Impact Of Shop Design And Lighting Marketing Essay

A store environment in an important tool in influencing consumers decision in several means. It communicates a stores image and purpose for its customers (Bitner, 1992), it can conjure various reactions with its customers, it could even have an influence on the customers perception of ultimate contentment with the service or product (Bitner, 1990), finally it does have an impact on the time and money spent at the store. Therefore providing the right environment is important for a shop owner and its employees for getting the consumers in the correct buying behavior. Research in retail suggests that atmospherics have an influence on stores image (Zimmer and Golden, 1988; Levy and Weitz, 1995), merchandise, service expectation (Baker, Grewal, and Parasuraman).

Kotler (1973) devised a term called atmospherics which dealt with cautious planning of atmospheres to influence customers purchase inclination. At a store there are various types of atmospheric variables like design, colour, lighting, aroma & customer service etc. With design cues like colour and materials used in ceiling, floor, racks, shelves; social cues like crowdedness; ambient cues like in store melody, aroma and lighting cues for illuminating the product which go into influencing a purchase decision of a consumer at a store. The variables of shop design and lighting would be discussed in detail in the following literature review.

Shop designing and layout is one of the key elements in making a consumers buying pattern/behavior (Keng and Ehrenberg, 1984). In a retail industry most of the sales are based upon the layout of the store that attracts them towards the product. A perfect retail atmosphere is one that meets the needs of retailer, brand, consumer and creates utilization (Heragu, 1997). A consumer does not make a purchase decision until the point of sale (POS) and might reverse (Miller, 1944, p. 431).Shop designing begins from the very basic dimensions i.e. : convenience, price, and product information as observed by Howard (1989) . The layout should be eye-catching so even customers who just come to pay a visit due the unique shop design could get stimulated towards making a purchase decision. Consumers select the products based upon the ease to access the product, designing and layout of the product in general. This theory is well explained by Turley & Milliman (2000), where a survey of different retail shops was conducted and 57different variables were determined. Layout & design variables included placing of furniture, merchandise, racks and placing equipment’s. Other general variables included entrance, height, size of racks, ease to access. Similar to Baker(1992) consisting of three dimensions; ambient, space &function.

Studies in organizational behavior have indicated that a store design in one of the key elements in attracting a consumer initially. It’s the primary objective is to bring customers to enter a shop, a consumer first gives a glance to his surroundings then proceeds further after finding a suitable potential. According to Troye and Heide (1987) store ambience is an essential variable for customers perception about quality and customer satisfaction. While researchers like (Crowley, 1993; Babin et al., 2003) feel that there is not much positive affect in a consumers buying decision based upon layout, but they also denote that poorly designed layout(e.g. a confusing store layout structure) has many negative effects it poses a negative image on the quality of product, its durability, service etc. and may cause customers psychic costs advised by Mehrabian and Russell’s (1974). Design Layout is a very important process and many shop owners get confused as what type of a layout to choose from whether classic or design oriented. Designing a layout in itself should confer from the stores image and product it sells they both need to be hand in hand a store selling modern gadgets with a theme of ancient look is not well connected or well joined together. A lot of time is as well spent in concept of “servicescapes” (Bitner, 1992; Wakefield and Blodgett, 1994, 1996, 1999) it’s a concept that holds a consumer in the store, and thereby related to customer satisfaction and which portrays a different behavior of a consumers i.e. unplanned spending and duration of visit (Donovan and Rossiter, 1982; Baker et al., 1992; Kaltcheva and Weitz, 2006). To ease this confusion Hayes and Wheelwright (1979) introduced the concept of “product-process mix” where in the design and layout is directly linked with the product and its specifications. For example: A candy store is laid out in the pattern of a candy land with a land full of candies with a wide variety to choose from having its walls themed like a candy paradise, and placing candies and through kiosks holding wide variety of candies at store in different packages or having them sold at weighted rate, On the other hand if this store was designed in the format of the classic traditional layout candies being placed in racks or stacked up it would attract lesser customers and children towards the store. That can be quoted as mismanaged design strategy. The design and layout go directly hand-in -hand with the product sold. Shop design should also take in place the number of customers that come and visit it should be well organized to have an accommodating capacity. For a jewelry shop more than the efficient display, seats should as well be placed for customers at peak times.

While Nagle (1987) argues that price is the most important factors stimulates a perception and, Donovan et al. (1994), failed to find a conclusive evidence between pleasure derived from design layout on shopping behavior and its resultant.

“Light profoundly affects our feelings of well-being, of awe and wonder of mood, of comfort, of motivation.”( Louis Erhardt).

Another important factor that plays with consumers buying perception would be retail lighting. William James (1890), described visual attention has a connection to various imagination and thoughts. Lighting is recognized as one of the numerous cues in atmosphere and it sets up the whole retail environment. It has an impact on a consumers emotions, cognition and mood. It forms a perception about the store arrangement that visualizes consumers appraisal for everything at the store (Gobe, 1990; Rea, 1993; Lopez,1995). It’s also at times regarded as a standard for measurement for inner qualities and attributes of atmospherics Vogals (2008). It highlights the product that is on sale very clearly demonstrating its dimensions. The lighting strategy at every store varies from each other. It makes the product more lively, colorful and appealing and attracts shoppers. A lighting effect on a product should depict on consumers mind; value (Campbell-Smith, 1967), its need and attachment.

Lighting has its various attributes like contrast it’s the difference in brightness that makes the object distinguishable, brightness it’s the amount of light falling on an object that makes it are or the product highlighted, glare and sparkle this at times added by certain retail stores for those who have vision impairment in order to make it noticeable as explained by a theory proposed by Turley & Milliman (2000), conducting the survey upon 57 different retail stores describing how light illumination was used across stores to highlight different elements i.e. some special offers or latest trends. These variables carry on to create a perfect interior environment(Anon,1988). Every store has its different and unique lighting style or in retail terms ‘Lighting’ is defined as product highlight strategy for a retail store light is a way of illuminating or highlighting what they sell this may vary from a fashion store to a furniture store at times special promotions or discounts are highlighted by the special lighting affect outside the shops which attract consumers towards entering the shop. The concept of illumination through light varies from product to product, shop to shop, store to store. For e.g. Light setup at a consumer store where the latest promotions or best deals of the week are highlighted, in terms with what it would be at a fashion store where the latest trends in fashion at a high street store would illuminate the new collection with accessories along with it.

However important the concept of retail lighting is, there is not much study based upon this concept. Its value and necessity is felt while highlighting a store or special promotions but as a cue its contribution is not ascertained due to lack of interest in its value creation or even when it’s compared to its importance in affecting the consumers perception over other various cues in atmospherics.