💡 Hey brick-and-mortar, can you turn off the light please?

5 min read

Most of us have grown up with the bright lights of brick-and-mortar stores lighting up the city sky, from our favorite sneaker stores to the convenience store down the road. It used to be a normal sight, from the brass oil lamp in Victorian-era London to neon lights of modern age Tokyo.

This all changed in 2020. When cities are on full lockdown during the pandemic, it was an eery and strange sight to see rows of stores with no customers but full blaring lights every night.

As in the movie “I am Legend” or a shopping mall in Chernobyl, it seems like these stores are left in a hurry with the lights on. Some of the stores even still have their TV on with a running advertisement, imagine all the energy wasted down the drain!

Lights off and get the likes

Traditionally, businesses used their strategically located stores as a marketing tool. But let's be honest here, will you be more attracted to buy that shoes because of the creepy mannequin or from a sexy influencer in tik tok.

As customers, we have leapfrogged to the digital age, however, it seems that some businesses are still left romanticizing the physical space. According to Shopify, retailers spent $20 billion on energy each year.

That is equivalent to 10 billion clicks on Facebook ads to keep the millennial busy buying that extra pair. I doubt that whatever shiny signs they put on the stores, it won't give us as much dopamine hit as our mobile phone screen.

Eco stores paradox

A lot of the big brands nowadays have been pushing their sustainability agenda to create the so-called Eco stores, or more environmentally friendly stores which adopt the state of the art efficient energy management, recycled materials, and air purifier indoor plants.

According to an article that lists the initiatives from our most beloved high street stores, some brands have claimed to use 100% renewable energy, reduce water consumption up to 50%, and reduce their energy cost by 20%.

Yes, this might be better than the normal conventional stores that our grandparents used to take us to. But why can't they just turn off the lights at night and keep the street romantically dimmed?

If candle lights are still our main source of lights, of course, no one would leave it alight and risk burning the premise to the ground.

Now what?

Well unlike the typical clickbait news shared in the family WhatsApp group, this article will not propose or even promise any shortcut solution. We all should step back and move away from accepting the status quo.

This is not a consumption problem (well it could be one for a shopaholic), it is a design problem. Stores and their bright lights are designed more than a hundred years ago to catch the attention of the pedestrians strolling down the street.

As our old habit of “window shopping” has changed to “browser hopping”, businesses and urban planners alike should reconsider how our city and street malls are designed. It should even be illegal to keep the lights on after store opening hours, just like our mom used to shout when we sleep with the lights on.

Next time you walk around the city on a night out, take a look around and count how many empty stores left their lights on. On the way home after a few beers, also count how many houses left their light on.

Don't be surprised by what you find out, sleep tight and switch off the light!

This article is just a result of me observing the asymmetries of daily lives. Keep walking, live happily, and leave no trace behind.