What High-Touch Surfaces in Retail Stores Get Overlooked During Cleaning?
Retail cleaning teams will generally remember the floors, restrooms, counters, and entrance doors. The real issue is often the smaller surfaces that get touched all the time during the day. Payment terminals, handheld scanners, cart child seats, fridge handles, and staff devices all move between many hands and are frequently not part of a regular cleaning regime.
Finding microbes on a surface doesn’t prove that someone will get sick from touching it. That said, identifying the touchpoints that we may have previously overlooked can go a long way to reducing the microbial load in a store and lead to a more comprehensive hygiene program.
Why High-Touch Surfaces Slip Through the Routine
Lots of retail cleaning plans are room-based rather than customer or employee-based. A team might clean the tills and completely miss the card reader on them. An employee may clean the handle of a shopping cart and completely overlook the child seat, the basket edges, or the mobility cart controls. Responsibilities can also be ambiguous. The cleaning staff may think the cashiers are responsible for the checkout equipment, and the cashiers may in turn think that the equipment is part of the cleaning service each night. A written surface inventory is the way to go in this instance.
Which Checkout Surfaces Are Commonly Missed?
Checkout areas have a number of high-touch points other than the countertop. These include the following:
- Payment-terminal buttons and touchscreens
- Styluses and signature pens
- Self-checkout screens and scales
- Handheld price scanners
- Counter edges and undersides
- Bagging-area rails and dividers
- Cash-drawer handles
- Employee phones and keyboards
A 2026 study of touchscreens and other surfaces in U.S. retail food establishments found that grocery and convenience stores had the highest levels of bacteria of any of the establishment types studied. The researchers recommended that touchscreens be cleaned frequently and that good hand hygiene be practiced.
Shopping Carts, Baskets, and Mobility Equipment
Cart handles get the attention; the rest of the cart doesn’t. The child seat surfaces, the safety straps, the basket edges, the cup holders, the lower racks, and the release mechanisms are all things that are going to be in contact with food packaging and personal items. Hand baskets need attention to both sides of the handles and the upper rim. Motorized mobility carts have steering controls, armrests, seat surfaces, baskets, charging plugs, and adjustment levers.
Are Cooler and Freezer Handles Being Cleaned Enough?
Refrigerator and freezer handles can be touched by the customer all day and yet they’re easily missed when the cleaning is split between the various store departments. The same applies to the edges of the produce cases, the handles of the bulk bins, the bakery doors, the coffee dispensers, and the self-serve utensils. A surface study in a grocery store looked at carts, touchscreens, card keypads, pharmacy counters, self-service utensils, and fridge or freezer handles. The researchers concluded that surface exposure to the virus under study was likely to be low, but their data did support a need to look at the pharmacy and self-service areas more closely.
“The surfaces most likely to be missed are the ones that are attached to something that’s already being cleaned. A complete retail hygiene plan goes well beyond the counter, the cart handle, the restroom sink and looks at every button, every grip, every screen, every strap and every shared device that people are going to be touching during the course of a normal shift.”–Jason Gardiner, CEO
Employee Devices and Back-of-House Touchpoints
Some of the most commonly handled items never actually get put on the customer cleaning plan. Shared radios, phones, tablets, keyboards, time clocks, label printers, box cutters, pallet jack controls, stocking carts, fridge latches, and break room appliances all get passed around between staff during a shift. Stores should avoid spraying electronics directly unless the manufacturer allows it. A compatible wipe or a removable, cleanable cover may be a better option. The CDC guidance specifically recommends considering wipeable covers for touchscreens, keyboards, remote controls, and the like.
What Gets Missed in Fitting Rooms and Shared Spaces?
In clothing and general merchandise stores, the overlooked surfaces would be fitting room door catches, the number tags, the hooks, the benches, the call buttons, the mirrors at hand level, and the return racks. Customer service counters would have pens, queue rails, return bins, and merchandise test equipment. Break rooms, elevators, escalators, and toilets all need to be looked at as well. Appliance handles, vending-machine buttons, stair rails, elevator controls, faucet handles, soap dispensers, and restroom door hardware can all receive frequent contact.
Cleaning Tools Can Spread Contamination
A cloth used on a range of surfaces will transfer rather than remove material. Research into shopping mall food court tables found significantly more bacteria on the cleaning cloth than on the tables themselves and clear evidence of possible cross-contamination of the cloth with the surfaces it had been used on. Stores need clear rules on changing cloths, separating cleaning areas, preparing solutions, meeting label contact times, and storing equipment. Dirt must be removed prior to sanitizing or disinfecting a surface, as soil will reduce the effectiveness of the treatment.
How Can Stores Build a Better High-Touch Cleaning Plan?
Start by looking at a normal shift and just observe what the customers and staff actually touch. Assign each surface a role, a product, a method, and a frequency. The cleaning intervals should be based on traffic, contamination events, surface material, manufacturer’s instructions, and the needs of the store. CDC recommends regular cleaning of high-touch surfaces and that you increase the frequency of cleaning in busy areas as appropriate. Contact the professionals at Big Sky Decon for more information about the proper method of cleaning high-touch surfaces.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Q: Which high-touch surfaces are most commonly overlooked in retail stores?
- A: Frequently missed surfaces include payment terminals, self-checkout screens, shopping cart child seats, basket rims, refrigerator handles, fitting-room latches, shared pens, handheld scanners, employee radios, time clocks, break-room appliances, and stockroom equipment. These items may fall between departments because it is unclear whether employees or the cleaning crew are responsible for them.
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Q: How often should retail stores clean high-touch surfaces?
- A: Cleaning frequency should reflect how often a surface is used, the store’s traffic level, contamination risks, and the manufacturer’s care instructions. Payment terminals and cart handles may require attention throughout the day, while less frequently touched surfaces may fit into a daily schedule. Stores should also clean surfaces immediately after spills, bodily-fluid incidents, or visible contamination.
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Q: How can retailers safely clean touchscreens and electronic equipment?
- A: Employees should follow the equipment manufacturer’s instructions and avoid spraying liquid directly onto electronics. A compatible pre-moistened wipe or cleaner applied to a cloth may be safer. Stores can also use removable, wipeable covers when appropriate. Products must remain on the surface for the required contact time without damaging screens, seals, buttons, or protective coatings.
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Q: How can stores prevent cleaning cloths from spreading contamination?
- A: Retailers should use separate, clearly identified cloths for different cleaning zones and replace them at defined intervals. A cloth used in a restroom, food area, or on a visibly dirty surface should never move to checkout equipment or customer-service counters. Employees also need training on solution preparation, cloth storage, laundering, disposal, and the difference between cleaning and disinfecting.