Can store lighting boost retail sales?

retail maintenance: store lighting

There is a current uncertainty regarding Brexit, price increase and wages, so it’s not rocket science to understand why the high-street sales are suffering so badly within the UK. To add to the worries, there are online stores who offer cheaper alternatives to high street products which throws a massive spanner into the works. So how can you boost your retail sales?

The controversy between substandard and a well-designed lighting strategy as part of your regular retail maintenance can be the difference between the number of customers and sales that your store obtains. By fabricating a high-quality shopping experience by using all tools available to you such as lighting, will generate the opportunity for repeat business.

retail maintenance: store lightingStore lighting is an effective way of encouraging sales within your store. Lighting can be used to accentuate a certain product that you would like to showcase and on the other hand, it can be used to attract customers towards different segments of the store. Once a customer has entered a store, the lighting can have a massive impact on the buyer’s mood and their current mood can be affected by your brand and your products. Fluorescent lighting is a great tool to highlight a certain product, but customers can find this type of lighting very daunting when it is used too much within a retail environment. Yet on the other hand, LED lighting can give an effective yet calming effect which could create a comfortable shopping atmosphere which would encourage individuals to stay within the store to browse for a longer period of time which is very likely to progress onto an in-store sale.

Lighting can also be used with the assisting of filtering customers throughout the shop to where you want the customers to view which would hopefully also lead to a purchase. By including good lighting as part of your retail maintenance strategy for your store, visibility will be enhanced – meaning that customers will be able to navigate their way around the store making it more possible for them to stumble across a product that they like, rather than having low and dismal lighting which would encourage customers to leave. By having adequate lighting above certain sections within your shop can draw customers into particular areas of the shop that you would like to target and increase sales in. A well-illuminated checkout area will encourage customers to remember where the tills were at the end of their browsing binge.

Many stores are making the effective switch to LED lighting to save on energy costs and intensify their lighting. The majority of LED lamps have a rated life of up to 50,000 hours and a life span of up to 11 years which is approximately 50 times longer than the basic incandescent bulb, meaning that these lamps would not need to be changed as frequently which would save labour costs and time. To come to the conclusion of what type of atmosphere you want your store to portray, you will have to think about how you personally want the customers to feel when they walk into your store. A warm and soft lighting can make people feel relaxed, whilst on the other hand brighter lighting helps the customers see products more clearly and stay alert.

Contact the Opulous Innovation team today to discuss what we could do for your store in retail maintenance and lighting to boost your sales.

 

Electric cars and taxis to get Amsterdam emission free by 2025

Amsterdam is famous for its canal systems, bicycles and artistic heritage. It also houses a number of famous museums and landmarks that includes: Van Gogh Museum, Rijksmuseum and Anne Frank’s House.

There are approximately 881,000 bicycles throughout Amsterdam that are used by daily commuters, children, people on their daily shop or transporting ladders across the 80 bridges in the canal ring (Yes, people actually do this). Bike usage throughout Amsterdam has grown by more than 40% in the last 20 years, this is also means that the use of cars has decreased in this tourist hotspot.

Bicycles weren’t always a thing in Amsterdam, cars once outnumbered bicycles and in the 1970’s bicycle use plunged from a staggering 80% usage down to only 20%. In 1971, more than 3,000 Amsterdam citizens were killed by cars and 450 of those deaths were children, bearing in mind this death figure was produced in only one year. The outcome of this disaster lead to the encouragement of swapping the use of motor-vehicles for the use of bicycles.

A mixed plan from the 1960’s was to fill in the 165 beautiful canals that masked the city centre to make way for new roads to meet the demand of the ever-growing motor vehicle (I am so thankful this did not actually happen). The oil crisis that took place in 1973 shook the whole world, including Amsterdam. This crisis caused the price of oil to quadrupled in price, which effected the production and the running of motor vehicles. Post to the oil crisis- the Amsterdam prime minister, Den Uyl, attempted to encouraged all Dutch citizens to adopt a new way of life and become more environmentally concerned with the way they live their day to day lives. The government then started to introduce Car-Free Sundays: extremely deserted and quiet motorways so empty that children played. This jogged the memory of the citizens of what life was like before the motor vehicle was introduced into their lives.

Amsterdam has a goal to be emission Free by 2025, and they encouraging this goal by swapping out their combustion engine taxis for electric taxis which includes brands such as: Nissan and Tesla. Holland has the highest density of EV chargers compared to the rest of the world. Each month, 25 new charging points need to be installed around Amsterdam’s city centre to keep up with the growing demand. Taxi electric is a fleet of Nissan leaf electric taxi’s that patrol Amsterdam’s. Taxi Electric was the first fully established electric taxi company in Amsterdam which was founded in 2011.  TCA is also another electric taxi that operate within Amsterdam who also use Nissan as their EV vehicle supplier, the model that they use is the 100% electric “e-NV200” which seats 4 additional passengers and boasts a 3.1m cubed cargo boot capacity. TCA’s clientele includes: hotels, airports, businesses and people with decreased mobility. TCA’s Nissan e-NV200s only take 30 minutes to charge 80% of the car’s battery and save approximately 200,000 litres of petrol per year.

In 2017, the UK government made an agreement to ban the sales of all new petrol and diesel cars by the year 2040. All car models for sale pre-2040, need to meet an air quality test by passing a new real driving emissions (RDE) test.

For more details on electric chargers and how to make the switch to electric get in touch! 

Do you need a solar battery at home?

 

Why do you need a solar battery?

Heard the buzz about Tesla Powerwalls and wonder what they actually do? Here’s our overview of all PV (Photo-Voltaic) batteries for use at home.

What are they?

PV Batteries are added onto solar systems to store any unused power generated for use later in the day. Some brands of PV batteries allow you to control when your battery charges from the grid to make the most of the Economy 7 Tariff. If you don’t have solar panels installed, you can still have this installed to only be used for off-peak charging and back up.

Who can have PV batteries?

Anyone with solar systems installed can have PV batteries installed onto their existing system. The Tesla Powerwall 2 is compatible with all types of solar systems. However, bear in mind that some other brands of battery may not be compatible across all solar systems available.

What if I don’t have solar?

No problem! The Tesla Powerwall 2 allows for users without solar panels to have it installed to use only for off-peak charging using economy 7 tariff meaning cheaper electricity during the day, not just at night!

What does it cost to install a PV battery?

The cost is dependent on the system being installed, contact us today for a bespoke quotation!

One thing worth bearing in mind is that if you don’t have solar panels yet and decide to add a battery with your installation plans you can get all of it installed under the 5% VAT bracket! Saving yourself a healthy 15% in VAT.  However, if they are installed after the solar panels  – so added on – the rate then reverts to 20%. A huge incentive to think about a solar battery upfront as part of your renewable energy plans at home.