Planning Dasara and Bathukamma sales from the stock date, not the last week

If you decide the Dasara offer when the shop is already full, you are planning in the last week. Start from one date instead. It is the day new stock must be in the shop, priced and photographed, with the offer decided. For a saree or clothing shop in Telangana, that date falls before the first day of Bathukamma, not before Dasara. Count back from it to the day you order from weavers and wholesalers. Then message past buyers once the stock is in, before the crowd arrives, while they are still deciding where to shop.

The date that decides the season

Owners say "Dasara" and plan for Dasara day. But Bathukamma's nine days come first and run into it. Many families buy new sarees to wear through those days, and the Dasara shopping happens in the same stretch. By Saddula Bathukamma, a shop that planned for Dasara day has already missed the buyers who shop first.

So the anchor is the first day of Bathukamma in the year you are planning. It moves in the English calendar, so check the panchangam before writing anything else. Everything on the sheet below is counted back from that day.

The season sheet, filled from the stock date backwards

Keep this on one page, in pencil, and put a date against every line.

• Anchor: first day of Bathukamma: ______
• Stock in the shop, priced and photographed, by: ______ (leave time to message buyers before the anchor)
• Weaver and wholesaler orders placed by: ______ (the stock date minus each supplier's own lead time; ask each one, and allow extra for handloom)
• Offer decided, printed and explained to counter staff by: ______ (the stock date, never later)
• Past-buyer list cleaned by: ______ (from the bill book and the shop's WhatsApp chats)
• First message to past buyers: ______ (once stock photographs exist, before the anchor)
• Extra counter staff and the fall-and-pico tailor confirmed by: ______
• Newspaper, cable or TV booking made by: ______ (only if you will run any; festival slots sell early)
• Last day to accept blouse stitching for delivery before Saddula Bathukamma: ______

The weaver line is the one that slips first. Handloom from Pochampally, Gadwal, Narayanpet or Siddipet cannot be hurried when every shop in the state wants it at once. If a supplier's lead time is a guess, ask again and write down the answer.

The blouse stitching line is the one buyers notice. A saree bought for Bathukamma with a blouse that arrives after it is a complaint, not a sale.

The message that goes before the crowd

Write to people who have bought from you before, from the shop's WhatsApp Business number, in Telugu if that is how they write to you. Send it in small groups and check WhatsApp's current rules on bulk messages before you start. Our note on advertising in Telugu covers which words to leave in English.

The wording below is in English so you can see what the message must carry. Do not send it through a translation app. Ask a native Telugu speaker who knows your customers to write it in the everyday Telugu they use with you, and read it aloud at the counter before it goes out.

Namaskaram [name] garu. New Gadwal and Pochampally sarees for Bathukamma and Dasara have arrived. If you would like to see them before the rush, tell us which day you will come. If you want photographs, we will send them here. [Shop name], Karimnagar

The question at the end matters. A buyer who names a day has made an appointment, and the shop can have the right pieces ready on the counter.

For example: a Karimnagar saree shop that planned in Dasara week

For example, imagine a family saree shop in Karimnagar with two counters and a few hundred regular customers in its bill book. For years the owner fixed the offer in the week before Dasara. The Gadwal order went late, the stock arrived after Saddula Bathukamma, and a broadcast went out on Dasara morning to everyone in the phone. By then the regulars had bought elsewhere.

The mistake was anchoring on Dasara and sending the message when the season was ending.

The next year the owner worked from the sheet, writing the first day of Bathukamma at the top and counting back. Weaver orders went out earlier. Lead times were written down. Stock was photographed on the counter the day it arrived. Regular customers got the Telugu message before Bathukamma. Several replied with a day to visit. Those visits were on quiet weekday mornings, when a counter could give them its full attention. One weaver still delivered late, and that range was left out of the message.

Where television and big ads fit

A showroom chain with branches across Telangana can use Telugu television to reach the whole state in the festival weeks. A single shop in Karimnagar pays for viewers in Nalgonda and Adilabad who will never visit, so much of that money does not reach a buyer. Our post on planning the Sankranti buying season sets out when television earns its cost; the same test applies here. If you do book it, the booking date belongs on the sheet.

When to keep the season small

If the stock will arrive late, do not advertise a collection you cannot show. Message your regulars about what you have.

If your shop has two counters and two people, a crowd you cannot serve becomes a line of walkouts. Fill the weekday mornings with appointments from past buyers before you pay to bring strangers in at the weekend.

And if your business sells to other businesses, the festival may be your slow fortnight. Plan collections and staff leave for it instead.

Put the first day of Bathukamma at the top of a page

Look up the first day of Bathukamma for the coming season and write it at the top of a page. Fill the sheet from the stock date back, ringing each weaver for the lead time as you go. Then get the past-buyer message written in Telugu by someone who speaks it every day.

If the weaver date has already passed, start a fresh sheet for Sankranti. Our Telangana page covers the state, and the past-buyer messages sit under WhatsApp marketing and automation. When you want a hand with the sheet, tell us what you need.