STYLEPARK ZUMTOBEL
Lighting gets added benefits
How does a sales area need to be lit for us to enjoy spending more time there? In which areas do we tend to make impulse purchases? And how does our purchase behavior change when we get individualized special offers sent to our mobile phones? Many of the decisions we make during shopping are based on the proverbial “gut instinct”; in other words, we let ourselves be guided by our feelings. If we feel good, we buy more. The light color, light temperature and positioning of the light have a tremendous effect on whether we find an item enticing or not.
For many years lighting specialist Zumtobel has researched how lighting in rooms can have an influence on how people think and behave with a view to finding the ideal sales presentation and develop specifically tailored lighting solutions for retail. For example, in collaboration with the Nymphenburg Group it conducted a study called “Limbic® Lighting – Target-Group Lighting of Shop and Retail Areas” to determine which lighting parameters have the greatest influence in the retail context, which lighting scenarios have a positive influence on people’s emotions and whether different target groups have individual lighting preferences.
Zumtobel employs both tailored lighting solutions and digital services to enhance the way customers experience the sales area, also known as “customer experience”. This involves expanding the lighting infrastructure to include technologies enabling retailers to interact with their customers. Now rather than laboriously scouring the aisles for a particular product or member of staff the customer can easily find their way around the store by referring to a digital map on their smartphone. Simultaneously, the retailer can locate the customer on the sales area via a localizing platform, which is advantageous for both sides: The customer receives personalized product recommendations, promotions and discounts via push-messages on their smartphone and need not study the individual offers in advance. To optimize the structure of the sales floor the retailer can also analyze the routes customers take. These services are intended to bring lasting improvements to customer experience and go by the names of “indoor navigation”, “geo-notifications” and “store analytics”.
Zumtobel put its theory to the test in the pilot project of retailer “E. Leclerc” in Langon, France: By incorporating into the lighting infrastructure Bluetooth beacons that rely on transmitters it is possible to localize the position of customers in stores. Moreover, customers can use a special app to get information about special offers and receive selected product recommendations, or to provide the retailer with feedback on the service. The test run went extremely well: Customer sales were raised by over 40 percent and customer satisfaction was also increased. From February 16 to 20, Zumtobel showed the full range of its expertise in Dusseldorf at the EuroShop 2020, the world’s largest retail fair. The topics of digitalization, light quality and emotionalization created new approaches for pioneering solutions.
