Billing for your footwear shop in Tripura
The size 7 in black and the size 7 in tan, each counted as its own pair, and the rainy-season rush written down.
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From the pair that fits to the gumboots that sold out in the first wet week
What the first wet week leaves on the slipper shelf
The first wet week empties the plastic slippers in the sizes the lane wears and leaves the rest. The week's end is the day to write the order: the sizes at nothing go first on the list to the supplier, and the others wait. A shop that waits for the second wet week finds the lane has gone to the next shop.
The paddy-field slipper and the wedding sandal show which week each one moved
The plastic slippers for the wet fields and the leather sandals for weddings share one back room. In the wet weeks the slippers crowd out the sandals, and in the wedding weeks the sandals need the space. Count the two apart, so you know what to bring to the front when the season turns.
The straps replaced in the first wet week are counted at the stool
In the first wet week the straps of gumboots and slippers give way together. The stool needs the right strap in hand for each: one kind for the gumboot and another for the slipper. A stool that has only one kind sends half the heap away, and the customer takes his pair to the next stool.
What helps a footwear counter that mends as well as sells
Low stock warnings
A level for gumboots and slippers in each size, so the list of what is running low is on your phone before the rains arrive in force.
Godown stock
The shoe boxes in the back room counted apart from the pairs on the wall, so a size that has run out on the wall can be fetched from a count and not from a search.
Daily reports
Each size's sales read back after the first wet week, so next year's wet-weather order is made to the sizes that sold.
Rubber, tea and paddy: where the people who wear out Tripura's footwear live
Footwear in Tripura is worn out on plantation paths, paddy bunds and hill roads. Here are two districts and what their sites say.
- South Tripura's economy rests on agriculture, animal resources and fisheries: paddy, pineapple, jackfruit and banana are grown, with tea gardens, rubber and bamboo plantations.
- North Tripura grows paddy, pineapple, jackfruit, orange, litchi and banana, and its tea gardens and rubber plantations also provide jobs.
Why a Tripura footwear shop never knows which size is left when the rains turn slow stock into fast stock
The wedding sandal in the right size is out, and the next size is there
The wedding months come, and the sandals families pick go size by size. The sandal in the size the bride's sister wants is out, and the one beside it, a size smaller, is on the shelf. She will not wear it to the wedding, not even for a day, so the family looks along the wall at the other sandals, size by size, and the sale goes with the size.
Slippers for the paddy field and sandals for the wedding share one back room
The same back room holds the plastic slippers that sell when the fields are wet and the leather sandals that sell when the weddings come. Boxes are stacked as they arrive, and when a customer asks for one, the helper climbs the pile. Nobody knows how many of either are in there until the room is emptied. The first wet week then finds the shop with the wrong boxes at the front, and customers walk to the next shop with the right ones.
The stool is busiest when the wet fields split the slippers
The cobbler's stool beside the shop is busiest when the rains come. Slippers split in the wet fields and come back for a new strap, with a tin of polish or an insole picked up on the way. By noon the stool has a queue, and the customer who came for the stool stays to look at the pairs on the wall, and often buys one before he leaves.
Questions Tripura footwear shops ask
A farmer wants the plastic slipper for wet fields in a size that is out. What can I offer him?
Open the same slipper in the sizes either side of his. Each size is its own item with its own count, so you tell him the nearest size you hold, and a size at nothing on the wall may still have boxes in the godown.
Plastic slippers and leather sandals sell at very different rates. Does the report keep them apart?
Yes. Every pair is its own item with its own rate, and the report shows each as a line. You can read the plastic lines for the rainy weeks and the leather lines for the wedding weeks, one after the other, and order each for its own season.
The cobbler at my stool is paid by the day, not by the job. What do I read at night about his work?
The stool's total is one line in the evening report, set beside his day's pay. On a wet day when the line is below what you paid him, you see it that evening and not at the month's end.
Tripura's rubber leaves the state: what that means beside a footwear shelf
In 2021 officials said Tripura, India's second largest natural rubber producer, sends over 90 per cent of its rubber out of state as it has no rubber-based industries. The rubber in a Tripura plantation reaches footwear makers outside the state.
In March 2021 a Rubber Board official said an 18-tonne consignment of Tripura rubber sheet was bought by a shoe manufacturer at Biratnagar in Nepal. Rubber tapped in Tripura has ended up as shoes in another country.