The condition of your retail premises will play a large role in determining the public's perception of it; if the goods you are selling are poorly displayed, the floors are dirty and there is a general air of neglect about the premises, this will almost certainly have a negative effect on the success of your enterprise. If you're concerned about this matter, here are two things you can do to improve and maintain the appearance of your shop.
Take care when arranging product displays
Disorganised product displays, in which items are simply piled onto a shelf in a careless manner, will not only give your retail business an unkempt and unprofessional appearance but will also make it harder for potential customers to find what they are looking for. This could lead to them getting frustrated and buying the things they need elsewhere. As such, it really does pay to put some thought and effort into the way in which you display the goods that you sell.
Ideally, you should group goods according to either their colour or their function. If you choose the former, try to arrange items with either strongly contrasting or very complementary colours together, so that the customer's eye is immediately drawn to them.
It's also important to change your displays each season; this not only prevents your shop from looking outdated (and therefore potentially unsuccessful), but also gives you the opportunity to show off a wider variety of products to your customers throughout the course of the year.
Prioritise cleanliness
It is absolutely crucial to have your retail premises cleaned on a daily basis. A shop that is perfectly pristine at the start of the day can end up looking like a chaotic mess by the time evening rolls around, with the floors covered in dirt and grime from people traipsing in and out, countertops and windows marked by grubby fingerprints and of course, the previously neat product displays left in total disarray.
It's best to take a two-pronged approach to maintaining a clean shop. Firstly, you should encourage your employees to adopt a 'clean as you go' approach, which will prevent the shop from ever reaching a stage where it is so messy that it deters potential customers.
During quieter periods of the day, staff members should take the opportunity to wipe down a dirty countertop or give the floor a quick sweep. If your shop has customer toilets, it may also be sensible to implement a standard hourly check of the facilities, so as that they are kept in a hygienic state at all times. To ensure that employees carry out these checks, you might want to stick a daily log-in sheet on the bathroom door, onto which staff members can jot down their name and the time of day at which they carried out the check. Employees should also be instructed to fix product displays immediately after a customer has picked up or moved an item, so as to keep these displays looking neat and tidy at all times.
Additionally, it's advisable to hire a commercial cleaning company (ideally, one which specialises in retail premises) to handle the deep-cleaning that will need to be done before the shop opens for business each day. Whilst you might think that attempting to do this work yourself will save you money, the reality is that you are unlikely to have the necessary equipment, expertise and time needed to do a truly thorough job. A professional cleaning company will have things such as heavy-duty floor polishers and industrial-strength cleaning chemicals, which will enable them to make your retail premises look absolutely spotless.
