Billing for your footwear shop in West Bengal
The style, the size and the pair that came back after Pujo, all counted on your phone.
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Leather, paddy and the districts a Bengal footwear shop sells to
Leather and farmland shape who walks into a footwear shop in Bengal.
- Purba Barddhaman has rice as its main crop and also industry, so a shop there sells to both farm and factory families.
- Purba Medinipur is mainly farmland growing paddy, potato, vegetables and betelvine, so a shop there sees families who spend their days in wet fields.
From the Pujo-night bill at the door to the January school shoe
A bill at the door for the family that will not come in
On the Pujo nights the shop stays open late, and a family stands at the door with children who are tired and want to go home. The bill is made while the pair is on the child's foot. By one in the morning nobody has the strength to write a notebook, and the family leaves without waiting for it, and the children are in bed sooner.
The family that comes twice in Pujo, and the second pair
Families do not buy all their Pujo footwear in one visit. The children's pairs are bought first, and the grown-ups come on another day for a second pair. Put both visits on the family's page, so the second bill starts from what the first one holds and the sizes you already know.
Sandals sold between Saptami and Dashami, read as their own four days
The days of Pujo are different from every other week, because families buy a second pair in the middle of it. Keep each of the days on its own line in the daily report. In the next year, before Saptami, you open those four lines and see which sandals sold first, and you stock for the walking and not for the shop window.
Pandal-hopping sandals, the rubber chappal of the first rain and the exchange after Pujo
Four nights of pandal hopping that wear a sandal out
A family that walks from pandal to pandal for four nights comes back on Ashtami with a strap that has gone or a sole that has come loose. They buy a second pair at your shop at ten at night, and the first pair is left in a bag at the door. The notebook has the first pair and not the second, and the family says they bought both from you. In the lanes around the pandals every shop sells the same pair at a different rate that night, and customers know all of them.
New shoes for Pujo, and the exchange a week later
Before Pujo every child and half the grown-ups buy new footwear, and the week after, some come back to change a size or a colour. She brings a shoebox with no mark on it, and the pair inside has been walked on one wet evening. The paper bill is lost. You cannot tell from the box which pair it was, and you cannot sell it again at the old rate.
The first rain, the cobbler and the wet floor
On the first heavy rain everyone wants a rubber chappal and a pair of gumboots, and the stock sells out by noon. Customers walk in wet, the floor is slippery, and the cobbler outside the shop is mending what you sold last month. The calls from the wholesaler for new stock come in the same hour as the first rush, and neither is easy to do. The boy who runs to the godown for a size comes back with the wrong colour, and the customer waits in a wet shirt.
What a counter of chappals and school shoes asks of a phone
Low stock warnings
The size seven in the brown sandal, or the school shoe in the size most children wear, seen as running low before the session starts.
Offers for regular customers
An offer made with last year's Pujo bills in front of you: whose second pair it was on Ashtami, and which sizes the children have grown into since.
Daily reports
The four days from Saptami to Dashami on four lines, so next year's stock of sandals is ordered from the walking days.
Questions a Bengal footwear shop asks
The mother holds only the broken strap of the pair bought on Saptami. How do I find which pair it was?
Open the family's page. The Saptami bill names the style, the size and the colour. Match them to the strap in her hand, and the pair is found without argument. If no bill carries that style, the pair was not bought here.
After three nights of pandal hopping, a mother wants a bigger sandal for her child's swollen feet before Dashami. How do I swap it?
Make a new bill for the larger sandal on the family's page and cancel the old one. The larger size comes off its own count. The sandal worn for three nights is made an item of its own at a lower rate, with the size and the word worn in its name, so the full-rate count is not touched.
On the first rain the gumboots and rubber chappals are finished by noon. How do I know what is left by ten?
Each size has its own count that falls with each bill, so at ten the phone shows what the rain has not taken yet. Tell the next customer which sizes are left.
Tanneries, leather footwear and a mall's Pujo week
West Bengal has about 538 of India's 2,020 tanneries and about 230 leather footwear units, according to the state government's portal.
At Acropolis Mall in Durga Puja 2025, retailers reported footwear sales up 20 per cent and apparel up 22 per cent over last year, said Merlin Group's Subhadip Basu.