How Lighting in Stores Affects Consumers

Walking down streets, it’s difficult not to notice stores with bright and colorful lighting. After all, it’s an easy way to attract consumers and keep aisles well-lit. This type of lighting, however, is not always helpful, and stores need to be mindful of the lighting they use. Dextra Group PLC reports that two recent studies have shown how the lighting in stores can affect how customers shop.

The first study, conducted by researchers at the Royal Institute of Technology in Sweden, took 97 participants and set them in three virtual reality settings, consisting of shops, their windows and retail displays. The subjects were then asked to compare and contrast the lighting schemes.

The results showed that a shop’s brightness is significant for consumers, but so are color temperature and rendering. Scientists also discovered that bright lighting seemed incredibly effective in store windows when shining down from the ceiling, rather than the sides. From this, researchers concluded that a light’s color temperature could be used to lead customers to certain parts of the store or even products.

The second one, run by scientists at the University of Hamburg, analyzed how people reacted when shown different retail lighting set ups by tracking their eye movement. They found that people’s eyes naturally gravitate toward areas with contrasting light instead of brightly lit regions and that blue light catches more looks than any other color. So, if you want customers to buy certain products, you should strategically place them in specialized lighting.

Together, these two studies show the importance of retail lighting. Bulb manufacturers should consider the possible effects of their lights, and installers need to be mindful of how they set up lighting within a shop. Konica Minolta Sensing products can help. Our light and color measurement instruments, like the CL-200A Chroma Meter and the CL-500A Illuminance Spectrophotometer, can measure both the brightness and color temperature of all kinds of lighting, so businesses can use their illumination to enhance the buying process. Contact us today and get started.