When done correctly, in-store elements convey your brand voice and values. The tough competition today means that retailers must strive to stand out amongst peers. Interestingly, some of the in-store elements businesses ignore, such as lighting, often stay in consumers' minds long after leaving the store.
A retailer ability to leave a good impression on clients is key to building customer loyalty, and retail lighting does precisely that for you. Retail lighting helps illuminate your in-store space and products. But above all else, retail lighting helps you draw the attention of potential customers and foot traffic, more so in busy business settings such as malls.
Are you a retail brand struggling to attract more traffic to your store? Here, we explain how retail lighting design affects your business and how to use these in-store elements to your advantage.
How does retail lighting affect your business?
Retail lighting covers all the light sources utilized to make your retail space visible. Most stores only focus on the bare minimum when installing lights to save capital expenditure and operational costs. However, there's much more to retail lighting, including the designs, layouts, lighting types, and color schemes.
When done correctly, retail lighting can have a positive indirect impact on your sales curve. Here are 7 ways of how your approach to lighting impacts your store:
- Marketing your products
- Influencing purchase decisions
- Illuminating and showcasing your products
- Affecting buying behavior
- Lighting the way to the doorway
- Enhancing brand strategy
- Creating hierarchy among your products
Marketing your products
How best can you ensure that all the products in your store catch the eye of incoming traffic? Most retail owners assume that architectural elements such as open recessed areas provide adequate opportunities for clients to notice products. However, these spaces may remain dull corners without the added benefit of accent lighting.
Retail lighting introduces that wow factor in your store's enclosed and open spaces. The extra lighting makes your merchandise pop out and catches the eye of customers with ease. This is amongst the surest ways of marketing your merchandise.
Influencing purchase decisions
A seller needs to influence the purchasing decision of customers within the shortest time possible. One example are bright lights, which encourage consumers to make quick decisions. This may explain why bright lights tend to work best in stores such as convenience stores.
Retail stores with contrasting light tones entice more customers to stay longer inside the shop. Ultimately, this time spent inside the retail store translates to more purchases. Retail stores with a warmly lit setting offer a unique sense of comfort and security. This feeling more often than not influences the decision to buy among customers.
Illuminating and showcasing your products
Most retail products sell better when busking in the glory of well-lit showcases. You'll be shocked how many of your products go unnoticed. In most cases, these products fail to make that perfect first impression because of simple aesthetics.
Strategic retail lighting diverts the attention of every walk-in to focus straight to the products. You can set up strategic displays, which showcase every product with unique lighting themes. The goal is to keep these customers glued to the displays. With correct lighting schemes, it's possible to make every product in the store visible and appealing. This way, you also improve store conversions.
Affecting buying behavior
Consumers in the United Arab Emirates are hard to impress. Beyond the basic expectations such as excellent customer care, these clientele's buying behavior also depends on other factors such as the ambiance.
Bright lights affect consumers buying trends positively. Retail stores that have mastered the art of contrasting light schemes often create an irresistible ambiance for clients with a duo effect. On the one hand, these customers unconsciously become repeat clients. On the other hand, customers end up buying more than they had anticipated. Most jewelry and fashion clothing retail stores in the United Arab Emirates understand this concept. A greater focus on visual appeal does wonders by highlighting must-buy merchandise.
Lighting the way to the doorway
Retail stores rely on walk-ins and foot traffic to maximize sales. While more businesses are moving towards ecommerce platforms, physical stores remain a core pillar of the consumer market. Every consumer who walks into the in-store space must pass through the door.
Your doorway lighting can entice customers or push them away. It's basically what everyone sees before even noticing the interior. Retail lighting that accentuates brightness seduces even the most uninterested customer. A customer's decision to enter or skip your retail store depends on what impresses them on the store's frontage.
It is important to understand the importance of curb appeal when designing your store's frontage. The shopping thoroughfare in the UAE is set in a way that customers have the option to choose from multiple stores. It's up to you to light your store's frontage in a way that screams for attention.
Enhancing brand strategy
Lighting design for retail stores can easily enhance your store's brand strategy. Lighting is among the unique in-store elements that help communicate what words can't say to your customers. Your choice of lighting can express aspects of your brand, such as exclusivity and transparency.
You can tell your brand story to your customers by incorporating unique themes, designs, and sequences. Customers who relate better with your brand story develop a unique sense of loyalty towards your business. If you like to have greater brand awareness, then you need to have creative retail lighting in mind when designing.
Creating hierarchy among your products
Retail stores use product hierarchies to categorize and classify products. Hierarchies are vital in guiding a consumer's buying decision from when they walk into the shop. Once you rank your products based on predetermined attributes, you can use lighting to organize your merchandising.
Unique retail lighting strategies help make your store more organized. It's easier to guide a customer's purchase journey in a retail context where products follow a specific predetermined order. Once you use lighting to emphasize such distinctions, you can have more customers going through the complete purchasing journey. Clients fancy a smooth purchasing process. With proper lighting, it's possible to convert more walk-ins into sales.
How to set your retail store apart today?
If you want to stay ahead of your competitors and improve your sales, you might need to identify what makes your customers tick. Retail lighting is one of the key elements to a successful retail store. Lighting does more than illuminating your interiors.
A properly designed lighting system communicates your brand strategy, influences your customer's buying behavior, and helps you market your products efficiently. Retail stores that understand the need to have a retail lighting strategy often maximize their sales by attracting more walk-in clients.
Retail Consulting Services
We believe that retailers should evolve at the same or faster pace to remain on top of the consumer market and meet the expectations of an ever-changing clientele. Ollen Group is one of the leading retail management consultant firms in the Middle East & Africa region (MEA) offering retail design services with turnkey solutions from strategy to execution. Our retail business consultant will help your through your journey.
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