Retail Showroom Design and Fitout in India
Permanent space built by the workshop that builds our exhibition stands — showrooms, experience centres, brand corners and display walls. Surveyed on site, designed to the brief, fabricated in Mumbai.
The same workshop, a different time horizon
Exhibition work teaches you to build display fast, to a fixed deadline, in a space you do not control, and to make it look permanent for four days. Retail asks for the opposite discipline — the same visual result, but engineered to survive years of daily handling. The design thinking transfers almost completely. The construction does not, and pretending otherwise is how showrooms end up with stand-grade joinery that looks tired in eight months.
So we specify differently. Substrates move from show-weight board to solid core and real veneer. Fixings move from cam-lock and clamp to permanent mechanical fixing. Electrical moves from a temporary distribution board to sanctioned circuits. Edges and corners — the parts that take the abuse in a space people walk through every day — get detailed properly rather than trimmed.
What carries across is the display instinct: sightlines from the door, where the eye lands first, how a product reads at three metres versus at arm’s length, and how lighting does most of the work. Those are exhibition habits, and they are why a stand builder is often better at a brand showroom than a general fitout contractor.
What a fitout costs
A permanent fitout is quoted on the space and the specification rather than on our exhibition bands, because the two are engineered for different lifespans. A retail fitout of comparable area sits above the equivalent stand band — permanent joinery, sanctioned wiring and real finishes are specified to last years rather than four days.
What moves the number most is the state of the shell you are starting from, how much of the ceiling and electrical has to be redone, and whether the space is trading while we work in it. We survey before we quote for exactly that reason.
Exhibition stand builds are priced separately, on our standard spine, and are unaffected by this scope:
Essential
- Design, build and graphics
- Lighting and furniture
- Transport from Mumbai
- Installation and dismantle
Regular
- Bespoke structure and joinery
- Meeting area and storage
- Lighting design
- Full site crew
Premium
- Double-decker or feature build
- AV integration
- Hospitality and meeting rooms
- Dedicated project manager
Stand figures are all-inclusive of design, fabrication, graphics, lighting, furniture, transport, installation and dismantling. They exclude the organiser's floor rental, power connection charges and venue-levied service fees, which the organiser bills to you directly. GST applies at prevailing rates.
Showrooms we have delivered
Photographed after handover. Joinery, display and lighting from our own Mumbai workshop.
What actually sets the schedule
Eight to fourteen weeks is typical, and fabrication is rarely the constraint. Landlord permissions, electrical sanction, lift booking and building access windows are. In most Mumbai commercial buildings the service lift is available for fitout material in a narrow band, often at night, and a build plan that ignores that band slips immediately.
We plan backwards from those windows in the same way we plan a stand backwards from a venue’s hall access. It is the single habit from exhibition work that saves the most time on a retail job, and it is why we ask about building access on the first call rather than the fifth.
Where a launch date is genuinely fixed, we would rather reduce scope than compress the sequence — finish a smaller area properly and phase the rest — and we will say so at quoting stage rather than agreeing to a date we can only meet by cutting corners that show.
The sequence that cannot be compressed
- Survey
- On site, against the actual slab, columns and services
- Approvals
- Landlord permission and electrical sanction, the usual long pole
- First fix
- Electrical, before the ceiling is closed up
- Ceiling
- Closed only once first fix is signed off
- Lighting
- Installed into a finished ceiling, before fixed joinery lands
- Joinery
- Placed and fixed once lighting positions are final
- Flooring
- Late enough to avoid weeks of protection, early enough to sit under joinery
What a fitout covers
From the survey through to the day the doors open.
Survey and space planning
We start on site, because as-built almost never matches as-drawn. Slab levels, column positions, ceiling voids and the actual run of services routinely differ from the landlord’s drawing by enough to change a design. Circulation and sightlines are planned from what is really there.
Joinery and display systems
Fixed and freestanding units, display walls, counters and storage, fabricated in our Mumbai workshop in solid core and veneer with permanent mechanical fixing rather than show-weight board and clamps.
