What one change can make your front end instantly appealing, create a more welcoming environment for patients, improve staff satisfaction and save you money? Improving your store’s lighting.
Lighting influences what your patients buy, how long they stay in your store, and according to recent studies, it can even have an effect on prescription errors. Not to mention that less efficient lighting can be a silent drain on profits through wasted energy consumption.
If you are ready to reap the benefits of better lighting in your pharmacy, here are three quick tips to get started:
1. Go green
Remember when energy-saving bulbs meant harsh, unappealing light quality? Not so anymore. A new generation of “green” commercial lighting boasts light quality that rivals conventional options, with jaw-dropping life spans and a small fraction of the energy usage. Light-Emitting Diodes (LEDs) are leading the way in efficiency, but there are many other energy-saving options to chose from like CFLs and high-energy fluorescents.
2. Talk to a pro
Getting your lighting right is a job best left to the experts. A lighting specialist can perform an energy audit and suggest the best options for your business’s needs. Check with your local utility company or a professional lighting company in your area.
3. Seek out savings
There are lots of ways to save money on lighting retrofits and upgrades and see a return on investment in no time. Depending on the project, there are federal, state and local funding options available, as well as tax credits, financing and rebates. Check with your tax professional, local utility company, local chamber of commerce, or the Department of Energy for more information.
Lighting efficiency, in numbers
35% – The amount of electricity use that lighting accounts for in a typical commercial building.
90% – The amount of energy that a traditional incandescent bulb releases (meaning wastes) as heat.
$250 billion – The amount that could be saved if the U.S. switched entirely to Light-Emitting Diode (LED) lights—the most energy-efficient option on the market—over the next two decades.
Sources: Department of Energy, Energy Trust of Oregon
