Sweet shops and bakeries

The trade

How this trade really works

From the factory to the customer, each person in the chain wants something different. Most of what goes wrong comes from the gaps between them.

The milk, mawa and ghee suppliers

The dairy man brings milk daily. Mawa, ghee, besan, sugar, maida and dry fruits come from traders. Before Diwali, mawa and ghee prices jump and quality becomes a worry. Each supplier wants a regular order and quick payment.

The karkhana or kitchen

Where the halwai and his team make the sweets, the namkeen, the bread and the cakes, usually before dawn. The head halwai decides how much of each to make. He wants nothing to run short, because a shortage is blamed on him.

The outlets

Each counter in a different part of town gets its trays in the morning. The outlet manager wants a full glass case, and sends unsold trays back or sells them cheap at night.

The order desk

Takes birthday cakes, wedding orders, office Diwali boxes and bulk orders for functions. These are often on credit, often promised for one morning, and often changed at the last minute.

The customer

Buys a little for the evening, a box for a guest, a big order for a wedding or a festival. She judges you by whether today's kalakand is soft and whether her favourite box is there.

Milk sweets have days, dry sweets have weeks

Rasgulla, kalakand, rasmalai and milk cake must sell within days. Besan ladoo, soan papdi, dry namkeen and rusk can wait weeks. The loss sits almost entirely in the first group, and in cream cakes and bread on the bakery side. A shop that makes milk sweets by habit, not by the counter's real sale, throws away money every night.

Unsold trays are a loss nobody writes down

At closing time, the outlet sends back what did not sell. Some is sold cheap the next day. Some goes to staff. Some is thrown away. None of it appears as a loss in any book. The owner sees only that the month's earnings are thinner than the busy counters suggested.

Every outlet sells something different

The counter near the bus stand sells samosa, kachori and cheap boxes all day. The outlet in the residential colony sells cakes, cookies and better gift boxes in the evening. The market outlet does big festival orders. The karkhana sends each one nearly the same trays, because that is how it has always been done.

Festivals come all at once

Raksha Bandhan, Karva Chauth, Diwali, Bhai Dooj, Holi with gujiya, Eid with sewaiyan, Ganesh Chaturthi with modak in some cities, Christmas with plum cake at the bakery. Each brings a few days when the queue goes out of the door, followed by a sudden drop. Make too little and you lose the year's best days. Make too much and the leftover festival sweets turn into the following week's loss.

Boxes run out before sweets do

In the Diwali week, the shop often has sweets but no boxes of the right size. Boxes, ribbons, silver foil and carry bags are ordered late because nobody watches them. A customer who wanted her usual box in a hurry walks to the next shop.

Mawa and ghee decide your margin

Most of the cost of a milk sweet is in milk, mawa and ghee. Before Diwali their prices rise while your printed box price stays the same. If you do not put the cost of these beside what you sold, you can work far harder in the festival and earn less on each box.

Office orders bring sales and slow money

Big Diwali orders from offices and factories look good, but they are often on credit and paid weeks later. Some are cancelled or cut at the last day after the sweets are made. The shop carries the cost and the risk.

Where the money quietly goes

What you cannot see today, and what it costs you

You do not see what each outlet threw away

You see what each counter billed. You do not see, outlet by outlet and item by item, what came back unsold at night. So the karkhana keeps making the same trays for the same outlets.

You cannot compare outlets item by item

You know which outlet makes more money. You do not know which outlet sells rasmalai and which one sends it back every night, or which sells cakes and which one only sells namkeen. So every outlet gets nearly the same tray.

Trays leave the kitchen with no record

Trays go out on a scooter or a van with a slip, or with no slip. When an outlet is short of money at night, nobody can say how much was sent to it that morning.

You do not know which items earn and which do not

Some sweets look busy and earn little because their mawa or dry fruit is costly. Some quiet items earn well. Without the cost of what you bought beside what you sold, you push the wrong items in the festival.

Last festival's lesson is lost by the next one

After Raksha Bandhan, everyone remembers that something ran out and something was left over. By next year, nobody remembers which, in which outlet, by how much.

A season, the way it usually goes

The story you already know

It is the week before Raksha Bandhan at a sweet shop in Jaipur with a karkhana near the old city and outlets in Raja Park, Malviya Nagar and Vaishali Nagar. The head halwai makes the festival quantity the way he did last year, a little more of everything. The mawa costs far more than last month. The owner does not change the box prices, because the shop across the road has not.

On the festival morning, the Malviya Nagar outlet runs out of its mid-size gift box by mid-morning. The sweets are there, but the boxes are not. Customers wait while a boy rides to the karkhana. In Vaishali Nagar, the counter is full of kaju katli boxes that hardly move, because the colony's families buy milk cake and ghewar for the festival. Nobody moves the boxes across. The phones are too busy.

That night, trays of rasmalai and milk cake come back from Vaishali Nagar. The next morning some of it is sold at a cut, and the rest is thrown away. The festival was the busiest of the year. When the owner checks the accounts a few weeks later, the money is not what he expected, and he cannot say whether the mawa price, the leftover or the empty boxes cost him more.

With Vyavora

What you see, once every shop bills on Vyavora

Each outlet's stock and sales, and the karkhana's too, with one switch between them and all of them together.
Every tray that leaves the karkhana for an outlet, recorded as a stock move, so the morning's dispatch and the night's sale can be put side by side.
Outlets compared item by item: which counter sells rasmalai, which sells cake, and which sends back the same tray every night.
How long each item has been lying at each outlet, so the milk sweets that will not sell in time are seen in the afternoon, not at closing.
Your mawa, milk, ghee and sugar purchases beside your sales of milk sweets, outlet by outlet, so a cost rise shows up while you can still act on it.
Profit on each item you buy and sell as it is, such as packed namkeen, cold drinks and bought-in biscuits, and which of those lose money.
Boxes, ribbons and carry bags held as stock in each outlet, like any other item.
GST kept outlet by outlet and added up for filing.

