Fixturing & Lighting
Flexible Fixturing Changes Your Store Design

By Ruth Mellergaard

Is your store's fixturing appropriate, adequate and affordable all the time? It can be.
Time was, retailers designed stores that lasted five to 10 years between renovations. Today, stores must look different every month or at the very least, for every season. Flexible fixturing enables retailers to make changes without redesigning entirely by showing merchandise in fresh, new ways. Here are six important ways in which fixturing can do double duty today.

1. Easy restocking
A fixture should do more than hold merchandise. It should also be easy to restock and easy to shop.

2. Attractive image
A fixture should present merchandise in a way that accomplishes two goals. It must make the merchandise presentation look attractive and it must contribute through color and design to the overall look or image of the store.

3. Product variety
A fixture should be flexible enough to accommodate different kids of products. Toys today and clothes tomorrow. Bedding today and diaper bags tomorrow.

4. Product quantity
A fixture should change as the quantity of merchandise in the store changes. It must present a full complement of merchandise at a season's beginning without looking crowded and less merchandise at a season's end, without looking empty.

5. Sales capacity
A fixture can handle sales devices from signage through product demonstrations. This week's display might need only a price sign. Next week's may need an explanation of benefits. Next morning's might need an interactive demo.

6. Child friendly
A fixture should have rounded edges, bumpers and strength so that kids will not hurt themselves if they are crawling or running around or if they decide to sit on the bottom shelf. It also should be easy for adults, including grandparents, to shop.

The point is that fixtures must do more than one job today. When you buy fixturing for your store, it is important to ask yourself about the different jobs you might want it to do. To make all of this just a little less complicated: Don't try to make a fixture do too much, or it may become so complicated that it is hard to use and cost too much. Fixturing is a kind of art that involves finding just the right balance of useful flexibility.

Lighting-The Newest Face-lift
If your store's interior needs a face-lift, put aside those paint brushes and take a long, hard look at your lighting. Lighting is the most important - and most overlooked -design element a retailer can use when updating a store.

With the great leaps made in the field of lighting, especially over the past three years, lighting technology can't be ignored by retailers. Among the latest lighting innovations are metal halide lighting and improved fluorescent. Both types of lighting are extremely energy efficient, reducing the use of electrical and air conditioning needed and helping retailers comply with strict state energy codes.

Recently, the major lighting manufacturers have introduced low wattage metal halide bulbs - 35, 70 and 100 watts. These bulbs provide retailers with a high lumen output. For example - one 35 watt metal halide lamp puts out light equal to two, 100 watt halogen lamps. In addition, it renders color beautifully and makes merchandise sparkle, as incandescent and tungsten halogen do. While energy efficient, the metal halide lamp does require costly installation of special fixtures. When weighing the increased cost of metal halide fixtures, consider the fact that the lamp life is longer than incandescent or tungsten halogen - 10,000 hours versus 3,000 hours.

If metal halide lighting is not in your budget this year, there are cheaper lighting alternatives. The most common lighting in all retail spaces is fluorescent. However, there have been a number of developments that you should consider when next you are ordering bulbs for your fluorescent fixtures, if you are relighting your existing store, or if you are lighting a new store. Fluorescent light fixtures put out a flat, overall light with no sparkle. However, they last a long while and are inexpensive to relamp. They are an excellent, cost effective way to light a store, but they do not highlight any merchandise. Fluorescent lighting has come a long way in the last three years. A retailer should take into account the following points for lighting with fluorescent in the late 1990s.

1. Environmental friendliness
Fluorescent lamps are made with mercury, a heavy metal. Introducing mercury into our waste stream damages our eco-system. However, the major lamp manufacturers have made a concerted effort to reduce the amount of mercury in the new fluorescent lamps. You can identify eco-friendly fluorescent lamps by their green, rather than silver, ends.

2. Light output
Inexpensive, standard fluorescent lamps, either Warm White or Cool White are most commonly used. However, for very little additional money per bulb, retailers can change to Specification Grade fluorescent lamps which put out more light for the same wattage than the standard bulbs.

3. Color rendition
One of the problems with fluorescent is that it tends to distort the colors of merchandise, compared with daylight, incandescent (the type of lighting we have at home) or tungsten halogen. However, both the Specification Grade and, the even better Professional Grade, fluorescent lamps greatly improve the color rendition of merchandise. Both grades of lamps come in different color temperatures: 2700K closely resembles incandescent; 3000K improves color rendition; 3500K greatly improves color rendition and makes customers look good; 4100K renders color well and gives a cool, disciplined look; and 5000K has a color similar to the sun at noon and has a definite blue-white cast.

4. Light fixtures
In addition to the improvement of the quality and quantity of light output by fluorescent, compact fluorescent can be used in downlight (can) configurations rather than square or rectangular light fixtures. This is a better quality look but does not compromise the energy efficiency and long lamp life of using fluorescent. If you are designing a new store, consider that you should use as few bulb types as possible, to make stocking of replacement lamps more cost effective and make sure that the replacing of lamps is easy since most retailers have a staff member do the relamping.

Ruth Mellergaard, FIIDA, ASID, FISP, President, is certified by the National Council for Interior Design Qualification (NCIDQ) and is President of the New York Chapter of IIDA (International Interior Design Association).