Lighting and electrical
The item most often under-specified and the one that decides most of the outcome. Track position, beam angle and colour temperature separate a showroom from a stockroom. We design the scheme and coordinate the wiring with licensed contractors who can sign it off.
Finishes, flooring and graphics
Wall and ceiling treatment, flooring, and the graphic and signage layer — specified to a named standard so what arrives on site is what was approved on paper.
With your architect, or without one
Where an architect has already done the space planning, we take on fabrication and fitout from their drawings, and we survey the space ourselves anyway rather than working from the drawing alone. Where there is no architect, we design from the brief.
Occupied spaces get phased overnight builds, sequenced so the space is safe and presentable each morning. It costs more and takes longer than a vacant shell, but for a showroom that cannot close it is usually the only option worth discussing.
We also build the pieces that sit between a stand and a full showroom — corporate experience centres, in-store brand corners, product display walls and reception areas. These reuse the display thinking from exhibition work more directly than a full retail fitout does, and they are often the first project a client gives us on the permanent side.
Showroom launches we have filmed
Flagship openings and showroom creation, shot on the day. Tap any card to play.
Showroom fitout — common questions
How is showroom fitout priced?
Differently from stands, because a permanent fitout is quoted on the space and the specification rather than on our exhibition bands. For reference, our stand pricing runs Essential 9–18 m² from ₹1.8 lakh, Regular 24–48 m² from ₹4.5 lakh and Premium 50–100 m²+ from ₹12 lakh. A retail fitout of comparable area sits above the equivalent stand band, because permanent joinery, wiring and finishes are specified to last years rather than four days.
How long does a showroom build take?
Eight to fourteen weeks for a typical brand showroom, depending on how much of the shell already exists and how quickly the building’s own approvals move. The fabrication is rarely the long pole — landlord permissions, electrical sanction and lift access windows usually are.
Can you work in an occupied space?
Yes, in phases and generally out of trading hours. It costs more and takes longer than a vacant shell, but for a showroom that cannot close it is usually the only option. We plan the sequence so each night’s work leaves the space safe and presentable by morning.
What is the difference between this and building a stand?
Time horizon, and everything that follows from it. A stand is engineered for four days, three transports and a dismantle; a showroom is engineered for years of daily footfall. That changes the substrates, the fixing methods, the electrical specification and the tolerance for wear. The design thinking overlaps; the construction does not.
Do you handle lighting and electrical?
We design the lighting scheme and coordinate the electrical work with licensed contractors. Retail lighting is the single item most often under-specified — the difference between a showroom that looks like a showroom and one that looks like a warehouse with stock in it is almost entirely lighting.
Will you work from our architect’s drawings?
Regularly. Where an architect has done the space planning we take on the fabrication, joinery and fitout. Where there is no architect, we design from the brief and the site survey. Either way we survey the actual space rather than working from a drawing alone, because as-built rarely matches as-drawn.
Do you build experience centres and brand corners too?
Yes — corporate experience centres, in-store brand corners, product display walls and reception areas. These sit between a stand and a full showroom in scale, and they tend to reuse the display thinking from exhibition work more directly than a full retail fitout does.
Where do you take on retail projects?
Mumbai and the wider MMR routinely, and elsewhere in India for projects large enough to justify moving a crew. For a single brand corner outside Maharashtra we will usually be honest that a local fitout contractor is the better answer.
Often booked together
Custom Exhibition Stands
Built once, for one plot, at one show, to do one job. Designed and fabricated in our Mumbai workshop and installed across India.
Custom standsEvent Management
Dealer meets, launches, conferences and roadshows produced across India — venue, permissions, set, AV and crew.
Event managementBranding & Graphic Design
Large-format graphics designed for the distance they are actually read from, printed and proofed alongside the stand they go on.
Graphic designHave a space to fit out?
Send the location, the approximate area and what the space has to do. We will survey it and come back with a scheme and a figure, usually within a week of the visit.
