The jingling of tills brings a muddy problem

Unless you are Scrooge, you just can’t help loving Christmas. The shopping for gifts, the merry jingle of tills, the last minute rush; this Christmas particularly we all want to put the gloom of recession well and truly behind us and celebrate.

Of course, for those running shops, Christmas time brings its own problems. No, we aren’t talking about whether the stock order is right or what happens if a bout of flu sweeps through the staff. We are talking about the problem of keeping the shop clean. Unfortunately for us in Wales, Christmas comes in the winter and all those eager shoppers traipse mud and water all over our floors.

Keeping our premises clean and mud free is important for sales as well as health and safety. Leave mud on the floor for too long and it starts to smell. At this stage customers will set one foot in the door, take a breath and then walk out again. The trouble is that ordinary vacuuming won’t clear ground in mud and with rain and Christmas shoppers, ground in mud is just what you will get.

Keeping on top of the problem is fairly simple. Run a vacuum over the shop floor daily to remove most of the dirt. Then every week or two, depending on the weather, deep steam clean your carpets. The steam cleaning will lift up the deep dirt and also kill bacteria, leaving your premises clean and fresh. Deep cleaning works on carpet tiles or ordinary carpet and is also perfect for cleaning floors in other business premises such as offices.

Apart from the carpet clean, cleaning your shop is fairly simple. Shelves can be dusted daily; just take a cleaning cloth with you so that you can remove sticky finger marks from shelves. Mirrors should be cleaned as often as possible with either a good glass cleaner to remove marks or a soft cloth to clear dust. For clothes shops, pay particular attention to changing rooms. Customers trying on clothes will be put off buying if the changing area is dirty or littered.

Creating a clean odour free shopping experience will be rewarded by increased sales as well as repeat customers. With the Christmas lights going up in Cardiff on November 10th we can but wish a merry Christmas to one and all.