Common Challenges of Retail Store Cleaning

Why Is Retail Store Cleaning Important?

Retail shoppers expect the stores they visit to be clean and sanitary, and will take their business elsewhere when they encounter a dirty store. This is especially true for food establishments like restaurants, but also for supermarkets. Dirt and food don’t mix—people want to shop for groceries in a clean environment.

Relying on employees to keep a supermarket clean throughout the day is harder than it seems. There’s a long list of things that need to be cleaned, and you also have to strategize your scheduling to get it done.

Retail store cleaning is not something that can be ignored or taken lightly; it’s mandatory, and when you’re in the food industry, there are consequences for having a dirty store. For example, failing to regularly clean certain areas of your store to the high standards set by the health department can result in failed inspections, fines, or being shut down. This is the biggest reason people hire cleaning services for retail.

Hiring a commercial cleaning company is the easiest way to meet the challenge of maintaining a consistently high level of cleanliness, and if this is something you haven’t yet considered, this article will explain the benefits.

Why Is Retail Store Cleaning So Challenging?

No matter how effective your retail managers are, one task always seems to slip by to some degree: cleaning. It’s not that they don’t prioritize it. It’s just that in retail, something always seems to happen to throw a team off task. A manager might ask a worker to sweep behind the pastry case, for example, but that employee may not get around to it between helping customers and putting away stock.

It’s a mix of both small and big cleaning tasks that are neglected. For example, the following should be cleaned regularly, but are often missed due to lack of time and/or being understaffed:

Sweeping Behind and Under Furniture and Displays

In a supermarket, debris accumulates quickly under and behind shelving units and display cases, but since it’s not readily visible, it’s easy to postpone sweeping these areas.

Wiping Down Shopping Carts

At first glance, it seems easy enough to wipe down shopping carts. The act itself is fast, but it can add up to many hours when you have hundreds of carts.

Refrigerator Shelving

One of the most frustrating things is the fact that it doesn’t take much for mold to grow inside the cracks of rubber gaskets. Ideally, these should be wiped down daily with a quick pass, but this task is often not prioritized. The result is moldy gaskets that become stained and much harder to clean.

The ideal solution is to schedule gasket cleaning and create a protocol to follow. For example, wiping them down with a sanitized rag works, but you can also remove the gaskets to spray them down with a high-pressure nozzle in the sink for the best results.

Floor Mats

Of all the cleaning tasks that get ignored, cleaning floor mats is one of the biggest because it’s surprisingly challenging. Floor mats exposed to water will become slimy and need to be properly washed. However, you can’t just take them outside, scrub them with soap, and hose them down. In some counties, you need a permit and a specific type of drainage to use soap in this manner.

You also can’t run the mats through the dishwasher or put them in the sink to hose down without violating health codes. Without a professional cleaning service for your floor mats, those mats are going to stay dirty.

Refrigerator Shelving

Whether it’s customer-facing or storage in the back, spills happen, and refrigerator shelving gets messy. Most spills that happen out on the floor are taken care of because they are in the customer’s view, but spills in storage refrigerators tend to be ignored.

Trash Cans

Yes, trash cans should be regularly cleaned, too. Customers don’t want to see or smell dirty rubbish bins. It’s better to wash trash cans outside, away from customer sight. However, it’s not easy to squeeze this task into a busy day.

Restrooms

Last but not least, when you don’t have a dedicated cleaning service or day porter, restrooms get neglected. Having a dirty restroom is the fastest way to lose customers and send them to your competitors who have sparkling clean facilities.

Reaching customers is only half the battle. You also have to keep them coming back. Carlson’s regular retail cleaning services keep your store looking presentable, which helps retain customers and increase sales.

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Things You Need to Ask Before Committing to A Day Porter

Before you enlist the help of day porter services, consider what your business needs from a commercial cleaning service. How many employees, students, or patrons do you have on a regular basis? Are you in an industry that works with lots of dust or potential hazards? Are there federally-regulated industry standards you must abide by?

After you’ve assessed your day-to-day needs, you can ask the service provider some of the following questions.

Abstract blur and defocused shopping mall in department store interior for background

3 Tips for Keeping Your Retail Store Clean

1. Create a Daily Cleaning Checklist

It helps to create a cleaning checklist to schedule daily, weekly, and monthly cleaning tasks. For example, cleaning food service counters and floors might be a daily task, sometimes hourly, but cleaning HVAC vent grills and storage shelving is more of a monthly task. Nobody’s going to remember all of these tasks, so putting them into a schedule is ideal.

2. Schedule a Dedicated Cleaner

You can also schedule a dedicated employee to clean the day’s target areas, even if it’s only for an hour or two. When your dedicated cleaner isn’t scheduled to be on the floor, this relieves the pressure of figuring out how to squeeze in the tasks during a normal busy day, so you can be confident everything will get done.

3. Use Professional Cleaning Services for Retail Stores

Since cleaning takes employees off-task, you’ll always struggle to keep your store spotless when the responsibility falls on your team members. The best way to get the cleaning you need is to hire a professional service. Retail cleaning companies adhere to strict standards to make sure your guests have the cleanest experience possible in your store.

Need Expert Retail Store Cleaning Services in Minnesota?

At Carlson Building Maintenance, we’re experts in retail store cleaning. We do it all—sweep and mop, buff and wax hardwood floors, provide sanitation and disinfectant services, deep clean restrooms, remove carpet stains, and more. If you need continual cleaning, we offer a day porter service as well.

If you’re looking for ways to keep your grocery store clean to high standards, get in touch with our experts today and we’ll customize a plan to meet your business needs.