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Study Reports: Customers Prefer LED Storefront Lighting
By Lori Andreozzi
Troy, New York—A 2005 study, conducted by the Troy, New York-based Lighting Research Center (LRC), demonstrates the allure of colored LEDs. The recently released study shows that retail store customers were more attracted to colored LED lighting in storefront windows than traditional lighting.
Besides attracting more customers, an additional benefit to store owners is considerable savings on energy costs. The study showed that LEDs cut lighting energy in retail windows by 30 to 50 percent. (According to the United States Department of Energy, lighting is the biggest energy expense for retailers, accounting for 37 percent of total energy use in U.S. retail buildings.)
According to the LRC press release, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP) sponsored this field study to determine whether energy-efficient, colored window lighting could draw the interest of shoppers, reduce energy consumption in store windows, and maintain or improve retail sales. LRC researchers installed custom, slim-profile LED fixtures in the windows of three stores owned by a popular clothing retailer found in Los Angeles area shopping malls.
To cut energy consumption by 30 to 50 percent in each window, they eliminated all general fluorescent lighting, reduced the number and wattage of halogen accent lights, and added LED systems to create colored backgrounds for interest. The researchers tested different window display and lighting scenarios over an eight-week period and surveyed shoppers about the attractiveness, visibility, and eye-catching ability of the windows. (Lighting inside the stores remained unchanged.)
After eight weeks and more than 700 surveys, the study found that colored LED lighting was a hit with shoppers. The results also showed that 74 percent of shoppers found the new lighting design to be eye-catching, 84 percent agreed that the LED display windows were visually appealing, and 91 percent confirmed that the reduced accent lighting did not diminish the visibility of the window mannequins and merchandise. Cutting the lighting power consumption further to 50 percent in each window resulted in no significant difference in shoppers’ opinions compared with the typical lighting, and a lower opinion compared with the 30 percent reduction, according to the LRC’s press release.
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