How to bask in lighting glory

Low volume music, wooden interiors, the monotony of dark brown walls broken by the glittering brass fixtures and the shaft of white light directly falling on the clothes that nicely hang from the pegs create a theatrical ambience  which appears to be relaxing, giving the customers plenty of space to try on a new dress. This is one example of retail ambience in an apparel store. The ambience in its entirety has been created by many small components wherein lighting plays a very crucial role. The right focus of light on the merchandise directs a customer towards it. It elevates the image of the store. A good lighting characterises a good brand.

 

Planning a good lighting

The purpose of lighting is to enhance the colour and texture of merchandise, creating a welcoming environment.  Ideally, lighting should create an ambience where a shopper will be lured to spend more time, increasing the chance of sales conversion. It’s a well-known fact that the more a shopper lingers in the store, the more chance of purchase. A perfect lighting accentuates products. This can be evaluated by Accent Factor, ie, how strong focal lighting should be for a particular product to generate right effect. It’s the combination of right quality and quantity of light, reduced cost of light and life of light that make value addition to a retail business.

 

One should always remember that a striking contrast between the brightly focused merchandise display zone and toned down general area makes retail vibrant and dynamic.

 

Jitendra Agrawal, Director, Professional Lighting Sales, Philips Lighting India shares, “The lighting plan and design for a retail store is prepared keeping in mind a large number of factors such as the space size, interiors, wall colour, location, required light quantity, power availability and the products displayed.  Once the design is finalised, various solutions for lighting up various areas of the store are shortlisted and a thorough calculation of the electricity consumption is made to determine the optimum mix of lighting fittings to be installed.”

 

Selecting right lighting fixture

Good lighting should include natural light and highlight colour contrast, enhance reds, blues and whites, making décor, furnishings and merchandise more eye-catching.  The quality of light is determined by the colour quality, distribution and glare. 

 

Agrawal explains, “By adjusting in-store lighting levels throughout the trading day, a retailer can fine-tune its lighting for the day or season. This approach can even be applied for different customer types. For example, customer behaviour research can easily identify whether an individual supermarket receives more elderly visitors in the morning than, say, young professional customers in the early evening, adjusting light levels accordingly to match ages and purchasing habits.”

Today’s lighting system gives enough scope to experiment with the effect.  Livinder Singh, MD of Decon Lighting, a well-known lighting solution provider comments, “While the choice of fixtures gives the illumination, the colour temperature of the lights creates the effect. The fixtures control the spread and the effect of the lighting. The inherent design and choice of material of the products react differently to the type of lighting. For example UV light will enhance the glow of textiles if fluorescent salts have been used in the processing. “

 

A lighting system can be either static or kinetic. In static lighting environment, the fixtures are fixed in a position emitting uniform, general pattern of illumination. The kinetic lighting system is more flexible wherein fixtures are moveable to generating variable impact on changing merchandise.

 

Different product categories have different demands, and the lighting solutions are available corresponding to these different categories. “For instance, jewellery showrooms require the lighting to be focused and directional as the fine craftsmanship and detailing of the designs needs to be highlighted. LEDs play an important role here as they provide controlled directional light and in multiple colours to create the extravagant and lavish ambience. On the other hand, an apparel/ garment store requires plenty of natural light-like white light so that the colours of the garments are seen correctly and appear bright. CFLs and the sleek T5 tube lights are extensively used for this purpose. Similarly, the quantity, colour and type of light required for each different product or space inside a retail outlet determine the right lighting fixture to be installed”, informs Agrawal of Philips Lighting. A store is the touch point for a product, and how the store is viewed by a customer has lots to do with the impression about the product. As Singh of Decon justifies, “How the store is viewed by a customer depends on its design. In some cases it’s from the show window only, or in the case of an open design, the whole store is visible and is on display. Some stores are dealing in a single product or range. These would be easier to control. For example, the interior of a garment shop selling shirts would be bright and those in expensive suiting would like to project a warm and luxurious look. Similarly jewellers have attractive show windows, suitably protected from vandalism, and dark background with narrow beam spots to highlight the facetted jewellery. This list can be expanded to fruits and vegetables where the products must look fresh and attractive.”

 

Cost effectiveness

Cost effective lighting adds profitability to retail operation by slashing down the cost of operation.  A light should be selected on the basis of low cost maintenance, low energy consumption and long life. The highly priced lamps can be more befitting for any store for the above mentioned three factors.  The investment in this case is lower against frequent maintenance cost and short life of low-priced lamps.

 

Retailers now calculate the lighting cost per sale, so the trend is coming up to utilise daylight for visual impact. Energy saving lighting system is now in vogue. LED and CFL lamps are more preferred over incandescent lamps. In the US, retailers, in a bid to curtail energy consumption, are taking initiatives to phase out the uses of incandescent lamps.  The major US home furnishings retail chain, Ikea, has already started to phase out incandescent lamps from its retail stores.  The Indian retailers need to introduce the same trend now.

 

Four factors drive the total cost of lighting ownership

1. Product          

2. Energy            

3. Maintenance

4. Disposal

The initial purchase cost for the lighting system.

Annual operating hours multiplied by electrical cost (kWh).

Includes labour and relamping costs.

The end-of-life cost, including disposal and recycling of lamps, ballasts and fixtures.

Beyond first cost, compare performance: service life, lumen maintenance, and color rendering and stability.

Consider product wattages as well as light output and lamp performance.

Longer-life lamps that maintain color stability and lumen output can reduce maintenance.

Another area where longer-life lamps benefit the retailer, by reducing waste and cost.

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