Billing for your toy shop in Tamil Nadu
Dolls, tops and cars at many prices, on one bill you make in a few seconds.
What the last night of the season tells you about next year's buying
The last night's count becomes next year's order
When the nine nights are over, open the days of the festival and see which doll sets the families needed to fill the steps at home and which sets nobody touched. Next year you start the order from the first and leave out the second.
The unsold set, moved to the gift shelf after the nine nights
When Navaratri ends, the dolls that nobody took are no longer festival sets. Move them to the gift shelf as their own items, so the sets that stayed and the gifts you meant to sell are told apart in the count. A set that stayed is then billed as a gift, and no family looks for it as a festival set.
The family plans its steps at home, doll by doll, before the drive
A family in the next town looks over the dolls on your online shop in the evening and plans its steps from the top step down. It comes knowing which dolls it wants, so the Saturday crowd is not spent in choosing.
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A Navaratri wave of buyers, and the quiet months after it
Families arrive in one wave
A toy shop in Tamil Nadu earns a good part of its year in the Navaratri weeks. One family wants six dolls for the steps at home, the next wants one doll and a gift wrap, and a child pulls at a rattle in between. A paper slip and a sum in the head slow the line, and the dolls sold late in the evening end up on no list at all.
The set that comes in one lot with other kinds of doll
The dolls for the steps come in sets, and a set often arrives packed with other kinds in one lot. One lot comes late from one town and short from another, and on the shelf the dolls look alike, so you cannot say which lot you are still waiting for.
The long quiet after the festival
When Navaratri ends, the big sets stay on the shelf and your money sits in them until the next season. Summer holidays and birthdays bring small buyers, but without a count of what is left you buy again in the same quantities, because nobody remembers what did not move.
Toy shop tools for small prices, many makers and one big season
Bills on your phone
In the wave of families on the first evenings, each bill is made in a few taps and goes to the mother's WhatsApp while the next family is already at the counter.
Low stock warnings
A warning when the rattles, balloons and tops that sell every day are nearly gone, so the cheap things never run out while the big ones sit.
Godown stock
The dolls stored in the godown after the season, counted before the next Navaratri, so the order for the new lot starts from what is left.
Credit book (khata)
A page for the family that takes the Navaratri dolls now and pays at the month end, each doll dated.
Your own online shop
A page a family in the next town opens at night, after the shop is shut, to choose the doll and the day to collect it.
Questions Tamil Nadu toy sellers ask about the Navaratri weeks
A family bought the set for its steps and comes back later for one more single doll. How is that counted?
The single doll is an item of its own with its own count. Sell it on a new bill under the family's name, and the set the family bought stays as it was on its first bill.
Some dolls I make myself and some I buy from other towns. Can I tell them apart in the report?
Yes. Add the dolls you make and the dolls you buy in as separate items, named for where they came from. Each has its own line in the report, so you see whether your own work or the bought-in lot paid for the season.
A family books a doll in the online shop and I set it aside. How do I keep it out of the Saturday crowd?
Make the bill when the family books it, so the doll comes off the count and is not sold to the Saturday crowd; the family pays the rest when it collects.
Kolu dolls, Mylapore and the towns that make them
Kolu bommai, the Navaratri dolls families set out at home, are sold by hawkers whose stalls go up on North Mada Street in Mylapore, Chennai, each Navaratri season. A seller there works in a short, loud season, and the street is quiet again after it.
A Mylapore doll hawker said his family makes dolls for Navaratri and also buys dolls from districts like Cuddalore, Kanchipuram and Madurai. A stall's shelf is a mix of its own work and the work of other towns, which is why it helps to know what came from where.