Shop renovation in Batumi: sales floor, shopfront, lighting

We start with the customer's route

We plan the sales floor around the way a person moves through the shop: the entrance, the first look at the goods, the fitting room or the chilled display case, the till, the exit. A shop renovation in Batumi for clothing, groceries or an optician differs so much from one format to another that it is too early to start with the walls until it is clear where the shelving and the till will go.

The services depend on the format. A grocery shop needs circuits for its fridges and space for their outdoor units, a clothes shop needs fitting rooms with lighting and mirrors, and an optician or a pharmacy needs illuminated display cases and a consulting room. If the equipment supplier has already been chosen, we get a drawing from them with dimensions and power ratings and put in the connections at the rough stage.

We plan the back of house together with the sales floor: the stockroom, the staff toilet, the delivery route. In premises on the ground floor of a residential building, a van can often only pull up at the main entrance, and then you need a lobby so that boxes don't go through the sales floor. If you want the sales floor, the shopfront and the sign to look like one whole, start with interior design and price the renovation after that.

Shopfront and entrance

A shop window sells, but it also causes the most problems: the sun fades the goods, condensation runs down the glass in winter, and there is a draught at the door. A window facing south or west gets solar control glass or a canopy. Without them, the display fades within a season and the air conditioners cool the street.

We use a warm profile with a thermal break. Cold aluminium is cheaper, but in a damp climate it sweats on the inside, and mould takes hold along the bottom of the frame. How aluminium systems differ from plastic ones in general is covered in our comparison of aluminium and uPVC windows. For a shopfront aluminium usually wins, because it carries large panes on slim mullions.

We check the entrance for steps. If there is a level difference between the pavement and the shop floor, a customer with a pushchair or in a wheelchair can't get in without a ramp or a platform lift. We find room for one straight away, together with a door that opens without effort.

The sales floor

In a day a shop floor takes more footsteps than an apartment floor does in a month, plus trolleys, stepladders and mopping every evening. On the sales floor we lay 60×60 or 60×120 porcelain tiles: they don't wear through, and large tiles mean fewer joints for dirt to collect in. Why porcelain beats ordinary tiles here is shown in our comparison of ceramic and porcelain tiles.

Large formats need a level base. Before laying, we check the screed with a two-metre straightedge, and if the deviation is greater than the tile allows, we level it first, otherwise the joints will end up stepped. Tiles go on a full bed of adhesive with no voids: over a void a tile rings under a trolley wheel and later cracks.

We mark the positions of heavy shelving and multideck chillers on the plan before the screed goes down. No cable that can't be reached later should run under them, and if a chiller is heavier than usual, a structural engineer checks its load on the floor slab.

Lighting the goods, and the wiring

We build shop lighting from three layers: general, accent and window. General lighting gives even light across the sales floor. Accent lighting picks out racks and shelves. Window lighting works in the evening, when the shop is closed and the street looks in. Each layer gets its own circuit, and the window goes on a timer or a daylight sensor.

For clothing, cosmetics and food we choose light fittings with a high colour rendering index (CRI), otherwise at home, in daylight, the customer will see a different colour and bring the item back. Track lighting is practical because the fittings can be moved with every change of display, without an electrician or new holes in the ceiling.

Tills, fridges, the alarm and the cameras are connected on separate circuits. Chest freezers and multideck chillers stay on their own circuit, so that a heater by the till or a vacuum cleaner at cleaning time doesn't trip them along with the rest of the socket circuit. We run a network cable to the till and the card terminal, even if the till works over mobile internet: a wired line saves the day during a sale, when the mobile network is overloaded.

A shop in a shopping centre or on the street

In a shopping centre there is less freedom and there are more rules. The centre usually gives tenants its own shop fit-out requirements: which materials may be used, what the shopfront looks like, where the sign goes, and what connects to the centre's fire alarm and sprinklers. We show the design to the centre's technical department before work starts. Sometimes the crew is only let in after the centre closes, and then the schedule allows for a short shift and deliveries through the service entrance.

Sometimes the centre installs the shopfront itself, and our estimate is left with the entrance door, the sign and the interior finishes. If your lease includes a rent-free period, we plan the timeline so that you open before it ends.

A shop on the street has more freedom with its frontage, but the tenant or the owner is responsible for it. We discuss the shopfront, the sign and the outdoor air conditioning units with the owner of the building, and in a residential building with the management company as well. We check the requirements of the owner and the inspecting authorities for the sign and frontage in advance, before the shopfront is ordered.

How much a shop renovation costs in Batumi

A shop renovation with materials costs from 780 to 1,140 ₾ per m². The price includes rough work, wiring, the floor, the ceiling and wall finishes. The shopfront and retail equipment are priced separately: warm aluminium glazing for a shopfront costs from 895 to 1,080 ₾ per m².

Laying large-format porcelain tiles costs from 75 ₾ per m², and one light point or socket from 42 ₾. So the estimate moves most with the area of the shopfront, the number of light fittings and how much of the base has to be levelled for large tiles. A shop in white frame behind a shopping centre shopfront is closer to the lower end. Street premises with a new entrance and complex lighting are closer to the upper end.

From a plan and photos of the frontage we send a preliminary estimate within 24 hours on business days. The final cost is set after the site measurement, once the estimate is agreed, and the price of each stage is written into the contract. The order of work that shops, offices and cafes have in common is described in our section on commercial renovation.