How to Overcome Your Leadership’s Objections to a Lighting Retrofit

Your facility’s need for a lighting retrofit is clear to you. Yet, your supervisor, the owner, or another leadership team member needs to be convinced it’s time to move forward. Objections to a commercial lighting retrofit frequently are based on misconceptions you can overcome with facts. Here are ways to advocate for your facility’s commercial lighting retrofit in the face of three common objections.

Objection: A lighting retrofit is costly. Our organization has other budget priorities.

Response: Many organizations realize a return on investment for their lighting retrofit in less than three years. Today’s highly energy-efficient lighting solutions decrease maintenance and energy costs. For example, an Oregon grocery distribution center saved $189,811 in annual energy costs and $47,000 in annual maintenance costs as a result of its lighting retrofit. Experienced lighting solution providers like Relumination offer free lighting consultations to determine the viability of a lighting upgrade.

Also, a lighting retrofit usually qualifies for significant utility company incentives. The professionals at Relumination know how to get the maximum utility rebate their clients are eligible for.

Objection: We did a lighting upgrade 12 years ago. We don’t need a lighting retrofit now.

Response: That upgrade was to T8 fluorescent lighting. Switching to energy-efficient LED lighting would reduce energy costs. Although we did see a measure of energy savings from going to T8 fluorescent lighting back then, a portion of those savings resulted from T8 fluorescent’s lower light levels. By choosing LED lighting, we could simultaneously increase light levels and lower costs.

Objection: There isn’t a business need for a lighting retrofit.

Response: Commercial lighting retrofits have benefits for all of our stakeholders. Since a retrofit can improve light levels, employees make fewer mistakes. In turn, quality control improves and the risk of injury decreases.

In addition, better lighting makes customers feel safer when they come to our facility. For management, the advantages of a commercial lighting retrofit are in the bottom line.

When you overcome your leadership’s objections to a commercial lighting retrofit, contact us at Relumination for a free lighting consultation.

Make Shopping at Your Grocery a Better Experience with These Lighting Changes

The fight between physical stores and online vendors will continue for years. Even clothing and groceries industries have faced an increase in online competition as increasingly personalized shopping experiences emerged. Quick shipping has allowed for fresh food deliveries (both for general groceries and pre-packed ingredients for specific meals) and clothing orders that let consumers wear the outfits and return what they don’t like. But that doesn’t mean your grocery store is going to be going out of business. Physical stores still control a hefty portion of the market, and that will continue to stabilize as shoppers look for shopping experience instead of just efficient purchasing.

Make sure your grocery store offers a good experience. Lighting plays a large part of how shoppers feel in your store, so improve your lighting with these three changes:

Have warm, low lighting where shoppers can congregate.

In-store coffee shops have been a growing trend for years, and grocery stores can expand on this with in-store delis and eateries. These sections give your customers a place to relax before or after shopping, and that turns even running errands into a good experience. Make the spaces feel warm and homey with warm lighting. Also, light the tables with individual fixtures under general lighting so the space doesn’t feel industrial.

Use accent lighting to emphasize free samples.

If you’re going to compete against online stores, you have to emphasize what they can’t offer customers: a sensory experience. Add free samples near your bakery and deli so customers can taste and smell featured products. Accent lighting helps draw customers in and directs traffic so they feel more implicitly invited to try the samples.

Use daylight bulbs to replicate sunlight near organic and fresh foods.

Locally sourced foods aren’t just demanded by a small subset of foodies. Even general consumers are increasing demand for locally grown products and ethical foods. If your store doesn’t have a lot of natural lighting, you can use LEDs with daylight-level lumens to light up organic and fresh food sections. It lights up the food without exposing it to extra heat, and the look of natural lighting underlines the message of natural foods, resulting in better sales.

Go to our website to check out how we can help you improve your lighting.

Why LED Lighting Is the Best Lighting Choice for Grocery Stores

Every small choice made about a grocery’s layout, style, and infrastructure can have large impacts on its bottom line. If you’re currently renovating your store’s lighting system or you’re planning systemic changes for a chain of grocery stores, LED lights might already be on your list to research further. Here are three key reasons why you should incorporate LED lights into your displays, especially as general lighting:

  • LEDs don’t cause the same damage other lightbulbs do. Lightbulbs radiate heat, and that can be bad for business if those bulbs are too close to either a produce section or refrigerated goods. Raising the lighting tracks makes the heat less intense, but it also diffuses the lighting too much. Some bulbs also have UV or infrared light, and light at these frequencies can shorten the sellable lifespan of produce, as well as make displays and dyed goods fade.
  • LEDs last a long time and stay consistently bright until the end of their lifespan. Traditional lights can dim over time, and that can put your storerooms and back stock areas out of OSHA compliance if regulations apply to your premises. But LEDs last up to 50,000 hours and provide consistently similar warmth, intensity, and color saturation until they need to be replaced. This means your store won’t have to spend on frequent replacements or pre-inspection lighting tests.

LEDs are the preferred light source for several different types of structures for several different reasons. Because grocery stores need to light a variety of conditions, from produce to frozen goods to points of sale, they need a solid basis for general lighting.

Does Your Grocery Store’s Lighting Emphasize the Produce’s Color?

Grocery stores are segmented into different sections: the middle aisles of manufactured goods, the back sections of dairy, meat, and drinks, and then produce, bakery, and floral areas on opposite sides of the store. Usually, these sections are marked by signs and even different tiles to help guide shoppers. But those sections are also separated by different lighting styles, and that lighting plays a pivotal role in guiding shoppers, highlighting goods, and encouraging purchases. Here are two of the main factors for finding the right quality of light:

Choose your lights according to Correlated Color Temperature and Color Rendering Index.

The Correlated Color Temperature is based on the color of the light a lamp emits, and, when you’re using white light, enhances different colors and hues depending on its tone. The emittance is cool, which makes your store feel bigger, neutral, which promotes a feeling of well-being and makes customers more comfortable, or warm, which makes the setting feel smaller and more homey. Different lighting works well in different areas, even side by side, to create different feelings and highlight different products.

The Color Rendering Index measures how a light source renders the colors of lighted products. Some lights wash products out and make the colors fade, while others can create a high contrast for a focus on the products’ color. Color Rendering Index (CRI) is measured on a 0-100 scale, and using lights with a CRI between eighty and one hundred is best for a grocery because it makes colors look vivid and natural.

Different areas of a grocery store require different blends of lighting, and these two measures are critical for every display. Lighting the produce section with lights that have a poor CRI make the produce look less well-grown or healthy, regardless of the actual quality of the fruits and vegetables. If you want to emphasize a new organic display, placing lights with an even higher CRI than in the surrounding displays can make organic produce look even healthier and more nutritious.