FEATURE: SAFETY & SECURITY
SHINING A SPOTLIGHT ON SECURITY
A key feature in any property, outdoor lighting not only provides illumination after dark but is essential for enhancing safety, security and building design. With sky-high energy prices to contend with, as well as an ever-growing consciousness around environmental issues, the focus on creating energy efficient lighting installations is stronger than ever. In this article, Katie Georgeson from 4lite highlights the key products and technology retailers should stock to help customers achieve their goals.
with growth forecasts predicting a further 8% increase between 2023 and 2030. Fuelled largely by increasing demand for energy- efficient lighting systems, outdoor lighting is a significant revenue generator for retailers and should be well planned and considered.
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Energy efficiency In both re-fit and new-build scenarios, more and more of the customers we speak with are highlighting energy efficiency as their number one objective, aware of the huge financial and environmental savings it has to offer. If you consider that around 15% of a home’s energy use is spent on lighting and a modern lighting system has the potential to cut consumption by upto two-thirds, the potential savings are huge. With continual advances in technology and new product launches, knowing which products deliver the best results and how to sell them can be difficult. When creating your outdoor lighting range, we’d recommend ensuring that the collection is varied and that the products can be used for a variety of purposes across different outdoor locations. From wall lights and bi-directional fittings to floodlights, bollards and spikes, outdoor lighting designs will often require a number of different
18 DIY WEEK JUNE 2023
utdoor lighting is a key market for DIY retailers. Valued at over £12 billion globally, it shows no sign of slowing
products so that specific effects such as downlighting and uplighting, wall washing, grazing and silhouetting can be achieved. Festoon lighting is also a hugely popular option that is highly in demand. Providing an element of decoration as well as illumination, it is prevalent in gardens and outdoor space of all shapes and sizes, often strung on pergolas or trees or across fencing or walls. Decorative filament bulbs are also highly popular, adding further interest to light fittings and are proving an essential and rewarding addition to any garden lighting range.
Whichever products are chosen, ensuring they are LED is essential. LED bulbs are 80% more energy efficient than traditional lighting sources such as fluorescent and incandescent, offer better visibility and have a much longer lifespan. They are far kinder to the environment too, giving off no radiated heat or UV emissions and are highly durable making them ideal for use outdoors where they will be subjected to temperature changes and inclement weather. Solar powered lighting is another important category to consider. Environmentally friendly and free to run, they have the added appeal of quick, easy and cost-effective installation as there is no need for disruptive outdoor cabling or electrical wiring work to take place.
Smart lighting
For the ultimate in functionality and energy efficiency though,
smart lighting is hard to beat. Enabling every single detail to be programmed and automated, it ensures that energy is used only where and when it is needed. Ideal for outdoor lighting scenarios, consumers can ensure that the desired illumination switches on and off as daylight fades and breaks again. Smart lighting is also highly functional, allowing numerous luminaires to be linked together to create different scenes, groups and schedules and dictating elements such as colour and brightness. Retailers are able to create an extensive smart outdoor lighting offering as smart technology enabled products are now widely in production and cover every possible type of fitting required including bollards, wall lights and up-lights. This is an area in which manufacturers continue to focus new product development and innovation and choice is continually on the up.
Sales of smart home technology have grown by 22% in the last year alone, with three quarters of homes now owning at least one piece of smart home technology, according to research by GfK. Lighting is one area where demand for smart technology is increasing and presents a huge opportunity for revenue for retailers. Maximising the energy saving potential of a smart lighting system, there are a wide range of smart lighting products available that also have intuitive presence and absence detection sensors within them. Hugely effective as security lights or in outdoor spaces where lighting is required infrequently, they automatically reduce the amount of
time lights are on and the energy used.
Once retailers have developed their ranges, thought should also be given to how to sell such products. Consumer understanding of the technology and how to operate it is still relatively low so retailers seeking to maximise sales do need to invest resource into educating customers.
For example, research has told us that many consumers are intimidated by smart lighting and feel you have to be highly tech-savvy to install and operate it when the opposite is actually true.
Demonstration will prove to be an invaluable tool in this area and will allow customers to see how the technology works and its many benefits. Considering a smart lighting installation in store is a wise move and will enable retailers to showcase the functionality of the technology, fuelling understanding and awareness. It doesn’t have to be extensive, this can be done by simply installing a smart bulb in a wall light and connecting it to an app on a customer’s phone or by placing it on demo mode.
Brands such as ourselves provide lots of resources and support to retailers looking to sell their products which retailers should take advantage of. Training sessions and step by step set up videos, as well as point of sale displays to help merchandise energy efficient products are all available and can be used to enhance knowledge and awareness.
For more information, visit
www.4liteuk.com.
www.diyweek.net
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