There are countless reasons why a good clean is essential, but when it comes to retail spaces, cleaning has a particular purpose — to sell.

A retail environment is carefully designed to encourage customers to spend money, through layout, lighting, and even flooring choices. Cleanliness is an increasingly important part of that sales pitch. Retailers understand that a customer who feels their space isn’t up to the expected standard is likely to make a quick exit.

Dr Gavin Macgregor-Skinner, senior director of the Global Biorisk Advisory Council (GBAC), a division of ISSA, says he’s seeing major retailers across the US getting serious about cleaning for health in a way they hadn’t before the pandemic.

“There is an increased customer expectation on clean for health,” Macgregor-Skinner says. “If they go into a supermarket and the floor’s dirty, they walk right out. It’s the same if they see the shelves are dirty or if they go over to the refrigerator and they see finger marks or smears.”

Macgregor-Skinner explains that retail chains are acknowledging cleaning as the first line of defence against the spread of infectious diseases. This means changing cleaning practices, introducing simple interventions such as perspex screens at checkout tills, and focusing on indoor air quality (IAQ).

“Before COVID, many retailers would just be spraying fragrance about. That used to play a big part in their marketing. Now you see that much less, and instead, there’s a big improvement in the maintenance of indoor air quality, including the installation of monitors. Customers might not notice them, but they’re there.”

Everybody’s trying to find a quicker, cheaper way of cleaning, and retailers are looking to have the cleaners take on more responsibility because of their insurance coverage.

While customer expectations are driving these changes, Macgregor-Skinner notes that some major retailers are taking the initiative on IAQ and cleaning for health due to concerns for staff. The US EPA estimates that 150 million workdays are missed each year due to poor indoor air quality and related health issues in stores. He highlights the growing body of evidence supporting a healthy approach to IAQ.

“We’re seeing studies where they’re going into retail spaces, and the monitors are showing a 52% decrease in airborne dust, a 42% decrease in volatile organic compounds or VOCs, a 40% decrease in bacterial growth, and a 61% decrease in fungal colony formations. You see retailers going, ‘Wow, there’s science behind this.’”

Stuart Nicol, director of Quipment, says while retailers are aware of changed customer expectations and health risks, this trend is also shifting responsibilities to cleaning contractors.

“The difference is, everybody’s trying to find a quicker, cheaper way of cleaning, and retailers are looking to have the cleaners take on more responsibility because of their insurance coverage,” Nicol says.

“The insurance on, say, a Westfield shopping centre, is extraordinarily high for the contractors, so they have to make sure that they’re in rotation for certain areas to pick up spills or breakages within a 10- or 15-minute cycle. It’s not just cleaning.”

Nicol says this change has led to cleaning in the retail sector often becoming more process-driven rather than results-driven.

“What this means is that contractors are obliged to demonstrate they are observing routines and timelines, instead of their main focus simply being on keeping a site clean.

“They’ve got to be able to provide more collaborative systems to the centres to say, ‘Yes, we’ve covered this in this time and we’ve recorded this, and this is our workflow.’ I think that at the end of the day, that can occasionally reduce the time allocated to actually clean.”

If I talk to retail establishments about science-based cleaning for healthy indoor environments, they think it’s going to take more time and more money. It doesn’t.

Contractors are also working in a highly competitive environment and finding themselves under constant pressure to cut costs to win jobs. This can sometimes lead to companies taking a one-size-fits-all approach to bidding, where they might quote on total floor space without acknowledging the unique challenges and layout of a particular centre.

Macgregor-Skinner says he’s also seeing a trend where retailers and cleaning contractors are attempting to cut costs by consolidating their procurement practices. This is being driven in the US by a consolidation of distributors and resellers, meaning companies can get all their cleaning supplies, equipment, and tools on a single invoice.

“I can now go out to one vendor and say, I clean the supermarket, and they can sell me everything I need,” Macgregor-Skinner says.

This consolidation, while convenient for retailers, is putting smaller distributors and manufacturers under pressure. It also means a loss of specialised service, education, and training in how to get the best out of particular products. If smaller businesses want to compete, they may need to look for opportunities to partner up.

“I am seeing some collaboration among independent vendors and small businesses, which means they can still make their sales to the big retailers, the big shopping malls, the big supermarkets, big clothing stores, and the big tech stores. That’s fantastic.”

The ability of smaller businesses to provide expertise and education feeds into the third trend that Macgregor-Skinner identifies in retail cleaning — a desire to improve cleaning practices. On some level, this promises an antidote to the increased focus on processes and reporting that Nicol has seen. It’s about a shift towards science-based cleaning and ensuring that contractors are using the best methods and the most appropriate products.

“It’s about investing in processes, technologies, and procedures that are based on science and evidence. And it’s based on using cleaning products that are safer for the surface, safer for humans, and safer for the environment.”

Again, it’s not about extra cost or lost time, but about learning how to follow the science around cleaning for health. Nicol says he thinks many retailers have rolled back most of their infection prevention routines post-pandemic, but Macgregor-Skinner says most are open to understanding why the world has changed forever since 2020.

“I’ve had some retailers want to remove the plexiglass screens at checkouts. I sometimes swab them to show what they capture and it’s pretty nasty stuff — viruses, bacteria, fungi, and all sorts of contaminants. So, no, don’t take them down.”

While effective, the screens are also a symbol that a retailer is taking indoor health seriously. In the end, it all comes back to marketing.

“What retail businesses have to be thinking is how you can draw in more customers by showing that you’re actually focusing on healthy indoor environments,” Macgregor-Skinner says.

“That’s important because what you’re doing is giving people a reason to buy things here.”

Photo by Heidi Fin on Unsplash.