WAC Lighting
Illuminating Success

Retail lighting solutions appeal to all patrons of independent shops, chains, and shopping centers. Store owners and merchandising managers’ objective is to entice customers with a comfortable environment so they spend more time and money in the store.

White light plays an emotional role in the shopper experience. The color of the lighting in retail stores dramatically impacts the customer's emotional state. While warmer white colors provide intimacy and familiarity to extend shopping time, cool white lights make store areas seem more spacious.

Contrast is critical. Using a combination of light and dark areas increases shopping duration and boosts sales. Contrast draws customers' attention to specific products using precise accent lighting mixed with moderate ambient lights.

•According to Tom Lillie, director of specification sales for Modern Forms and WAC Lighting, “WAC-STRUT is perfect for boutique retailers, art galleries, restaurants, and hotels. It is an innovative lighting, power and control modular system that can be custom configured for recessed, track, and decorative applications. Versatile architectural solutions like WAC-STRUT, can do it all. This innovative system utilizes elements that incorporate direct and indirect illumination, wall wash, downlighting, accent lighting, and pendants with connected control technologies to give a personalized experience.”

Effective LED lighting invites customers into your store, allowing for more enjoyable shopping experiences and complementing your interiors. Proper illumination defines your overall image and ambiance, encourages consumer purchases by impacting emotions, and makes products more visible.

The main types of lighting used in retail stores are:

•Ambient Lighting: This type of lighting ensures sufficient general lighting to make shoppers feel comfortable with moderate brightness, warm white light, and brighter lighting within shop windows. Small aperture downlights, such as WAC's new Aether Atomic recessed luminaires, are ideal for retail lighting. They are small yet serviceable with ½-inch and 1-inch apertures that offer robust lumen output.

•Accent Lighting: This technique draws a shopper's eye to certain areas or displays — jewelry within cases, a shelving display, or pieces of artwork. For example, the WAC-STRUT Stealth Framing Projector can project illumination in a crisp, square, or rectangular area to frame artwork, sculptures, or architectural elements. Like a quality camera lens, the petite and innovative projector contains adjustable lenses and shims to frame or highlight art objects, providing maximum visual impact by zooming in, zooming out, or using a custom-cut gobo to shape the light in complex designs.

•Task Lighting: Recessed downlights or track lighting systems are used in retail stores to direct light where more illumination is required to perform specific functions. Checkout areas and changing rooms are prime areas for task lighting.

•Decorative Lighting: Chandeliers, pendants, and wall sconces are primarily used to enhance the aesthetic appeal of the store and its merchandise to make design statements that add excitement and allure.

According to Aubrey Bertin, director of sales support for WAC Lighting, “Well-designed lighting adds a sense of luxury to any retail space by drawing the eye away from the source of light and intentionally towards featured products, design elements, and branding. Diminutive downlights, like the Aether Atomic from WAC, offer robust illumination and clean, quiet ceilings for retail environments where quality fit and finish are paramount.”

Lighting accounts for a portion of retail store energy and expense, and many store owners benefit from increasing the use of sustainable, eco-friendly lights. LED lighting generates lower heat loads, thanks to far cooler operating temperatures, thus significantly saving energy and HVAC costs. LED lighting solutions last longer than other forms of lighting, usually with lifespans of 15 to 20 years.