Stores Are Using Music to Make You Spend More

Curated from: thinkgrowth.org

Ideas, facts & insights covering these topics:

Psychology

Music

Marketing & Sales

8 ideas

940 reads

Explore the World's Best Ideas

Join today and uncover 100+ curated journeys from 50+ topics. Unlock access to our mobile app with extensive features.

Stores use sights, smells, sounds, and other stimuli in combination to produce particular atmospheres
In some cases, the place itself is more influential than the product itself in the purchase decision
For example, to create an upscale atmosphere, a manager might choose classical music, subdued colors, elegant perfumes, cool temperatures, sparsely displayed merchandise, and low lighting

169 reads

The Ideal Volume

Music on top of noise is just more noise.
Shoppers tend to spend less time in the store when the music is loud, and more when it is soft.
There was no statistically significant difference in the amount of money customers spent in each of these scenarios.
Music volume only affected the amount of time people spent in stores, not sales volume. So if you manage a store with limited floorspace, or run a restaurant with limited seating, the strategic use of loud(er) music might help you better manage your customer flow.

140 reads

The tempo of a store’s background music can influence both the pace of customer traffic flow and sales volume.
Fast (uptempo) music makes people move more quickly through a store, and they end up buying less.
Slow (downtempo), on the other hand, leads to slower shoppers, which in turn leads to shoppers having more time to discover and interact with more products.

117 reads

You can fine-tune the background music of a store by paying attention to the modes of the songs you're playing.
The best tempo/mode combination for boosting sales at a supermarket: Downtempo and minor.
People buy more when there are slow sad songs playing in the background.

109 reads

Music is not simply a generic sonic mass, but a complex chemistry of controllable elements.
What works in one store might not work in another.
The genre of music you play might end up trumping all of the quantifiable characteristics of your store's ambience.

104 reads

Retail soundscapes consist of more than just music.
Stores engage in audio atmospherics which go beyond songs.
White noise is perhaps the most well-known variety of this non-musical background sound.
In office settings, the sound of people talking can be heard as well.
Natural sounds like birdsong and wind can be just as effective as white noise.

102 reads