Music is very important to retail for its ability to change one’s mood and behavior. This situation can be exploited inside stores with great benefits because it has an impact on how customers feel and how they perceive the environment or the products. Without music / sounds, visual perception is altered, a genuine experience being seriously damaged.

Information we get from the environment is less contrasting and less informative if sounds are missing. Generally speaking, music is used inside stores to set a tempo in order to encourage customers to walk through the store, to relax customers and make them feel comfortable during the process of purchasing, and to slow their sense of time so as to make sure they won’t feel stressed out or hurry for no reason. Music has an impact on time, the speed and on the amount of money people spend. So, when it comes to profit, you start creating marketing strategies that use this important tool!

We have already inferred some reasons for which music is important for retail stores. All its advantages are to be seen in the way in which stores succeed in providing a “five senses retail” strategy to improve the shopping experience for their customers, music influencing the purchasing decision and impulse buying.

In the following lines, we gathered some insightful information about the actual way in which music proves to be relevant for retail. The information varies from statistics to the real situations store owners have witnessed inside their stores when they applied strategies that are connected to music:

#1. Music and Brand Awareness

A brand that succeeds in adjusting its view and identity to the music inside the stores can prompt memory recall 90% times more than stores that play random music and don’t identify with a certain type of music to define their view. Brand awareness is strongly improved by ensuring a proper way to maintain a good image in the minds of the customers.

#2. Overstimulating Customers Through Retail Senses Strategy

Overstimulated customers prove to be more eager to buy unplanned things. Overstimulation can be achieved by combining visual effects with music and the right scents.

#3. Music and the Time of The Day

Music adjusted to the time of the day helps in stimulating customers. Morning music must set a positive mood and this is the place for some music from the 80s, 90s, or contemporary songs. From 4pm onwards some retailers play jazz to help reduce anxiety. Customers should be helped to get into the mood for shopping.

#4. Music and Customers’s Time Perception

Music has an impact on the way in which customers perceive time. When people stop thinking about time they are more relaxed and more prepared to enjoy the entire experience of shopping. Relaxed customers will be willing to spend more time inside the store and also more money.

#5. Music and the Cultural Point of View

Music can influence the attitude towards products that can be valorized from a cultural point of view. The best way to demonstrate the real impact of music is by providing the example of an experiment conducted in a UK wine store: when playing well-known French music, sales of French wines outsold German wines and when German music was on, sales of German wine increased.

Similar evidence is taken from an experiment on food: music influenced the choice of dishes from countries like USA, China and India. When listening to Indian songs, customers were more likely to choose Indian food and so on. Music is very important in choices that depend on the cultural background.

#6. Right Type of Music for Your Type of Customers

Music that is adjusted to the types of customers helps in creating the right atmosphere for shopping. An appropriate environment sets the right mood for shopping and helps in stimulating and energizing customers.

#7. Music That Fits the Type of Store Could Improve the Effectiveness of the Store

Store owners state that when using classical background music, the atmosphere gets a plus in terms of sophistication because it may give the illusion that the store is exclusive, with high-quality products. If classical music is played inside genuine high-end stores, music may develop a tendency for richer products as being perceived as the most valuable objects from that place. The simple association of refined and exquisite music with the space where it is played renders the feeling of high-quality and leads to more sales.

#8. Music and The Rule of Appropriateness

The right music can have an impact on the maximum prices consumers are prepared to pay when they enter a store. This fact is the result of a simple rule that is applied, that of appropriateness. If the atmosphere generates action and stimulates customers’ curiosity and desire to purchase, 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 the right one.

Nobody tells them, and they have no way of finding the right answer. The way you infer the right price for your products is by letting customers feel that the place itself is valuable. The layout of the store, along with the experience it provides, has a major impact on the way people perceive what you sell. Stores that look inappropriate and unable to define correctly their marketing strategies are more likely to witness unsatisfied customers that will always question the prices and the quality of the products.

#9. Music and the Culturally or Spiritually Related Products

Music is the perfect tool through which stores can be helped in selling cultural or spiritual related products. When stores sell cultural or spiritual-oriented products, music can help products define themselves in a way their visual aspects don’t. Music can be heard from afar, which can attract customers easier. Music can be seen as a plus for these products, another way of underlying their cultural identity.