From the Top 11
Cool customers and hot cakes O
Ian Carroll, Fujitsu sales and marketing director talks about retail display.
NE OF THE features in this issue is retail display, a topic that
the refrigeration side of our industry usually keeps to itself, but we are talking to more and more retailers that are looking at their air conditioning as something that is just as important when it comes to what they offer their customers.
While air conditioning can heat any size of sales floor more economically than other types of central heating, it is cooling that is driving interest at the moment.
We are now in winter, but think back to last summer and remember how hot buildings without air conditioning were. I remember going into one shop and being hit by so much heat, I had to go straight back out again – and I wasn’t alone. Shops, restaurants and pubs have even more problems with heat than other buildings.
Restaurants and pubs have kitchens that generate heat and convenience stores and smaller supermarkets have freezers and refrigerated display cabinets that often discard waste heat directly onto the sales floor. So, on a sunny day, when the refrigeration equipment is working hard to keep food fresh or frozen, even more heat is being pumped into an already hot shop.
On top of this, the average human being gives off the same heat as an old fashioned 100W light bulb, so having ten people in a shop at one time, is the equivalent of having a one bar electric fire in the shop and 50 in a pub in the evening is the equivalent of 5kW of heating.
This is one of the reasons heat pump air conditioning is a popular option for pubs, as they often need heating early in the evening and need to
switch seamlessly to cooling later on.
The only thing that can deal with this efficiently is air conditioning on cooling cycle. Some larger shops, of course, use this waste heat to warm other areas or provide hot water, but this is rarely an option for smaller outlets and most larger stores at the moment.
All retailers will tell you that the longer customers spend on their premises, the more of their stock they will buy. The more comfortable the consumer feels in the outlet’s environment, the more time they will spend there. This can be affected by all sorts of factors, such as lighting, music, decoration, staff attitude and so on, but studies have shown that being at an ideal temperature is a key factor.
Not only do people spend more time on the premises,
but they are more likely to be in a frame of mind to make the decision to buy and everything goes like hot cakes. For this reason we are finding retailers are taking their building air conditioning much more seriously, talking to us about ways of control and asking some challenging questions of manufacturers, which we are happy to answer. So while you are reading about keeping produce at the right temperature, don’t forget about keeping customers comfortable. Agree, disagree? Let us know by emailing
fromthetop@datateam.co.uk
Advanced Engineering
Visit ACR News online at
www.acr-news.com ACR News February 2015
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