A well-lit store makes for good, better, and best sales. While a dimly lit environment may be fine for movie theaters, performance halls, and video game rooms, a less-than-bright atmosphere won’t ring the cash drawer well when it comes to automotive parts stores.

Why? Dark stores make for uncomfortable customers. They may not even be aware that they’re uncomfortable. But when people don’t see things in the best possible light, they become ill at ease, sometimes subconsciously, sometimes consciously.

They can have a conversation in their mind: “It’s too dark in here. I can’t see to read the labels.”

What the research shows

According to vision researchers, the loss of the ability to see in dimmer situations, and even in daylight, begins for men at age 40, and age 43 for women. The initial loss may be only 10% or as high as 35%. What’s more, women have another negative response to lower lights: they experience an increase in the level of fear of their environment when it’s dark.

As for younger shoppers, whose light-responsive vision may be fine, they’re still coping at their own accustomed sight level if a store is darker than their optimum or accustomed shopping environment.

Take a look at other retail environments. When was the last time you were in a dark grocery store, or in a warehouse Home Depot-like store where you couldn’t read the fine print? Even the smallest piece of jewelry looks impressively glowing in the display case.

COLOR RENDERING INDEX - CRI Although “color temperature” is a measure of the visual “whiteness” of a source, it does little to specify the source's ability to accurately show colors. This is referred to as the color rendering index (or CRI) of a light source. The modern electric filament lamp produces a continuous spectrum with all colors present. As a result this lamp has a high CRI of 100 as it renders all colors 'correctly' to the eye. Fluorescent and High Intensity Discharge (HID) sources all have lower CRI's than 100 and are able to accurately render colors to varying degrees. A light source should be carefully selected to provide a high CRI only when needed. Specifically a high CRI should be used for color matching and other related applications. Lamps with CRI's of above 70 are typically used for the lighting of the human environment, including living and work areas. LIGHT SOURCE CRI Incandescent filament lamp 100 Tungsten Halogen lamp 100 Mercury lamp 15-55 Metal Halide 65-80 High Pressure Sodium 22-75 Low Pressure Sodium 0 Warm White Fluorescent (WW) 52 Deluxe Warm White Fluorescent 73 White Fluorescent (W) 60 Cool White Fluorescent (CW) 66 Deluxe Cool White Fluorescent 89 Daylight Fluorescent 79 Xenon 95

How do those stores do it? They measure the light as it hits the surfaces they intend shoppers to look at. Light measurement is called foot candles - a unit of illuminance, or how much total light is reach onto a surface, such as a wall or table. One lumen falling on one square foot of surface produces illumination of one foot-candle. One foot-candle is equal to 1 lumen per square foot. The American Lighting Association is a fine resource for information about how light a store should be. An expert resource from your local lighting store can come and measure the entire store, doing a light intensity analysis of every nook and cranny of a store’s selling area. He will also analyze the balance of lighting throughout the store. Is one side noticeably darker than the other, perhaps because the ambient light (the light which comes in from outside through the store’s windows and doors) brightens the other side of the store? How about colored lighting? No jokes about the Blue Light Special, please, but there IS a good, bottom-line-proven reason for a blue light special. A lighting expert can advise what Color Rendering Index (CRI) is best suited for a particular item or a particular area of the store. CRI is an international system used to rate a lamp's ability to render object colors. The higher the CRI (based upon a 0-100 scale), the better colors appear. (see table)

Once the lighting expert has completed the analysis, they’ll make recommendations.

I recommend using an expert. Why? You as the store operator are used to the current environment as are your store associates. You and your store associates are accustomed to the current light conditions and have adjusted to them. That is not true for your walk-in customers.

You want to provide those customers with the best possible environment in which to spend their money. You want them so comfortable that they will want to come back.

You and your associates will also benefit from a well-lit environment. Most people feel better on a sunny day. That’s comparable to a well lit store (vs. a poorly lit store which is like a dreary day).

Use a lighting expert.

Of course budget is important. But the investment needed for proper lighting won’t daunt you. The lighting industry offers a vast number of choices in style and in quality.

The good news is that you don’t need a Rolls Royce lighting budget to achieve a Rolls-level effect. You just need the Rolls-level knowledge.

Nor do you necessarily have to hire a credentialed lighting expert to install a new system: with the recommendations from your consultant, you can head right to that well-lit Home Depot or Lowes Home Center store and buy what you need yourself.

Creating drama

Once your lighting scheme has satisfied the minimum level of customer comfort in navigating the store and finding and seeing the merchandise (and reading those small print labels) easily, it’s time to take your in-store lighting to the next level - creating in-store drama.

Lighting can be used to draw attention (here’s the Blue Light Special again!), to focus attention on a department, to feature selected items, to create a GlowPower Merchandising® mini in-store environment for a department, section, or endcap.

Special effects lighting calls special attention to a store’s merchandise “stars”, the best-performing (or potentially best performing) SKU’s.

Before you go about creating drama with lighting, you must make decisions about what very special areas, items, fixtures, signage, or merchandise you want customers to notice. Your sales data will guide you to profitable areas and/or areas with higher profit potentials. Using lighting for the purpose of calling special attention to something specific in-store is the equivalent of putting a spotlight on your “stars,” your best or your potential best performing SKUs. You can also use your in-store lighting to entertain. Lights which blink, revolve, or show from behind a display are entertaining. They draw customers into a department or a specific store area. Blue Light, Blue Light, Blue Light.

Those customers come to the blinking, revolving, or special effects light because you want to draw them to that area for a purpose -- to buy a featured something.

This in-store dramatic lighting is one way to control in-store traffic, to help your customers walk to an area of the store you want them to visit, even if that area was not on their intended in-store route.

Entertaining lighting says to your customers, “Come hither, come here. I have something to show you.”

The effect is of a “store’s eyes which talk to the customer.” We know from our daily experiences that eyes which sparkle, which seem to be lit, which seem to glow, make us respond positively.

Sight produces the most visceral reactions of all human senses. It is the strongest sense to attract attention in an in-store situation, greater than sound or smell (Cinnabons excepted).

Think about how you like light, about how you feel (and buy) on a sunny day. Bring light into your store, bring focus onto your featured departments and merchandise, and add fun to your customers’ trip down your aisles.

You’ll light up when you see the improvement in your sales.

Stephen J. Alexander, president of Automotive In-Store Marketing, is a member of Aftermarket Business’s Retail Advisory Board. He can be reached at his Sanibel Island, Fla. headquarters, phone (239) 395-9203, or e-mail salexander@autoinstore.com.

Alexander will present a free seminar on in-store merchandising and planogramming at this fall’s Automotive Aftermarket Industry Week in Las Vegas in the Sands Expo at 7:30 a.m. on Tuesday, Oct. 31. He will also be at the Aftermarket Business AAPEX Show booth # 4013 during the show.

COPYRIGHT NOTICE:"Reprinted with permission from Aftermarket Business, October, 2000, page 36. Copyright by Advanstar Communications, Inc. Advanstar Communications, Inc. retains all rights to this material." To subscribe to Aftermarket Business, call 1-218-723-9477 or email fulfill@superfill.com.