many customers on the same wage calendar, so its month-end udhaar falls due in the same few days.