Retail flooring

Retail flooring is judged twice: by the customer, in the first three seconds, and by the cleaning contractor, every night for the length of the lease. Those two judges want different things. Designers reach for dark, deep colours and a gloss finish because they photograph well; operations know that a dark gloss floor shows every footprint, trolley mark and mop streak within an hour of opening. The workable compromise is a mid-to-light tone in a matte finish with a subtle directional pattern, which hides marks and still reads as a considered interior.

Traffic in a shop is not uniform. The entrance takes wet shoes, grit and trolley wheels; the sales floor takes heels, dragged fixtures and the occasional spilled drink; the stockroom takes pallet trucks, box cutters and point loads that would destroy a decorative surface in months. Specifying one product across all three is the most common mistake we see. We normally split the brief: LVT or 0.5–0.7 mm wear sheet on the sales floor, a darker homogeneous sheet at the entrance for the first three to five metres, and a heavy-duty industrial grade in the stockroom and back corridor.

Fit-out speed matters as much as the material, because rent starts before the shop opens. LVT with a click or tackifier system can be laid over a prepared subfloor and walked on the same day, which is why it dominates fashion and electronics retail; welded sheet takes longer but gives a seamless floor that a mop can cross in one movement and that will not lift at a seam under trolley traffic. For mall circulation areas, check the landlord's specification first — fire class, slip rating and often a nominated colour range are set by the mall, not by the tenant.

• Typical areas: sales floor, entrance zone, fitting rooms, stockroom, mall circulation
• Usual specification: LVT 2.0–3.0 mm or 0.5–0.7 mm wear heterogeneous sheet, matte PUR, R10 at entrance
• Colour strategy: mid-to-light matte tones with directional pattern hide marks better than dark gloss
• Back of house: heavy-duty industrial grade — the stockroom is where the budget should not be cut
• Mall projects: confirm landlord specification for fire class, slip rating and colour range before ordering