LED combined with AI to create the best in-store lighting system

German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence; DFKI and the European Agency for Technology and Innovation (EIT) team up with a supermarket in Saarbrücken, Globus, Philips Lighting, and other companies to conduct pilot experiments to study how the differences in color lighting systems combination affect sales and customer behavior.

LED combined with AI to create the best in-store lighting system

In this experiment, the researchers spent two months testing different lighting conditions in the promotion display area of about 180 square meters in the supermarket (equipped with Philips StoreWise and LED lighting system). The researchers tested three settings: uniform overhead chandeliers in the store, general spotlights, and a combination of spotlights and soft-colored uplights.

The 58 spotlights used in the experiment enhanced the contrast and increased the color uplights (for the ceiling), thereby enhancing the appearance of the product, and also helping to distinguish the promotion area so that the product can be seen from a farther place to creates a unique atmosphere and changes the mood of shoppers.

Each light point in the lighting system can be independently controlled through the Philips StoreWise web application and can be individually adjusted according to color, brightness, and saturation. Sensors in the ceiling and 300 shopping carts are used to record the number of visitors and the time they spend in the area compared to the rest of the store. In addition, the researchers analyze the data to compare the sales figures and check the number of products purchased from this special lighting area.

According to this study, the most attractive setting for consumers is the use of spotlights with soft-colored uplights, which can help increase sales by 6% in the promotion zone. Compared with the standard lighting settings in the store, the same colored light set can create the best customer pause time for the promotion area, increasing the customer visit rate by about 15%. And just replacing traditional lighting fixtures with spotlights increased the customer visit rate by 7%.

“Using next-generation lighting systems like Philips StoreWise and indoor positioning systems, it is expected that retail stores can analyze in-store sales and traffic data in real-time, and adjust lighting conditions to optimize sales,” Gonneke, senior marketing director, Philips Lighting Gros said.

The result of this experiment in the Globus supermarket is to force stores to install StoreWise and LED lighting systems as soon as possible.