Retail Lighting

Lighting is a critical factor in creating a unique shopping environment: one that attracts customers and pulls them in, creates a store personality while reflecting brand and identity. Successful retail lighting does not come in a one-size-fits-all package; it is a strategic blend of color, contrast, control, and energy efficiency.

Choosing the right lighting is critical for projecting the desired store image, focusing and attracting customer attention and enhancing the appeal of merchandise, leading to purchase. Brand, image, and shopping experience matter more than ever. Lighting helps to convey a specific retail message; it sets client expectations on the quality of merchandise as well as the overall motivation to make a purchase. The best lighting will set you apart from competitors.

ConTech Lighting will guide you through the lighting process and be your lighting resource. It takes time and effort to ensure that the investment in lighting will be returned to the bottom line, and it’s a partnership ConTech will be involved with every step of the way.

Goals of Retail Lighting

Attract customers; create stopping power that will make consumers want to come inside and invest themselves in the sales experience

Choose the right lighting for projecting the desired store image, focusing and attracting customer attention and enhancing the appeal of the merchandise

Show off and promote merchandise:
detailed accent lighting improves the perception and attractiveness of displayed goods.
Merchandise must be shown as true-to-life as possible using a high CRI light source and a well-balanced mix of light.

Create a highly flexible lighting system, enabling a fresh, up-to-date appearance when products, offers, and displays change

Layers of Light

GENERAL/AMBIENT LIGHTING

Main source of illumination
Uniform, base level of lighting
Comfortable level of brightness
Focus of energy reduction
Diffused general lighting ensures a sense of well-being

Diffused general lighting ensures a sense of well-being, which makes customers feel comfortable and more likely to stay longer in the store. Perimeter lighting, or wall washing, helps define merchandising spaces, provides vertical lighting and makes the retail space feel larger.

TASK LIGHTING

Provides a focused, localized, and higher level of illumination
Use energy efficient sources to reduce operating costs
Utilize a generally low level of ambient light with strategically placed task luminaires
A 3:1 ratio of task lighting to general illumination provides a nice contrast

Task lighting is most effective when used as a supplement to general lighting; it should eliminate shadows on the specific illuminated area, while preventing glare from the lamp or off surfaces. Task lighting reduces the reliance on overhead lighting, and provides a better quality of light for specific tasks.

ACCENT LIGHTING

Creates a dramatic emphasis on merchandise using a focused, or point, light source or sources
Adds depth and contrast; highlighting shape, texture, finish and color of merchandise
Directed ambiguously, the end result may have many unwanted shadows obstructing the details of the highlighted merchandise as well as distracting glare
A 5:1 ratio of accent lighting to ambient light makes objects stand out and creates a significant visual effect

Accent lighting should be more precise and of higher intensity than the surrounding ambient light. Accenting everything and emphasizing nothing is a common mistake with accent lighting; always keep in mind that there is such a thing as providing too much light.