What you can now decide

Decisions you could not make before

Make for each outlet what it really sells

When the karkhana sees each outlet's real sale of each sweet, the head halwai can make more rasmalai for the counter that sells it and less for the one that sends it back. The trays become different for each outlet, and less is thrown away at night.

Move it in the afternoon, not throw it at night

When you see milk sweets lying at one outlet while another is running low, send them across by afternoon. Move it, do not make it. Same sweets, no new cost, and they are sold fresh instead of thrown out tomorrow.

Change the box price when mawa changes

When the cost of mawa and ghee you bought sits beside the sweets you sold, you see when the margin on a milk sweet has thinned. You change the price or the box mix before the festival rush, not after.

Plan the festival from the last festival

Before Diwali, look at what each outlet sold last Raksha Bandhan and last Diwali, and what was left over. Make the festival quantity outlet by outlet, item by item, from what really happened rather than from the head halwai's memory.

Keep enough boxes in every outlet

With boxes held as stock in each outlet, you can see well before the rush that the mid-size box will run out at one counter. Order them, or move them from another outlet, in time.

Push the sweets that earn, not only the ones that fly

When the items you buy and sell as they are show their profit, and the costs of milk and mawa sit beside your sales of milk sweets, you know which boxes to put at the front of the glass case in the festival week.

Collect what offices owe you

With every order and payment recorded, send offices a reminder on WhatsApp for what they still owe after Diwali, instead of waiting for them to remember.

Where you get ahead

Where your competitor keeps losing

Your sweets are fresher than the shop across the road

When each outlet gets what it sells and leftovers are moved by afternoon, the kalakand in your glass case is always today's. Customers can taste the difference. That is the reason a family walks past a closer shop to come to yours.

You do not run short on the best day of the year

When the festival plan comes from what each outlet really sold last time, the right boxes and the right sweets are at the right counter. The shop that runs out by mid-morning on Raksha Bandhan loses customers it may not win back. You are not that shop.

Your counters keep billing in the rush

On a festival morning, the internet in a crowded market can fail. Billing on Vyavora carries on without it and catches up when the line returns. Your queue keeps moving.

The same season, with Vyavora

The story, told again

The next year, it is again the week before Raksha Bandhan in Jaipur. The owner opens one screen and looks at last year's festival, outlet by outlet. Vaishali Nagar sold milk cake and ghewar and sent back kaju katli. Malviya Nagar ran out of the mid-size box. He also sees that the mawa he is buying now costs far more than last year, beside the milk sweets each outlet sold.

So the karkhana makes differently. Vaishali Nagar gets more ghewar and milk cake, and fewer kaju katli boxes. Malviya Nagar's box stock is checked a week early, and more mid-size boxes are moved there from the karkhana. The box price on milk sweets goes up a little, and the owner tells his staff why, so they can say it plainly to customers.

On the festival afternoon, the screen shows rasmalai lying at Raja Park while Malviya Nagar is almost out. A boy takes the trays across on a scooter, and the move is recorded. That night, a few trays still come back, but far fewer. When the accounts come in, the owner can see what the festival earned at each outlet. For the first time, he knows which outlet to praise and what to make more of next year.

Why the others agree to it

Everyone in the chain is better off

For the outlet manager

He sees what his own counter sells and what it sends back, and his staff see only his outlet. When trays arrive from the karkhana or go to another outlet, the move is recorded, so he is not blamed at night for stock he never received.

For the head halwai

He no longer has to make by memory and take the blame for leftovers. He can see what each outlet sold of each sweet, and make his morning quantity from that. When something runs out, it is because demand was truly high, not because of a guess.

For the owner's accountant

Every sale and purchase is stamped with its outlet. GST is kept outlet by outlet and added up for filing. Purchases of mawa and ghee are recorded as they happen. Old records are read from the files you already keep instead of being typed in again.

What this does not do

Vyavora does not work out how much mawa, sugar or ghee goes into each sweet. You can put your purchases of milk and mawa side by side with your sales of milk sweets, outlet by outlet, but the calculation of what each piece costs stays with you and your halwai. It does not track the date on each tray or batch; it shows how long each item has been lying at each outlet. It does not tell you how much will sell on the festival day. It does not weigh sweets or connect to your weighing scale. It shows what sold, what came back and where, and you decide.

Straight answers

Questions people in this trade ask

Can the karkhana be one of the places in Vyavora?

Yes. The kitchen is kept as its own place, like an outlet or a godown. Every tray it sends to an outlet is recorded as a stock move.

Will it tell me the cost of a kilo of kalakand?

No. It does not work out how much goes into each sweet. It puts what you bought, milk, mawa, ghee, beside what you sold, outlet by outlet, so you can see when your costs have run ahead of your prices.

Can my outlet staff see the other outlets?

No. Staff are tied to one outlet and see only that outlet.

Can we pick the box size at the counter?

Yes. Item details such as box size can be picked at the billing counter, so a small box and a big box of the same sweet are billed correctly.

Does it track the date on each tray?

No. It shows how long each item has been lying at each outlet. For milk sweets and cream cakes, that tells you in time to move them or sell them.

Can I send festival offers to my customers?

Yes. You can reach customers on WhatsApp, for festival orders, for reminders to offices about payment, or to tell regulars that the ghewar has arrived.

What you threw away last night was decided in your kitchen yesterday morning.