OCTANE EXCLUSIVE: Lighting the way to increased traffic at the forecourt and car wash
Some people don’t think too much about the lighting that goes into their forecourt or car wash. Most are satisfied if the lighting provides adequate illumination at a reasonable cost.
However, G&G Industrial Lighting’s director of marketing, Erin Noonan, believes that is a mistake. Lighting provides more than illumination. When the right lighting is chosen that lighting can help a car wash operation and a gas station increase traffic to their operations and increase profits.
The case for car wash lighting
Take the car wash as an example. Noonan says that most car wash operations, if they are not standalone operations, are often tucked somewhere behind a gas station or convenience store operation. In most instances, nothing is done to make the car wash itself stand out to a customer who is either coming to the location to purchase gasoline or to use the convenience store.
That is why over the years car wash operators have approached G&G Industrial Lighting to incorporate more dynamic and colourful lighting to make the car wash stand out.
“[Dynamic] car wash lighting is by far the simplest, easiest and most impactful thing that a car wash can do to differentiate themselves,” Noonan says. “As an example, you can use customized lighting inside the car wash that differentiates the different functions of the wash cycle to the customer as they go through the wash. You can say use one colour in the prep area of the wash and another as the foam is being applied to the vehicle and another as the wash is happening, and another colour for when the car is done being washed and is being dried and to tell the customer to begin moving out of the car wash. There is a lot you can do with lighting, and we realized that there was a specific need in the marketplace for operators to be noticed, to help differentiate themselves from the competition and to create a unique customer experience that helps build repeat business.”
G&G Industrial lighting has several lighting technologies for car washes. One is its Edge: Outdoor Color LED Luminaire technology can be used on a car wash exterior to create dynamic and changing colour schemes using a ColorWash app, allowing the car wash—or even convenience store exterior—to stand out at night. The RGBW Harsh Environment LED Luminaire is a full-spectrum light system made to be used inside the car wash during operations so the operator can create customized lighting for the interior and light shows to enhance the customer experience.
“Conventional light sources in the past typically used aluminum cast iron housing and plastic lenses,” Noonan says. “Those are the ones you often see with moisture inside over time and if you try to put that in a car wash, they won’t last very long. The lens is going to crack, the plastic housing will become brittle, and it will fall apart with all the chemicals used in a car wash. These new lights can take high temperatures, high pressures and you can put them right next to the water jets and sprays and they will survive making them ideal for car wash operations.”
Lighting the way at the forecourt
When it comes to forecourts, Noonan explains the trend over the last few years is towards LED fixtures. One reason is that LED lights, as compared to older technologies like incandescent bulbs, last far longer and can produce more light using less electricity.
“Say you are going from about 250 watts for one light bulb to 50 watts for an LED fixture that is going to last you four times as long, that is going to give you a huge savings on your electrical bill and add to that the lower maintenance and upkeep of the LED fixture,” Noonan says. “Another advantage is that today’s LEDs are brighter, produce a crisper and cleaner light.”
Proper illumination at night is crucial for bringing in business during the evenings. Noonan says that poor lighting of forecourts and car wash operations makes them unattractive to customers during evening hours. Customers will see the operations as less safe and tend to avoid them. Having proper lighting to illuminate the forecourt and to add colour to the car wash tends to put people at ease and encourages them to use the operations.
She says some studies find that with proper forecourt, car wash and convenience store lighting, there is a marked increase in sales, with some locations saying that improved lighting generated 70% more traffic at night, compared to locations that did not have strong lighting.
