Retail stores have discovered that they can make the retail shopping experience more pleasant, entertaining, and noteworthy by creating an optimum environment for consumers to experience goods before purchasing them with Lighting Retail Areas. Providing the right lighting conditions are an important part of that environment. Shoppers who feel relaxed spend the time to read the boxes, browse and eventually pick-up impulse items.
Designers and architects have long understood that products and surfaces look different under different lighting conditions. LED retail lighting systems expand a retailer’s toolkit by providing flexible Color Rendering Index (CRI) options that affect how the texture and color of a product will appear to a shopper’s eye. Rather than use lighting that is uniform throughout a store, a retailer can also use different LED lights to create an enticing environment at store entrances to encourage shoppers to enter a store. Store sections selling clothes, or foods might benefit from a lower color temperature light source which produce deeper colors and more natural looking fresher foods. Sections selling tools, industrial products and supplies might benefit from brighter near whites to provide maximum lighting levels. Sections selling computer displays or TVs may find that dimming the lighting and reducing glare is especially important.
If aesthetic considerations alone are not enough to persuade a retailer to utilize LED lighting, the economics of LED lights will convince even the most skeptical store owner. LED luminaires generate the same or better illumination as incandescent or halogen fixtures with up to 60% less energy input. LED lights also last substantially longer than traditional fixtures and reduce maintenance and repair costs. Retailers will quickly recoup LED installation or retrofit costs through savings on utility bills. In most cases, initial costs are fully recovered in less than eighteen months. Additional savings are realized by reducing the lighting heat load on the store air conditioning system during the summer.
Retailers that appreciate technology improvements in other areas of their facilities will also see benefits in LED retail lighting systems.
