Lighten Up – technology will show you the way.

Retail petroleum/c-store/carwash sites are right on the edge of becoming the new wave of new product and technology access to a large cross section of active consumers. I know this to be true as I saw this fall’s line up of new TV shows and numerous re-makes from the old days.

I don’t have a lot of time for TV but one that caught my eye coming back this fall is the Jetson’s. Many of you may not even remember this space age cartoon, or have ever heard of it, but it was full of pie in the sky unique ideas, concepts and created products and technology that we would never see in our lifetime – problem is all this is now real and passing us even faster.

You can relate this to your own retail petro/c-store carwash site or business and really give yourself a complete reality check as to why you are outdated.

So let’s take a quick overview for the lighting, image and signage on any given site and why all these technologies should all be state-of-the-art products already on your site.

Many years ago, when LED first hit the market everyone rushed to get their canopies re-lit with pure almost white light greatly impacting the look of their site while realizing large reductions in hydro.

It was here interior/exterior image programs started as once you begin to light your space better, than the space being lit better looks great!

New illuminated LED Edge lit and backlit signage with changeable graphics begin to bring new excitement to the entire look of your c-store location, allowing you quick graphic changes and flexibility of advertised products.

Of course, by now, all lighting/signage options had to be entertained as sites began to grow in size with modern lines and now the site lighting, wall packs and floods, carwash lighting and the interior c-store all needed drastic overhauls being so far behind colourful temperature and design criteria rapidly being used in the marketplace.

Once again LED lighting technology took over with thinner profiles for pole mount lighting and wall mounts on c-stores and carwashes and all new weatherproof interior fixtures appeared, which could quickly illuminate a carwash tunnel to a new daytime lighting effect at night. Exciting colour changing capabilities have now since been added allowing carwash operators to initiate wow factor colour changing venues within the carwash itself as the vehicle either sits or travels through the tunnel.

This type of out of the box thinking has resulted in c-store/carwash clients not only realizing a plus 30 per cent increase in carwash sales but as well sales increases at the pumps and inside the store and now a very busy site!

Now then you may think you should be done and nothing else to pursue or take on for your dream site, brightly lit with great signage and graphics, special effects and more profit. But, are you technically media friendly? Do you have the latest technology in BLUE TOOTH, do you Tweet and Facebook? So, you have media devises in your location keeping up your clients with all the latest news and in store buying specials, do you have client reward programs, local community participation, and the list goes forever?

Fortunately, the good news to all these questions is yes there are solutions and technologies already available to keep you going forward in this exciting technological time. It will all be here sooner than you think and next time you doubt a new technology – again many years ago there was a cartoon called Dick Tracy, a pretty cool detective with a lot of fancy technology for the 50’s.

The one thing he had I knew we would never see was this detective wrist watch that you could talk into, see other people and send signals and messages – coolest thing ever – sorry got a call on my Apple watch. See Ya!

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Dave Bowen has been the national sales manager for Webco Lighting for 19 years, responsible for LSI LED lighting in petroleum, commercial, industrial and architectural products across Canada.