In a competitive age of retail, every showroom must keep illumination at low weight on pocket. Growing Indian economy avails showroom and brand stores even in a small town.
Our Charlston lights team visited and consulted many showrooms to help them to get maximum return of their investment.
Why no other Lighting than LED?
Sometimes making decision of changing lighting technology is hard. But when it comes to retail business or showroom lighting, it is wise to switch to LED without any delay. Here are some reasons why should led lights be used in showrooms:
- Maintenance: If you choose CFL or other lighting, you must allocate time and money for the maintenance. No one wants to call electrician to replace bulb in busy season. There is a big level of difference in terms of life of service when you choose LED. Choosing LED lighting is peace of mind.
- Environment Factor: With traditional lighting technologies, UV emission is another major problem. CFL & fluorescent tube lights emit UV rays which can destroy colors of your valuable display products. Art gallery should never choose other than LED products.
- Heat management: It is another challenge with other lights. If you use halogen spot lights, prepare your A.C to struggle more. Each low efficient light produce heat as byproduct.
Here are some points which should be kept in mind, while installing lights:
Light islands:
Remember not every inch space of your showroom requires full lighting. Front display, selection area, trial area should have more lights than walk way, reception and waiting rooms.
CRI (Color Rendering Index):
Color rendering index is most ignored aspect of LED lighting. CRI indicates how accurately a light source can reproduce colors.
Low CRI can make your products looks like different in color and shade. Your customer may complain about difference in color of products, than you have shown them.
Most of the manufacturers don’t mention CRI, because they are using 70 or less CRI. In such premises LED lights should have 80 or more CRI.
Color (Temperature):
Color is also important in LED lights. Most of the Chinese and cheap brands provide LED lights in cool blue white (Over 6000K).
This color temperature gives more light but low quality light. If you prefer correct color temperature, then 5500-6000K is best for all purpose, as it renders same color produced in natural white or day light.
However warm white color LEDs may be required in some areas and applications. It gives rich feel and used in areas for relaxation.
Types (based on beam angle):
What type of lighting is best for a showroom? One should understand the difference between down-lights and spot lights. Different applications require different beam angles.
Downlight should be used for large area illumination, as it gives more even spread of light over wider area. On the other hand, spot lights should be used for highlighting specific area or display due to its narrow beam angle. Never use only spot lights in whole showroom. Spot lights should be chosen with care, as most of them cut & waste the light beam in angle adjustment.
With small 1W -3W spot lights, important items on sale can be illuminated. But if showroom has lots of small products, spot lights are not worthy. Instead, LED strip can be used to highlight major interior area. LED strip can be installed on ceiling of long running display case. For more brightness, LED tube light can be also used.
Dimming:
It is also most misunderstood feature of LED lights. Question may arise, Why do I require dimming?
Why not? Dimming saves lots of power during no customer or low traffic hours. It saves time of on/off switches. Most important thing customers don’t guess the shop is running low.
Cost & Return on investment (ROI):
Lighting investment is only fraction of your total investment. If you are calculating break-even point, why not to include LED lights in calculation. Our LED lights can payback your investment in 2-3 years, compared to your other investments.
Light Quantity:
Light quantity depends on different factors like: your showroom area, wall colors, height of ceiling etc. You can use light quantity calculator for showroom to calculate total amount of led light fixtures required.
