Light up sales with LEDs

Jeanine Chrobak-Kando of Verbatim reveals five ways LED technology can boost sales and cut electricity bills for retailers.

Effective lighting has always been a key component of store design. Abercrombie & Fitch might have made its A+F and Hollister stores stand out by turning down the lights to create a nightclub vibe, but the arrival of LED technology creates many opportunities.

Retailers can use LED lighting to show off their products - whether furniture, designer clothing or fruit and vegetables - more attractively, tailor store ambience to the season and ensure customers look their best.

Here are some tips for professionals involved in lighting up retail outlets.

Bring out true colours

Some of the most vibrant colours in nature are to be found in fresh food. That’s partly because humans have evolved to be attracted to the colours of the edible, nutritious fruit and vegetables that grow on trees and bushes. The modern-day equivalent of that is the fresh aisle at the supermarket or at a restaurant dining table in a retail food court, so bring out the true colours of natural produce with illumination provided by a lighting system with a high colour rendering index (CRI), particularly using lamps that deliver excellent R9 values. The CRI measures the quality of light produced by a lamp across its full visible spectrum, with a maximum value of 100 W (equivalent to natural sunlight).

Directionality

Harness the directionality of LED lamps - a feature that arises from the design of the LED ‘chips’ that actually produce the light inside the lamps - to add stopping power to window displays (a technique also used to help make customers look their best - see tip below). LED-based accent lighting brings out rich textures and adds depth to high-quality materials and surfaces. The flexibility of the technology means that colours and hues of this accent lighting can be tailored to the changing fashions of seasons. To avoid turning the all-important shop window into an expensive mirror, make sure to apply higher lighting levels to the display and to minimise the use of dark rear walls.

Displays

Exploit the flexibility offered by LED lighting to illuminate leather goods with warm-white tones, but switch to a cooler white for suits or jeans. For cabinets containing jewellery, add sparkle by using multiple point sources of light from directional LED lamps.

The fitting room experience

The fitting room experience is absolutely critical to customers, with research by Vrije University in Brussels indicating that this is where 80% of buying decisions take place. Making the customer look their best is going to enhance the likelihood of a sale - so it’s out with harsh, blue-tinged fluorescent lamps and hot traditional spotlights, and in with adaptable LED lighting. Tailor that light for the potential purchase: use soft, warm, even red tones in the lingerie department but imitate bright daylight for shoppers looking to buy outdoor clothes or sportswear. Efficiency is another obvious advantage. With less heat from spotlights in the fitting room, the additional comfort is likely to improve the mood of a customer and they are more likely to spend time in the store as a result.

The latest VxRGB phosphor technology, which has been designed with retail applications in mind, demonstrates that CRI can sometimes be an imprecise measurement of colour accuracy. By applying a unique combination of red, green and blue phosphors to a violet, rather than a blue, LED chip, the colour of objects under VxRGB illumination appears more vibrant compared to conventional LED or halogen lamps which may have a higher CRI value. It makes whites whiter; it brings out natural skin tones and improves contrast. In particular, reds, pinks and violets appear more vivid and navy blues are especially vibrant and easy to discern from black.

Refrigerator lighting

The chilled and frozen foods aisle of the supermarket is where LED lighting can really come into its own. Not only does the lack of waste heat produced by the LED chips mean that less chilling is required compared to fluorescent lamps, but the physics behind LED chips means that they actually work more effectively - and last longer - in a cooler environment. LED lighting also produces no ultraviolet light and this fact means there is considerably less spoilage of fresh foods in comparison to fluorescent lighting.

When planning a lighting scheme for a retail store, designers will be looking to strike a balance between creating depth and drama while ensuring lighting is still practical. So while accent lighting and wallwashing can accentuate specific displays or brand messages, ambient lighting will typically remain at the heart of the whole retail lighting scheme in general.

While it is true that LED lighting requires some additional upfront investment compared with older technologies, the hefty savings on energy consumption in a retail context mean that this cost is soon recouped - even before factoring in any extra sales when enabling customers to shop more comfortably. LED lighting cuts down the electricity devoured by halogen lamps by at least a factor of five and, because it needs far less frequent replacement, will also save on future maintenance costs. Add what will become a far more pleasant working environment for retail staff to those green credentials, plus the potential for boosting sales, and the case for LED lighting is crystal clear.