I remember when I was a kid, seeing random light fixtures being in stores.

Either in Dollar General or Family Dollar store, I once saw a porcelain ceiling socket on ceiling near the checkout counter, and I think it had a red incandescent bulb in it. It wasn’t turned on.

I believe it was Winn Dixie, that there would sometimes be a wall mounted fixture near the customer service desk. I think it was a brass finished fixture with one of those round smoked glass globes.

I think in another Winn Dixie I had seen one of those black plastic wall minted fixtures with a cylinder shade, mounted above the hallway at the back of the store.

I wonder what the purpose of these random lights was for? I haven’t notice them in places these days.

When I was a kid, HID lamps were very rare in stores, and most of the lighting was fluorescents. mainly F40T12.

One of the thrift stores I go to sometimes it lit with slimline strips with some of them being retrofitted and there's I think two keyless sockets that are mounted higher then the slimline strips. They're spread so far apart that I think they are night lights for the place, but they're on most of the time I go there. One has a daylight A19 "snowcone" LED and the other has a soft white BR38 CFL that has interestingly gone mercury starved recently.

I remember IKEA stores used to have random fluorescent fixtures high up on the ceiling, that aren't used when the regular lighting is used. I think they were used for night lighting.

One of the malls here have turret strips hidden away that are used for emergency lighting. They were T12 until only as few years ago, and apparently were never relamped as they had GE F40 Mainlighter lamps in them until they got LEDized.

There is a stationary shop near me which has 2x36w t8 fluorescents on the ~15m high ceiling. I believe that they are for emergency lighting though they are sometimes lit.

I have memories of stuff like this too, just random, abandoned lights sitting there for decades