Music is well-known for its ability to affect our mood in a beneficial way. Its power to influence our behavior can be exploited inside stores as a way to improve marketing strategies. When selecting background music for stores, retailers need to bear in mind the fact that it can help them increase sales due to the influence it can have on customers’ purchasing decision.

Music proves to be very effective when there is a need to increase customer dwelling time and customer turnover rate. Background music has also strong influence on what products consumers buy and how much they’re willing to pay for them, experiments suggesting that specific musical genres could inoculate some concepts in a person’s memory, this being translated afterwards in purchasing behavior.

The rhythm of music and also its genre helps in creating an appealing atmosphere and it can help customers reduce stress and enjoy the experience of shopping to the right extent. This can influence not only customers, but the staff as well, for its ability to boost performance and create a cheerful working place. To synthetize, music affects the time, the speed and even the amount of money spent inside a store, showing benefits for customers, staff and sales as well.

The Benefits Of Background Music In Retail

Piano In A StoreBut the exact manner in which music can lead to an increase of sales is to be seen in the way in which stores adjust it to the type of store, type of customers, the time of the day, and so on. The following paragraphs will synthetize eight of the most amazing effects music can have on sales and the way in which stores can exploit the potential music has.

  1. Music relaxes customers and equilibrates the sense of time: shopping is seen as a relaxing experience and the way in which a store succeeds in providing an intriguing and appealing atmosphere for their customers is to be seen in the degree of interest they manifest for purchasing from the store. Relaxed customers will be willing to spend more time inside the store and also more money.
  2. Brands with music that ‘fits’ their brand identity are 96% likelier to prompt memory recall: being able to choose music that defines the marketing strategies makes customers create a strong and constant image about the brand, increasing brand awareness. Increased brand awareness is known to lead to increased sales, customers associating faster the need for a product with the right provider.
  3. Music can help in implementing cultural marketing strategies: experiments conducted in a UK wine store have proven the fact that, when playing stereotypically French music, sales of French wines outsold German wines and when they played German music, sales of German wine registered important growth. Another similar experiment on food proved that music influenced the choice of dishes from USA, China and India, based on listening to specific songs from these countries. When listening to American songs, customers were more likely to choose American special dishes and so on. Playing the right music when selling products from specific countries
  4. Shoppers make more impulsive purchases when they’re overstimulated: music, combined with exploiting the other senses inside the store, can help retailers create an appealing atmosphere that can draw in customers and make them purchase more. Overstimulation is a strategy directed solely to increasing sales.
  5. Adjusting the music at different times of the day can help customers get into the mood of shopping: retailers share their experience and state that morning music is about setting a positive mood and getting people excited about the day, and the best music to use is 80s, 90s, and contemporary songs. From 4pm onwards, some retailers use a mixture of abstract jazz to help reduce shopper anxiety. This is a strategy that could help increasing sales by adjusting the music to the customer’s mood throughout the day.
  6. Adjusting the music to the type of store could improve the effectiveness of the store: for example, using classical background music may give the illusion that the store is exclusive, with high-quality products. In high-end stores, classical music may develop a richer taste. The simple association of exquisite music with the right type of store / products renders the feeling of high-quality and leads to more sales. Studies have proven that classical music is associated with customers that show themselves ready to pay more for the same products than when other musical styles or no music are played.
  7. The right music can easily lead to an increase in the maximum prices consumers are prepared to pay: if the atmosphere is properly created to stimulate customers to purchase certain products and if the customers enjoy what they see inside the store and how they fell, they are more likely to pay for a higher price because they perceive it as being suitable and right. The way in which the store looks like has a strong impact on the way in which products are perceived. Stores that seem incongruent in their marketing strategies are more likely to see unsatisfied customers who will question the prices and the quality of the products.

Last But Not Least…

Music can help retailers adjust their marketing strategies when selling cultural or spiritual related products: when stores sale cultural and spiritual-oriented products, music can help them increase sales only by using items of that particular culture to enhance the visibility of the products. The simple association of music and the products of a certain spiritual or cultural community may render the impression of high-quality and genuine products. These kinds of products ask in particular a strong connection to the “world” they come from, a world that will increase their originality. When the atmosphere is set to create a certain mood, sales can register increases due to music’s potential to trigger purchasing behavior.