The importance of clean shelving in retail settings can’t be understated, no matter what kind of health crisis we may or may not be facing.

Clean shelves, in a retail context, means more than just keeping them organized and free of clutter. It means keeping them dust-free, germ-free, and as well-maintained as possible to both create a pleasant shopping experience for your guests and ensure the safety of your items both in the backroom and out on the shop floor.

While your store likely already has a plan in place for cleaning, there’s always a few extra steps you can take to ensure the safety and well-being of your team and your customers – here’s a few of our favorite tips to get you started.

Retail Shelving Cleaning & Maintenance Tips

Start with a dusting

If there’s one thing that basically all retail shelves could use help with, it’s getting dusted. Start a regular schedule for clearing your shelves off from all of their goods and dusting them down thoroughly to prevent the spread of allergens or germs. (It will also help your product displays look much nicer, which may very well inspire your customers to buy more!)

Tighten and adjust all fixtures as needed

Retail shelving of various shapes, including gondola shelving or wire shelving, tends to experience its fair share of wear and tear from customers taking products down, collisions with other items in the store, and the like. When you start cleaning them, make sure to regularly inspect things like bolts, anchors, and floor pads to make sure your shelves are carefully assembled and ready to handle whatever you need to throw at them.

Use antibacterial products as often as possible

Retail shelves, even the ones you use in the back for inventory such as metal shelves, come in contact with a lot of different hands through the day. An easy way to help keep everything as safe as possible is to set a regular cleaning schedule to totally disinfect each one – remove all the products, get your best disinfectant wipes or spray, and wipe down the whole thing top to bottom, even the parts that don’t get touched as often. This can help each of the shelves stay as clean and safe as possible, even after coming into contact with dozens of hands throughout the day.

Inspect for damage

While you’re cleaning up your retail shelves, now is the perfect opportunity to look for any parts that need to be repaired or replaced. Particularly for anything in the front of the house that tends to get used more often, repairing these damages can keep your goods – as well as your workers and customers – safer than ever.