Have you ever walked into your favorite clothing store with the intention of buying those cool new sneakers you’ve been eyeing for a while, only to end up leaving with five shirts, two pairs of pants, a duffle bag, and some sunglasses? Perhaps once you get back in your car, you’ll realize that you forgot about the sneakers that you wanted entirely!

Don’t worry; you’re not alone, and you certainly don’t lack the self-discipline needed to prevent you from overspending in a store. In fact, recent studies tell us that the actual culprit behind this phenomenon is none other than the music playing in retail stores.

How often do you find yourself jamming to the background music playing in your favorite stores? It makes you want to stay for a few more minutes, and you just might find yourself picking up some extra things while you’re there.

Today, let’s discuss the impact of music on the brain and how businesses can utilize this information to ensure brand sustainability and customer satisfaction.

The Relationship between Music and the Brain

Thanks to technological advancements, our ability to understand how the brain functions has increased tremendously within the past few years. One of the coolest aspects is our ability to see how music affects the brain through something called functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), which “measures the brain’s activity by detecting changes associated with blood flow.”

Through this technology, researchers were able to provide evidence of how music affects our brains in various ways. One of the most significant findings was that music affects different areas of the brain, which prompted neuroscientists and psychologists to work hand in hand and use it as a form of therapy for people who suffer from mental illnesses.

In addition to its therapeutic capabilities, music has also been found to increase creativity, maintain a healthybrain through aging, and “reduce anxiety.”

How Does this Relate to the Music Playing in Retail Stores?

After realizing how big the psychological impact of music is, it’s time to look into how this plays a huge role in retail, thus, leading us back to the case scenario above. Now you can finally blame something else for your unhealthy buying habits, which in this case is actually music!

In one way or another, we’ve all criticized a venue’s choice of music at some point. Perhaps it was purely a conflict of musical tastes, but most, it actually has something to do with the psychological effects discussed above. As a matter of fact, people don’t have to be musical or scientific experts to understand that certain types of music don’t fit into a venue’s general style, which eventually drives them away from that place right onto the doorsteps of somewhere else that plays better-sounding music. As a business owner, music might be the last thing on your mind when it comes to marketing, but looking into the subconscious effect of music, it’s important to take into consideration how often people make choices based on their feelings and emotions.

Retail is obviously not an exception to this case. People generally like going shopping or visiting places where they feel happy and satisfied, and background music is such a crucial atmospheric factor that people don’t recognize very often.

As a Retailer/ Business Owner, How Can You Use this Information to Your Advantage?

Within the past few years, the world has witnessed a rapid technological advancement that allowed scientists and researchers to understand how background music affects customers’ emotions and feelings in the service industry.

Studies like these have allowed both background music providers and those in the service industry to understand the importance of music in these settings, but how can business owners utilize these statistics to increase their customer’s pending?

There are plenty of ways that business owners can increase their customer’s spending, and this article will discuss three main ways derived from the above-mentioned study:

1. Choose a music style that allows customers to linger in the store:

A lot of factors go into the planning of a brand image and identity, and music should be taken into consideration to ensure that it aligns with the overall identity you want to convey to your customers. At Naistro, one of our main goals is to maintain this alignment between our client’sbrands and the music they’re playing at their venues by conducting an environmental analysis on a regular basis.

The music style in the service environment plays a huge role in customers’ emotions and feelings. Therefore, it’s important to carefully choose the style that best represents the brand’s image while simultaneously ensuring that it keeps its customers in the store for longer. Studies have proven that familiar music can drive people out of the store faster, whereas unfamiliar music can keep them in for longer periods. Using this information, business owners can choose the music style that keeps customers at their venue longer, which in turn leads to increased spending.

Conclusively, studies have proven that background music can greatly impact consumerbehavior in the service industry. Not only does it affect their feelings, but it also impacts their spending behavior. Business owners can use the ways provided in these studies to increase customers’expenditure.

2. Focus on choosing the right music styles that create fun experiences

Understanding which music genre and style to choose from to create a comfortable shopping or dining experience for your customers should also be a priority. A recent study on retail background music shows that “the manipulation of music parameters, such as the genre, tempo, or rhythm, has been demonstrated to influence consumer expenditure, purchase choices, emotional responses to waiting times, overall evaluation of the establishment, and approach-avoidance behaviors.”

Moreover, studies have shown how music tempo can control customers spending, whereby increasing the tempo can lead customers to spend more. On the other hand, a slow tempo does the opposite.

Using this basis, we help our clients find the perfect playlist for their venues and keep them updated throughout the year with customized music choices or ready-made playlists tailored for all occasions.

3. Create an evaluation system that allows customers to assess the service

According to studies, when it comes to evaluation, “music can positively influence customers’experience.”This means that when customers are evaluating the overall service, music can largely influence their judgment. Therefore, business owners need to consider a customer evaluation system that includes background music for retails.

The Takeaway

Music plays a huge role in our daily lives, and retail is no different. Although we tend to think that music doesn’t really affect us, it has been scientifically shown and proven that music has various impacts on the human brain and overall health. These scientific findings can also be utilized by retailers to curate the best experience for their customers using the right background music.