Interior Painting Considerations for a Retail Business

At CertaPro of Shawnee-Mission, we do more than just paint houses. Our painters are just as skilled at painting commercial spaces of all different types. One of the more common commercial painting projects we tackle is painting retail spaces.

When it comes to painting a retail location the challenges and the goal can be quite a bit different than when we paint the inside of a warehouse or parking garage. Retail establishments have a unique set of painting requirements and goals that are unlike almost any other type of commercial painting.

Starting with a “blank canvas” interior space it’s often the case that the retailer has very strict requirements for things like custom interior paint colors. A retail location often wants to reflect its brand and also create a very specific environment for its patrons. What works in a pharmacy is vastly different than what works in a boutique, a restaurant, or an art gallery.

If you are considering opening a retail location, whether it’s part of a national chain or it’s a one-of-a-kind store by a first-time owner, many considerations go into the way the space looks and how it’s laid out. Retail space design is its own branch of marketing and it’s quite involved. It incorporates bits of psychology, traffic flow, demographics, lighting, flooring, décor, color, smell, texture, and even background music to evoke a specific environment that reinforces and often defines a brand.

Having been involved in the process for just our little piece of that puzzle is always an interesting challenge. Retailers use every bit of their space to sell their products and nothing is left to chance. From the flooring to the lighting to the signage and displays, everything is working to maximize revenue per square foot from the minute someone walks through the door to the checkout where they get a chance to make a last-minute impulse purchase at the register.

Color is used to set the mood and the mood required varies with the store. A pharmacy needs to look bright and crisp and clean; a coffee shop needs to feel homey and intimate. Retail spaces make use of things like accent walls to create focus, multiple colors to reflect their branding, contrasting display colors, borders, colors that appeal specifically to men or women, etc.

Color and interior painting can make an empty store start to look rustic, natural, urban, modern, historic, or geographically somewhere else. When wall colors are combined with lighting, signage, décor, displays, and branding, retail space is transformed to become a special setting for the products being sold. Nothing about it is accidental and the goal is to create a highly themed space that blurs the lines between buying the product and buying into the location itself, creating an experience that is part of the product in the mind of the consumer.

The degree to which this is all taken can also be turned up or down like a knob, taking a place from four white walls and bare lighting to a near Disneyesque experience as dictated by the store owner’s requirements.

While commercial interior painting is just a part of the whole it’s important to choose commercial painting contractors that understand their role in all of it. Understanding it allows us to make recommendations about things like paint durability, paint finishes, how the paint will interact with the lighting, etc. This is why we engage with our own color consultants and have paint product expertise in-house.

If you’re not Target or Apple you may not have an army of world-class retail space designers on speed-dial so any bit of added insight is often a blessing. If you are the owner of a one-off retail space you should always ask as many questions as you can from the service providers and vendors of each piece of this puzzle because you generally only get one chance to make that first impression. The end goal as the store owner should be a word-of-mouth campaign that starts with “you should see this place, it’s amazing!” no matter what you’re selling.

When you’re ready to start building out your next retail space or if you have one that is in need of a makeover, feel free to give CertaPro of Shawnee-Mission a call because frankly, we understand the goal, we get it! We can consult with you, help you with color and finish choices and get you started with that first of many layers that turns an empty space into a retail experience that works for your product line. Get started by calling us at 913-722-1616 or request a free estimate online today!