Worked Example — Boutique Retail
Rebuilding the Pre-Open Clean for a Knox Street Boutique
This is a worked example rather than a report on a named client. It covers an independent womenswear boutique of about 95 square metres on Knox Street in Double Bay NSW 2028 — honed marble floor, full-height shopfront glazing, three curtained fitting rooms, seven-day trade with late Thursday hours. The failure mode is familiar: the shop looks its worst at the moment it should look its best. What follows is how we scope it. No client outcome is claimed.
The diagnosis: not enough time, and the wrong chemistry
This is rarely carelessness. Forty-five minutes at 8:30am for a 95 square metre store with 6 metres of full-height glazing, a honed marble floor and three fitting rooms is not enough time to do the work properly. Four specific failures follow from it:
- Shopfront glass wiped in a single wet pass and left to air dry, so morning sun through the Knox Street frontage lit up every streak by opening time
- The marble floor mopped for roughly two years with an acidic general-purpose product, progressively dulling the honed finish and leaving a grey cast in the traffic lane
- Fitting rooms outside the written scope entirely — mirrors, seat pads, hooks and skirtings had effectively never been cleaned
- Late Thursday trade with no second attendance, so the store finished its busiest week-night in worse condition than it began
How we rebuild it
- Round moved to 6am with 75 minutes allocated, so everything is finished, dry and alarm-set two and a half hours before the door opens
- Glass reworked two-stage — applicator then squeegee, edges detailed, finished dry and checked from the footpath in daylight rather than from inside
- Stone product switched to pH-neutral only, with a written note to the owner that acidic cleaner was to be removed from the store cupboard entirely
- Two diamond-pad burnishing treatments eight weeks apart, fixed-quoted as one-off projects, followed by a quarterly maintenance burnish built into the program
- Fitting rooms added daily: mirrors polished, seat pads wiped, hooks and rails dusted, curtains vacuumed at the hem, skirtings and corners detailed
- A short Thursday 3pm touch-up attendance covering glass, floor traffic lane, counter and fitting rooms before late trade
- Merchandising untouched throughout — nothing on a rail, plinth or display table is moved by our crew
What the store gets in writing
A scope with a stated frequency against every line, fitting rooms included, and enough time allocated to finish glass dry and streak-free before opening rather than during trade. Stone care restricted to pH-neutral product with a quarterly maintenance burnish built into the program, and an explicit written statement of what burnishing can and cannot recover — etching already driven into the surface is permanent, and we will not charge for treatments that will not fix it. Merchandising is never moved. Pricing is fixed and itemised inside our standard $30 to $45 per hour contract band, with burnishing quoted separately as a one-off project, and the agreement is month to month with 30 days notice.
Questions about this scope
What kind of business does this example cover?
An independent womenswear boutique of about 95 square metres on Knox Street in Double Bay 2028, trading seven days with late Thursday hours, a honed marble floor, full-height shopfront glazing and three curtained fitting rooms.
What usually goes wrong in stores like this?
A 45-minute window at 8:30am, half an hour before opening, is not enough time for the work. Shopfront glass gets wiped in one pass and dries streaked, a honed marble floor mopped with acidic supermarket product visibly dulls over a couple of years, and fitting-room mirrors and skirtings sit outside the written scope entirely.
What does the rebuilt program look like?
The round moves to 6am with 75 minutes allocated, two-stage microfibre glass work finished dry, a switch to pH-neutral stone product with a quarterly diamond-pad burnish, fitting rooms added to the daily scope, and a Thursday afternoon touch-up visit before late trade.
Can a dulled marble floor recover?
Partly. Diamond-pad burnishing passes can lift surface dulling caused by the wrong product, and switching to pH-neutral stops further damage. Etching already driven into the stone is permanent and cannot be reversed by cleaning — we put that in writing rather than charging for repeat treatments that will not fix it.
How is it priced?
A longer morning visit plus a second Thursday attendance costs more than a 45-minute round — we quote both so the difference is visible before you decide. Ongoing work sits within our standard $30 to $45 per hour contract band, fixed and itemised, and burnishing treatments are quoted separately as fixed one-off projects.
What does the store actually receive?
A written scope with a frequency against every line including the fitting rooms, glass finished dry and checked from the footpath in daylight, stone care limited to pH-neutral product with a quarterly maintenance burnish built in, and merchandising untouched — nothing on a rail, plinth or display table is moved by our crew. Fixed itemised pricing, police-checked directly employed cleaners, and month-to-month terms with 30 days notice.
Recognise any of this in your own store?
The full service specification is on our retail cleaning Double Bay page, with display-space work covered under showroom cleaning. Pricing context is in the cost guide and rates page. For a different sector, read the Cross Street professional suite worked example or browse the case studies index. Multi-site retailers: we also cover Edgecliff.
Opening with streaked glass? Book a 6am walkthrough.
Book a Walkthrough1300 494 983 — servicing Double Bay 2028 and surrounds.