Billing for your beauty parlour and cosmetic shop in Tripura
Threading, a facial and a bottle of hair oil on one bill, with the bridal advance kept on its own page.
Emporium towns and hill villages: where a Tripura parlour's customers come from
Parlours and cosmetic shops in Tripura serve women from towns and villages. Here are two districts, and what their sites say.
- West Tripura's district site says cane and bamboo chairs, tables, mats, hats and bags are exported, and handloom goods are sold at the Purbasha government emporium.
- In Dhalai district, 76% of workers depend on agriculture; the district site names poor marketing facilities as a reason for backwardness, though NH 44 connects it.
Why a Tripura parlour's services and its cosmetics end up in two different heads
The bridal morning starts before the shutter is up
A bridal morning starts early, and the parlour opens its door for the party before the day's first customer. The creams, the colour and the oil go from the shelf to the bride's chair with no bill made, because the price will be settled later with the mother. The first customer arrives to find the bride's party still in both chairs and nobody free to bill her.
The bride's party books the parlour, and the mother pays for everyone in one lump
A bride's party comes in with the bride, her sisters and her aunt, each needing a different service. The mother pays for all of them at the end in a single sum, and nobody remembers who had which service. The helper who did the bride's hair is not sure whether the aunt's threading was counted.
The regular who gets the usual discount, and the owner who never knew
A helper gives a friendly price to a customer who comes every few weeks. The owner finds out when the box is short, and cannot tell whether the discount was given to one person or to ten. A parlour that lives on regular customers then loses money on the very people it wants to keep.
What a parlour with a cosmetic shelf can keep in writing between customers
Low stock warnings
A level for the hair colour, the oil and the threads, so the thing that runs out in the middle of a busy evening is on the order list before it does.
Daily reports
The fair-week day read beside an ordinary day, as lines for threading, facials and oil, so you see how much the fair week added to the chair and how much to the shelf.
Orders to suppliers
The order for creams, oils and hair colour to the wholesaler, with a note of what came, so the cosmetic shelf is never the thing nobody checked.
From the threading chair to the bride who booked for next month
The sisters from the hill village come once a year, and their page remembers what they had
Give a customer who comes only once a year a page of her own and bill each visit there. When she returns the next fair week, you open the page and see what she had and what it cost, so the first minute of her visit is not spent guessing.
The fair week's waiting row and its pairs of bangles
In the fair week the hill-village girls wait together for the chair, and a pair of bangles picked by one is asked for by the next. Set the pair as an item, so its count shows how many the row took.
The hair oil that runs out in the middle of a bridal morning was on the order list the night before
Set a level for the creams, oils and colours that a bridal morning uses. When the count falls, the list shows it a day earlier, and you order before the party arrives, not while the bride is in the chair. A bridal party books weeks ahead, so the level can follow the bookings and not a memory of the last wedding season.
Questions Tripura beauty parlours and cosmetic shops ask
The mother of the hill-village sisters pays for all in one lump. Can the bill show each girl's share?
Yes. Make one bill for each sister, with her own items. The mother's lump sum is paid against all of them, and each bill still says what that girl had. When the mother counts out the notes, she can read the bills one after another.
A girl at the chair is new and does not know the rates. Where does she look?
At the list of services and their rates on the phone. Each service has its rate set once, so a new girl bills what the owner would, and the evening report shows each service as a line.
A woman from the next village leaves bangles with me and is paid as they sell. How do I know what I owe her?
Count her bangles into stock the day she leaves them. Each sale takes one off, so at the end of the week the pairs sold are what she is paid for.
A skill school in Agartala and the agar tree: two local facts for a beauty counter
The National Skill Training Institute (Women) at Anandanagar, Agartala, run under the skills ministry, teaches Cosmetology, including a short-term course, and Dressmaking. Women can learn the trade in Agartala itself.
Tripura's forest department says agar (Aquilaria malaccensis) grows in abundance in the state, and in 2021 it sought advice from agar traders, farmers and agar oil makers on a policy. Agar oil makers are part of the trade that the department spoke to.