by Brian McKay
Image Credit: Pxhere
The importance of light, and different kinds of light, should never be underestimated. For people who suffer with SAD or insomnia, the right sort of lighting is key to both recovery and leading a healthy lifestyle. For everyone else who is just bumbling along, lighting could the the way that you make the leap from feeling okay to feeling excellent.
But how could you make use of this knowledge in your business? If changing the lighting can affect people’s moods, and you can predict the moods that different lights options evoke, then you have a great opportunity to encourage your shoppers to change their behaviors just by changing the lights to something like this drum pendant light.
This might sound a bit manipulative, and it is, but if you think about it, this technique is no different to ensuring that your shop front appeals to certain clientele or that the placement of products on your shelf encourages purchasing of certain goods. Your business look matters and the lighting is all about the look.
Warm and Cold
One of the first ways that we are influenced by lighting is the illusion of warm and cold. Bright white lighting tends to make people feel colder; softer lights reminiscent of incandescent lights feel much warmer. Creating a balance between the two types of lighting is important for two reasons: warm lighting will make your customers feel more relaxed whereas bright white lighting will help them to see your products.
Using warm and cold lighting, you can create the ambiance best suited to your brand while highlighting certain aspects of your shop to your customers. For example, you could place a bright white spotlight over a particular product to draw attention to it. You could also use lighting to draw people in and around your store so that they see everything. One of the more extreme examples of this are the Hollister shops that appear to keep almost everything in the dark, confusing British shoppers but intriguing them nonetheless.
Time and Season
How you want shoppers to perceive your business may also change according to the time of day and the season. This might sound mad, but think for a moment: in winter would you prefer to go into a shop with warm lighting or bright cold lighting? Which would you prefer during the day, and which at night?
Changing your shop lighting throughout the course of the day might seem like a daft idea, but tune-able lighting is catching on, even in public spaces. In White Bear Lake, Minnesota, the first tune-able LED lights have been installed in a public space. The intention here is to ensure that drivers have enough light through hours of high activity, but later at night, the lights are changed to a warmer white that is generally preferred.
This trick isn’t just for local councils, though, all you need to be able to change the lights is one of MOONS’ LED drivers. These change the voltage to the LEDs, changing the feel of the lighting in a simple way.
The Illusion of Size
Here’s one final reason that your lighting could change the way your business attracts customers: it can create the illusion of size. This doesn’t just mean making your store bigger, it can also mean making it smaller and more intimate. Cooler lighting might make your store feel more spacious, but warmer lighting creates a sense of intimacy.
Of course, the main thing to consider here is how big your store actually is. If you are in a large warehouse, using more intimate lighting might be preferable to make the space feel more comfortable and less barn-like. On the other hand, if you are working out of a tiny retail space, brighter lighting might help. Thinking about how you want your customers to move around your store will help decide how you want to present the illusion of space.
Experimenting with different types of lighting - different colors, warm and cool, location - is a good way to change the ambiance in your store. Whether your customers prefer a dark and intriguing shop with spots highlighting certain products, or they are looking for a bright interior to help them shop quickly, or something in between, there is no doubting that it is the lighting that has the greatest effect on their visit.
With advances in LED technology, good lighting has never been so easy to install, maintain and manipulate. You can reasonably expect to be able to optimize the lighting in your store across the day and throughout the year. All you need to do is install the technology.
