Lighting in retail is as important for grocery stores as it is for apparel or hard goods. Although many retailers tend to focus on cost savings attainable by upgrading lighting design and fixtures, some in the industry call lighting the “silent salesperson” because it can have such a significant impact on purchasing behavior.
Of course every store needs a certain amount of ambient light, but accent lighting does just what the name implies – highlights certain departments or sections of your store, certain displays, or even individual items. It’s like a different form of signage, and it makes your interior more visually interesting. Using more accent lighting and less ambient lighting also saves energy.
Consider whether your merchandise will look its best with down-lighting aimed at horizontal surfaces – say, for stacked apparel – or with angled lighting aimed at the front surface of packaged items on gondola of industrial shelves, such as in a grocery or home improvement store. Highly specialized items such as jewelry require even more careful lighting to look their most alluring.
Since effective merchandising requires frequent refreshing and even relocation of displays, choosing flexible lighting systems such as track lighting or adjustable mono-point lights can make adjusting for new displays much easier.
Light-emitting diode (LED) fixtures are rapidly growing in popularity, for multiple reasons. They:
While LED lighting is gaining favor, traditional incandescent lights are losing favor because they are inefficient, produce considerable heat, and don’t meet new energy conservation requirements. But there are several other options:
And there’s one more important consideration for lighting in retail: different lamps put out different colors of light, so it’s crucial to select the tones that will enhance your store’s overall ambiance as well as your particular types of merchandise.