Grocery stores often tailor their atmosphere and layout to maximize profit. Impulse items at the register and foods on sale front and center are just a couple of examples.
Something many stores do not consider is the lighting. However, lighting can change the entire experience for grocery store shoppers. Find out how it affects your customers below.
How Lighting Affects Shoppers
The lighting of a store can affect shoppers in various ways. Different lighting creates different atmospheres and different experiences.
Brightness and color have a profound impact on shoppers.
Brightness
Brightness can determine where a customer will travel. An area with more natural overhead lighting is highly visited. Contrasting lights will draw a person’s attention. However, too much contrast can have the opposite effect. Dark, contrasting areas do not keep customers engaged, but rather distracted.
Color
People are drawn to blue lighting more than most colors. Blue is perceived as a calming, tranquil color. Especially in comparison to a dull, yellow, which can be construed as caution or sickly. Stores will use blues rather than yellows to direct customers’ eyes and movements.
Benefits of Good Lighting
When good lighting is in place, it benefits grocery stores and consumers. Grocery stores can boost sales, draw in new customers, and keep current customers returning. Shoppers are encouraged to have a healthier, more enjoyable, and relaxing shopping experience. Good lighting can make all the difference in the world.
Healthier Shopping
Studies have shown that customers were more apt to purchase healthier food in a well-lit area. Lighting that is brighter and used correctly can grasp the attention of consumers for longer. With the right lighting design, stores can highlight areas that house healthier options.
Longer Shopping
It is possible to influence consumers into staying in the grocery store for longer based on the lighting used. By using appropriately lit and tempered lighting, customers will not feel the need to retreat. If shoppers are comfortable and relaxed within the grocery store, they are more likely to purchase something because they have spent more time in the store.
Enjoyable Shopping
Stores can use lighting to keep the atmosphere engaging and comforting. Studies have proved that consumers are more likely to revisit a grocery store that they have already visited. It is important to use lighting to provide an appealing atmosphere. Not only will customers feel that they can stay longer, but they will return with the assumption of a similar experience.
Providing specified lighting can build a clientele and provide current customers a sense of enjoyment.
Risk of Bad Lighting
Bad lighting can hurt the grocery store’s business and put a damper on the shopper’s experience. Without the appropriate lighting, grocery stores can unintentionally affect food safety, decrease their sales, and highlight unattractive sections in their stores. Lighting type and placement are pertinent in providing customers with a great grocery shopping experience.
Shelf Life of Fresh Foods
While stores use lights with eye-catching brightness and colors, this may be a problem in some cases. Light is known to decrease the shelf life of fresh foods. The brighter the light, the hotter it will become. The heat will inevitably raise the temperature of the space around it and the temperature of the food. This can cause more waste within the store. It can also cause a bad experience for a customer. To keep within food safety temperatures, lighting with low radiations and the correct color balance is ideal. Lighting can ensure the freshness of produce.
Highlights Unattractive Traits
Lighting should provide an aesthetic that matches the ambiance of the store itself. With cheap, low-temperature overhead lighting in an upscale organic shopping center, customers will not feel that sense of exclusiveness within the store. Contrasting characteristics between the lights and the products may cause consumers to focus more on the price and less on the experience.
Decrease in Sales
If the store fails to strategize its lighting, it can cause a decrease in sales. A store can choose the right temperature and level of brightness yet still have lights considered bad. It is easy to forget the importance of lighting placement. Having lights that cover the entire store can prevent consumers from traveling to areas of the store that you wish highlighted. Accent lights can draw foot traffic to end caps, sale bins, and push items. Without accent lights, there may be an unwanted decrease in sales.
Ready to boost sales at your grocery store? Speak to one of our grocery lighting experts today.
