flickr.com / Alex Parks photos
What is necessary for a business to sell its products? Marketing, advertising and easy assess ability; in order to market, advertise and have items easily assessable inside your store, you need things like displays, counters, shelving units, in some cases refrigeration, signs, graphics and much more.
This is where shopfitting comes in. Some companies/business owners take care of their own shopfitting while others, for the most part, hire a specialty firm that does the work for them. These firms are typically contracted out to do the job by the business owner or its parent company.
So, what is shopfitting? Shopfitting is the process by which the inside of a shop (i.e. warehouse, store, retail outlet etc.) is designed to fit the specific needs of the owner. For instance, big store chains and franchises will hire a specialty shopfitter to make sure the inside of its various branches stay within the conformity that customers are accustomed to. This is not the case for say a retail outlet or smaller clothing stores. These types of businesses require things like broader spaces and mapped out areas for dressing rooms and other details that may not be required in places like, say, hardware stores. Shopfitters are not limited to fitting retail establishments; they are also in demand to fit restaurants and hotels as well.