They decide before
they walk in.

No, and small shops are a lot of what this work is. What a small shop does run into is travel: a fifteen minute visit costs almost the same to get to as a forty minute one. Often the better answer for a small shop is three visits a week rather than five, and we will say so.

Yes, and that is the whole point of an early visit. Floors dry, glass done, entry clear, before you unlock. A cleaner still working at trade is worse than no cleaner: you are paying for a service that is now costing you sales, and a wet floor sign in a doorway turns browsers around. If your opening time changes seasonally, tell us and the visit moves with it.

Internal glass is part of every retail scope. External shopfront glass at ground level needs washing rather than wiping in a coastal town because of salt film. Anything above ground level is a different job with different equipment, and we will tell you which yours is rather than quoting and then discovering it.

Not unless you ask us to. The default is that we dust around merchandise and never move, restyle or reposition it, because a display someone spent an hour on is not ours to improve. If you would rather we lifted pieces to dust the plinth and put them back exactly as they were, we will, and that goes on the scope in writing so it is never a surprise either way.

Ring the local number. For clients on an ongoing scope we will get to a mid-trade problem the same day where we can, and tell you honestly if we cannot rather than leaving you waiting. Most retail messes are a fifteen minute job that becomes a real one if it dries, so it is worth calling early rather than mopping it with paper towel and hoping.

That is a different and larger conversation than a single shop, and it is the one case on this page where a site walkthrough genuinely pays for itself. If you manage a strip rather than trade from one, the strata and common area page is closer to what you need.

It depends on floor area and floor type, how much glass there is, whether external glass is included, and how many visits a week. That's why we quote rather than publish a flat rate that would be wrong for most shops. Tell us the basics and you'll have a price back quickly, with no obligation attached to it.

Daily for anywhere with food, a fitting room or high foot traffic, and three times a week is usually enough for a low-traffic boutique or gallery. Glass is the exception and wants doing every visit regardless, because it is the surface customers judge from the footpath. Floors in a shop with a street entry get dirty faster than floor area suggests, since everything walks in from outside.

Typically the landlord’s contract covers common areas — mall floors, shared bathrooms, the loading dock, common bin areas — and the cost is recovered from tenants through outgoings. Anything inside the lease line is usually the tenant’s: your floor, your glass, your fitting rooms, your stockroom. Leases vary, so the cleaning clause in your own lease is the answer rather than the general rule. Read it before you buy a scope.

Because it is salt rather than dust. Sea air deposits a fine salt film that attracts moisture and cannot be removed by dry wiping — a cloth just moves it around and leaves a haze that shows badly in low morning sun. It needs washing with a detergent solution and squeegeeing off, the same way a professional does a window, which is why wiped shopfront glass often looks worse afterwards than before.

Only for spills. A routine clean during trade creates a slip hazard exactly where your customers are, and slips are among the most common causes of injury in retail workplaces. It also reads badly: a mop and bucket in a doorway turns browsers away more effectively than almost anything else. Routine cleaning belongs before opening or after close, with mid-trade attention reserved for genuine spills.

Four things, consistently: external glass, under the entry matting, the stockroom floor, and the tops of fixtures. All four are invisible on the day and all four are noticed within a month. The stockroom is the one worth insisting on, because a stockroom that is never cleaned becomes a stockroom with a blocked exit path, and that is a fire and work health and safety problem rather than a tidiness one.