Billing for your toy shop in Tripura
A balloon, a bamboo doll and a set of six wooden animals, each billed and counted the way you sell it.
Why a Tripura toy counter has balloons by the piece, dolls by the gift and no way to add them up
The birthday gift is bought on the way to the party, and wrapped in five minutes
A customer rushes in with a party in an hour. She wants a toy, wrapping paper and a bill, and she wants all three in five minutes. The helper wraps while the owner searches for the price, and the sale of wrapping paper is never written because it is only a few coins.
A cane doll is made on order by a village family, and delivered a month later
A customer wants a particular cane doll, and the family that makes it takes a month. You take the order and a small advance, and write the name on a slip. When the doll comes, nobody is sure which customer it was for, and the slip is on the shelf under a box. The family that waits a month for it is often the one that tells its neighbours whether the shop can be trusted with an order.
The same doll has three prices: the maker's, the wholesaler's and the fair's
A cane doll costs one amount from the village maker, another from the wholesaler and a third at the fair stall. The prices live in the heads of two people, and each sells at what he remembers. By the end of a month the same doll has been sold at three prices and nobody can say which was right.
What helps a toy shop that is busy for a week and quiet for a month
GST bills
A bill with GST worked out for each toy, so a wooden animal set and a plastic car on the same bill carry what each should.
Daily reports
Each toy's sales for the pay week kept as a line, so next month's order is made to what sold and not to a hope.
The whole shop in one place
The toys, the dolls' makers and the orders to them together in one place, instead of in a notebook and a slip.
From the loose wheel that comes back on Monday to the doll that sold out at the fair
Clay toys and small drums for the Garia fairs
In the Garia weeks the village fairs want clay toys, whistles and small drums by the dozen. Keep each kind as its own item, and the fair weeks' sales tell you before the next Garia which kind to ask the potters and drum-makers for first, and which to leave on the shelf.
The toys and dolls with no price tag have their rate on the screen, not on the box
Cane dolls and handmade toys arrive with no label. Set each one's rate on the phone once, and whoever stands at the counter reads it from the screen. A grandmother is quoted the same rate on Tuesday as on Saturday, and the maker's own page shows what she brought.
The stall-holder who comes back in the fair week for a second dozen
A man with a stall at the Kharchi mela comes for a dozen cane dolls for his table, and a few days later he is back for another dozen. Each lot goes on a page in his name with its day, so when the fair week is over and he comes to pay, the page shows both lots and the day of each.
Cane, bamboo and plantation districts: where Tripura's toy makers and buyers live
Toy makers and toy buyers in Tripura live in districts known for cane, bamboo and plantations. Here are two, 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.
- 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.
Questions Tripura toy shops ask
A maker brings cane dolls once a month. How does the count look between his visits?
When the sack comes, note how many of each doll. Each sale takes one off, so between visits the count says how many are left, and what is left a few days before his next visit is what you ask him to bring.
The same cane doll has three prices: the maker's, the wholesaler's and the fair's. Which goes on the bill?
The rate you sell at over your counter, set once on the doll. The maker's and the wholesaler's are not on the bill, and the fair's rate goes on the stall-holder's bill alone.
A cane doll takes a month to come. How do I match it to the customer when it arrives?
Make the bill for the advance with the doll named, on the customer's page. When the family delivers the doll, open the page, and her name is beside the doll's name, so you ring her at once and there is no slip under the box.
Bamboo and cane dolls, and the Kharchi mela week
Tripura and Mizoram are home to bamboo and cane dolls made by local tribal communities, The Telegraph's T2 reports. A toy shop that stocks such dolls is selling something made by hand in its own region.
Old Agartala holds the weeklong Kharchi Puja every July at the Chaturdash Devata temple, with a mela planned by its own preparatory committee, The Sentinel reported in 2019. A week of mela brings families from far villages into town, and a toy counter that counts its stock before it starts knows what to bring out first.