IDDBA 2011 Show Attendees Shop For Ways To Increase Revenue And Improve Bottom Lines!

IDDBA 2011 showgoers came to Anaheim looking to increase store revenue and improve their bottom lines. For many in the grocery industry, this is a never-ending quest, where budget savings seem elusive and operation bottom lines continue to take a hit.

The various exhibitors at the Anaheim show offered grocery personnel tasty new foods, interesting beverages and a wide array of ways to take merchandising to a whole new level. Dur-A-Flex was there helping attendees take a ground level approach to cutting costs by identifying what impacted their maintenance budgets the most.

What we heard was that flooring in store retail areas – often polished concrete – can hold their own for the first three to five years but little by little the wear and tear begs attention for maintenance that goes beyond the frequent waxing and stripping cycles.  When it’s time to repolish or reseal, the store has to completely shutdown, inconveniencing customers and increasing revenue loss. Unwilling to endure the loss, many store operators choose to live with evident traffic patterns and unsightly fading. Often times, the unsealed concrete creates dusting giving you an unprotected floor that risks corrosion from product spills. Depending on where your store’s located, tracked in elements such as mud, salt and sand challenge your floor’s durability.

Damaged or loose VCT also give stores a run for their money, causing trip hazards and increasing liability risks for patrons and employees. The frequent repairs - section by section - tally up service calls along with having to cordon off sections of the store keeping customers away and further impacting your business!

Dur-A-Flex floors offer decorative options that match your store’s décor and easily rival the look of polished concrete or tile without the maintenance and costs associated with them! The elimination of the mandatory waxing and stripping cycles frees up employees to pursue other critical tasks and to better serve customers while your bottom line improves. National grocery chain Publix installed Dur-A-Flex floors in 200 of their locations, and saw $40,000 in savings per store, totaling their savings at$8 million dollars ANNUALLY.

Behind the counters, departments like dairy, deli, bake, meat and seafood also face flooring challenges. Showgoers shared profits are being eaten up by frequent regrouting and tile repairs, averaging $6.67 per square foot - two to four times per year! Attendees with epoxy flooring are experiencing erosion leaving their once smooth surfaces crumbling trip hazards that’s absorbing moisture and foodstuffs and continuing to steal from their bottom lines!

For both types of flooring, the culprit is bacteria known as pseudomonas aeruginosa. It forms from food acids, grease, oil and moisture with one mission in mind: to wreak havoc on your floors. It can metabolize and lead to floor failure including your substrate! Grout falls apart, tiles pop and epoxy ends up crumbling and eroding causing downtime for service while sectional repairs are done. The same problems continually resurface in other places before completely failing and needing the floor to be replaced entirely.

To eliminate these risks, Dur-A-Flex offers Poly-Crete, a system that is proven to stand up to all these challenges over the life of the floor. A cementitious urethane product, Poly-Crete is not affected by acids and does not support the growth of bacteria. Unlike epoxy, the system is self-priming eliminating the risk of breaking the bond between the primer and coating, which is often attributed to the effects of high heat often found in bakery departments.

Dur-A-Flex flooring will save you money by:

·          Eliminating constant repairs – no grout, popped tiles or eroding epoxy

·          Increases revenue for new construction – quicker install time means you open sooner

·          Cutting downtime on renovations – faster turnarounds with little impact to business

·          Reducing overall maintenance costs – easy to clean; eliminates waxing and stripping cycles

You can grow your bottom line with the right floor formulated for the Grocery industry.

Start solving your store’s flooring problems now!  Click here >