One of the biggest challenges for retailerstoday is to increase sales per square foot while decreasing costs at the same time. Traditionally retailers used to answer this challenge with improved store layouts, new store designs, traffic flow control, music, color, special seasons decorations, and also lighting. Some of these methods were more successful than others. A recent study, conducted by Merchant Mechanics Inc, shows that in-store display lighting does, in fact, affect shopper traffic, behavior and drives sales. It causespeople to slow down, make eye contact, enter the store, browse longer at the display, pick up the product and handle it and ultimately buy it.

The study documented the movements and behavior of more than 13,500 adult shoppers over two consecutive days. The resulting research data built a dramatic statistical argument for the positive influence of white light illumination in display fixtures. Among the gems generated by the analysis were the following:

Glancing into the store:

21.6 % of passersby turned their heads to glance into the storefront when the endcap display was illuminated compared to 12.1 % when it wasn ’t.

Entering the store:

3.7 % of all passing mall shoppers were drawn into the store when the endcap was lit, compared to 2.1 % when it wasn’t. The lighting almost doubled the store traffic.

Browsing the display:

4.6 % of customers who entered the store browsed the endcap display when it was illuminated, compared to only 2.6 % when it was not. This is a relative increase of nearly 77 %.

Buying:

Of the 4.6 % sample of all shoppers who stopped to browse at the endcap display, more than twice as many purchased when the display shelves were illuminated. The relative increase of purchases was nearly 133 %.