Light it up!

Besides the development of newer and newer consumer tastes, retail market is witnessing new horizons coming up in its various spheres. And, retailers are ready to do what it takes to keep their sales graph rising all the time. New-age retailers are aware of customer needs and can no longer skip any important aspect of the store, be it in planning, designing and execution. Loads of efforts and planning go into the designing of the store: the store must have the right balance of colour, lighting, furniture, music, fixtures and displays. Selection and use of right lighting is vital to a store’s success. Lighting brings forth the brand image, pushes customers to step into the store, makes their attention directed to products and leads to the maximum footfalls and sales. Effective lighting is an important aspect in designing as it creates a favourable first impression of the store and its brand. Lighting guides the customer’s eyes, emphasises the colour and cut of the merchandise, highlighting the styling of the outfit and the drapery and, hence, encouraging sales. Light is dynamic. The visual aspect of the store is enhanced by the correct use of lighting. It helps in setting the mood of the store and has the ability to dramatise the outlet and augment footfalls. Customers feel delighted to visit a store that is well lit and in tune with the merchandise in display.

Throw some light

Lighting a store can be a tedious job. Retail lighting must have good colour contrasts and balances between lighted surfaces. Certain areas like window displays, entrances, cash counters and product cases can be given high lighting priority to make the customer look at the objects on display. In window displays, lighting serves two purposes: it creates a visual appeal to the customer while enhancing the colour relationships between merchandises within the window. Frequent changes made inside stores and in the window presentations can be based on the seasons, festivals, latest trends, and one-colour theme. These changes compel the customers to return to the store and help in building a loyal customer base. The initial point of interface with the prospective customer is in the window display of a store. Good displays show the concern and care about the image and merchandise and, most importantly, about entertaining, informing and educating the customers (good ‘retail–tainment’ of the customers, in short.) Dark areas are an important aspect in lighting. It is not difficult to directly highlight the object; the difficult part is to strategically plan the dark areas. Dark areas and shadows are important and contribute to giving a dramatic effect to the store.

Types of lighting

Different types of lighting are used to provide visibility and focus on the merchandise in display. These are

Ambient lighting: Lighting fixtures distribute light evenly and directly or indirectly. This way of lighting helps the customer to see the merchandise and the displays. Accent lighting: In this type of lighting, the light is made to focus on a particular pattern to enhance the visibility of key merchandise on display against surroundings. The effect is created by contrast. Valance lighting: Fixed on vertical surfaces of the store, these lighting fixtures are located on the tall vertical shelving. The lighting falls at the top of merchandise fixtures. Shelf lighting and case lighting: These lighting fixtures are small and are located quite close to the objects on display. Lighting fixtures have to be selected carefully as they are very close to the merchandise. Care should also be taken to avoid accidental contact with the hot lamps. Moreover, the merchandise too has to be protected from the ultra-violet radiation and heat.

Different lighting for different formats

Many retailers do have their in-house design team for lighting. The in-house designers plan lighting systems as per the brands. There are also retail design firms who have the required professional knowledge and expertise to carry out lighting designs in retail outlets.  Every store has different lighting requirements and, the important factor, which demarcates one store from other in terms of lighting requirement, is the size of the store and the type of retail segment it is catering to. Given below are the lighting solutions for different store formats:

• High activity retailing: This type of store requires uniformly distributed lighting and bright ambient lighting is most suitable for this type of store. The labels need to be clearly visible while the lighting should provide a stimulating environment. The main purpose of lighting in such a store is to enable finding the product easily. This way of lighting is suitable for stores like discount stores, supermarkets and hypermarkets where the retailing activity is very high and the customer base is huge.
• Medium activity retailing: This type of store requires proper and uniform illumination and highlighting the specific merchandises in the store to set them apart from others and attract the customer. The environment should be comfortable and soothing so that customers feel like coming in and buying. General ambient lighting is important for even distribution whereas accent lighting is required to emphasise the key merchandise. Example of stores falling under this category include clothing outlets, stationery, beauty salons, digital stores, gourmet shops, accessories outlets, house wares shops, furniture and small objects stores. These are stores where the retailing activity is minimal and the customers are looking for specific products.
• Low activity retailing: This type of stores requires minute detailing of lighting. These outlets are exclusive and every product is special in its own way.  The products need a careful handling: more of accent lighting is required to lay stress on exclusive objects with low ambient lights. This type of lighting should be used for stores (exclusive and expensive designer brands) in categories of clothing, accessories, paintings, house wares and gifts, jewellery and antiques. Here, the activity of retailing is low and the customer base constitutes people from the elite class.

Facilitate shopping activity

Today’s market is customer-driven and it is very important to make the most of the retail space available. All the aspects needed to highlight the merchandise should be taken care of so as to maximise footfalls. Today, consumers have ample choices – both in merchandises and stores. Good merchandise display, interplay of many factors like lighting, colour, ambiance and feel, generate higher number of footfalls. Shopping has become more of a stress-buster. Hence, stores need to be set in such ways that appeal to the sense of vision, touch and feel of the consumer. The lighting system in a store must be designed to facilitate shopping activity and should enable the customers locate different segments. Retail lighting should attract customers into the store, help them evaluate the merchandise and lead to sales.