Lighting retrofit in retail environments is essential and is often necessitated in order to improve the retail atmosphere, increase energy efficiency and provide visual comfort conditions. This study introduces the lighting design criteria for retail environments in terms of visual comfort conditions and lighting energy efficiency and investigates a retail lighting retrofit application on the example of a department store. Several lighting system design alternatives including diverse lighting technologies are assessed in terms of visual comfort conditions and lighting energy efficiency. Obtained results emphasize that without compromising visual comfort conditions in retail environments, it is possible to obtain significant lighting energy consumption on an annual basis. This study clearly underlines the importance of a proper lighting retrofit project in terms of providing visual comfort conditions and lighting energy efficiency.