Boutique Retailers Del Sol and Cariloha Select Energy Efficient Lighting

Boutique retailers Del Sol and Cariloha companies have selected Eco-Lite Products™, the country’s leading lighting manufacturer for jewelry stores, beauty salons, optical stores and other retail environments, as their lighting partners for their new and remodeled stores. Del Sol, a retailer of more than 20,000 skus of colorful tees, polos, shorts, sweat shirts, hooded zips that change color, has 128 stores with expansion to 155 planned over the next two years.

“At Del Sol, our customers know us for our color-change vibrancy. No other retailer has as many ink variations and such ink intensity—we literally have hundreds,” says Scott Brady, vice president of communications. Adds Jamie Seals, Del Sol store designer, “Because that color-change feature is so important to our customers, it’s vital that we display our merchandise in color-perfect lighting, and Eco-Lite Products is the first company to make that possible, creating the ideal, inviting, modern colorful environment that really makes our merchandise pop. In addition, it ensures that our customers look their best while trying on our merchandise,”

“Lighting is extremely important to us, not only for the visual merchandising benefits, but for its technical properties, as well,” say Brittany Braithewaite, Del Sol store design manager. “It’s critical that our lights protect our color-changing products within our store environment, so that they are not exposed to UV rays. We also want energy-efficient lighting that both helps the environment, while significantly decreasing our lighting bill every month. We turned to Eco-Lite Products not only for their high-quality, eco-friendly lighting solutions, but for their high level of customer service, as well.”

Del Sol’s sister company Cariloha, the first retailer of casual clothing, home goods, hand bags and jewelry made entirely from bamboo fabric, is also partnering with Eco-Lite Products. With thousands of skus, the company has seven stores with plans for 20 to 25 in the next two years.

“We looked for the perfect lighting to illuminate our all-bamboo stores and enhance our clean, organized, interactive and friendly environment,” says Sabrina Westbrook, director of Cariloha store design. “We want our stores to ‘sing’ with brightness, and Eco-Lite Products gives us that ‘WOW factor’ we were seeking. In addition, as an all-bamboo store, Eco-Lite Products fits our eco-friendly brand story perfectly with fixtures that have a longer life span and a lighting system that uses much less electricity and produces less heat every single month. As a result, what we save on lighting and cooling allows us to lower costs to end customers, while giving them a completely eco-friendly shopping experience Eco-Lite Products’ lights are very easy to install. The team has been very helpful. Hands down, they’re one of the best vendors we have ever worked with.”

In one success story, the company remodeled a store in St. Maarten and installed Eco-Lite Products’ lighting. Upon completion of the build-out, no one recognized the previously dark, dreary space. One customer said, “It’s as if the sunshine has been turned on.”

Says Howard Gurock, co-president of Eco-Lite Products, “Sabrina Westbrook, director of Cariloha store design, challenged us to create high-quality, high-powered lighting that not only used less energy than conventional retail store lighting but did not cause the colors in the clothes to activate inside the store. Del Sol has a unique patented process that causes clothing to change colors when exposed to the light from the sun. We created a special lens that prevented the clothing from changing colors indoors. Now, we are developing an LED light fixture that can perform just as well as the original light we created while saving even more energy. In the Cariloha stores, our expertise in color-perfect lighting helped us create lighting that enhanced the beauty of the clothing and other merchandise in those stores all while remaining eco-friendly, which is very important to the Cariloha and Del Sol brands.”

Adds Eco-Lite Products co-president Jeff Gasman, "Del Sol’s commitment to being eco-friendly is something that we also share, which is why we work so hard at creating energy efficient lighting that not only saves money via the reduction in electrical use but actually works in demanding retail environments. Huge energy reductions would be rendered worthless if the lighting used didn’t enhance what was being sold, which is why we produce lighting that accomplishes both.”


About Del Sol
Established in 1994, Del Sol combined science and sunshine to create the world’s first T-shirt that changes color in sunlight. Since then, Del Sol has grown to become the world’s largest retailer of merchandise that changes color in the sun, and the Caribbean’s largest clothing retailer. It’s also one of the most highly promoted merchants on board Royal Caribbean, Carnival, Princess, Disney, Celebrity and Norwegian Cruise Lines. Today, the company is soaking up the sun and sharing the fun in over 100 Del Sol stores in 21 countries. For more information about Del Sol’s culture, products and stores, visit http://www.delsol.com .

About Cariloha
Cariloha offers an exclusive line of bamboo clothing and textiles using its exclusive process for taking a hard bamboo and turning it into a soft, comfy T-shirt. As the store sales associates say: “Live Natural, Stay Cool—Wear Bamboo.” Cariloha’s aim is to give customers the opportunity— advertently or not—to keep the world green and clean. Visit http://www.cariloha.com/ .

About Eco-Lite
In 1980, Eco-Lite Products started making lights for jewelry stores—perhaps the most challenging of all retail environments. Today, the company is the leading supplier of energy-efficient, product-enhancing lighting to that marketplace, as well as to beauty salons, art galleries, eyewear retailers and other environments where perfect lighting is critical to the bottom line and eco-friendly practices translate into both good will and good business. To learn more, call 800-345-9652 or visit http://www.eco-lite.com .

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