Shopfitting

Shopfitting refers to the industry of furniture for retail environments. Retailers use shopfitters to fill in their stores with displays and merchandising and stocking systems needed to make the business profitable.

A shopfitter is understood to be a firm that will offer and supply a degree of mixed design, study, products and actual installation services to retailers. The shopfitting industry is normally sectorized: there will be shopfitters specialized for Food and Grocery retailers, then shopfitter specialized in Electronics Retailers, then those one working with Architects for Fashion retailers and so on.

The shopfitter usually deliver a package to the retailer: a multitude of products sourced from different manufacturers. In the case of a food retailer this means sourcing refrigeration, shelving, counters, checkouts, signs, graphics from different suppliers and giving this 'package' as one entity.

Manufacturers will call their products "shopfitting systems" trying to comprehend and diversify their product range to make their offer suitable for the most of applications: this will facilitate the shopfitters when supplying his package to source items from lesser number of suppliers.

Today's economy is very tight and the supply channel is shorter and shorter: big retailers with important budgets to spend, will deal directly with the manufacturers of the shopfitting systems, thanks to the internalized design offices. Shopfitters will be used a service suppliers for installations and site developments. In many cases the manufacturer will incorporate those functions, in order to secure supply of its products but committing into a different degree in the supply chain.