How Retail Dressing Room Lighting Affects Sales

How Retail Dressing Room Lighting Affects Sales

It’s no secret that dressing room lighting gets a bad rap. It’s what makes finding that rare flattering dressing room lighting such a pleasant surprise. Here’s how and why you should make sure your dressing room lighting is poised for sales success.

It probably doesn’t come as a surprise that flattering dressing room lighting is more likely to result in sales. If customers like the way they look, they’re more likely to buy the outfit they’re wearing. Two out of three shoppers try clothing on before they purchase. In addition to two-thirds of shoppers trying before buying, those purchases are also a little more secure. Clothing that has been tried on before purchase is less likely to be returned, so in actuality, clothing that has been tried on accounts for more than two-thirds of net sales.

So, it’s been demonstrated that how clothing looks on a customer affects their purchasing behavior. But how should you set up your dressing room lighting to generate more sales?

Numerous studies on the subject have examined how dressing room lighting not only affects purchases, but also customer’s emotional state and their perceptions of their own appearance and their environment. In these studies, customers tended to prefer how they looked in dressing rooms that utilized frontal lighting. For dressing rooms in which harsh overhead lighting was used, shoppers tended to disapprove of how the lighting cast shadows on their face and body and tended to accentuate unflattering features on the clothing they were trying on. Frontal lighting eliminated this issue.

In addition to being more flattering, frontal lighting makes dressing rooms appear more spacious, which can influence shopper’s positive association with the room. A negative perception of the atmosphere and space can be distracting to shoppers and discourage them from staying in the store. Proper lighting can boost customers’ moods, and sales.

Where your lighting is placed isn’t the only thing you should focus on when designing dressing room lighting. It’s also important to consider the color rendering index (CRI) of the light source you’re using. Lights that do not accurately render colors can cause issues with customers’ perceptions of their appearance as well as the items of clothing they’re trying on. Trying something on that looks one color in the store and a different color outside of the store could lead to items being returned more frequently.

https://abcnews.go.com/Lifestyle/store-dressing-room-design-affect/story?id=32841724

https://www.informedesign.org/Rs_detail/rsId/3499

http://etd.fcla.edu/UF/UFE0024065/baumstarck_a.pdf