What Music Works Best For Retail Stores

As a retail store owner, providing your clients with a positive customer experience should always remain a top priority. This can be achieved by careful planning of all shopping details, including color-coding for ease of product identification, spacing, labeling, and one crucial yet often overlooked factor, music.

Music in the background of a retail store might seem unnecessary, but in reality, it is one of the key ingredients that make up a successful retail store. However, playing just any music won't work. To help you set the perfect ambiance in your retail store, we have provided some tips and tricks to help you choose the perfect songs.

Music In Retail Stores

Music is a big part of everyone’s life. It plays a significant role in improving our moods, reducing stress, improving cognitive function, and even providing comfort.

To many people, music is a support system. Hearing the right tunes can elicit different emotions and behaviors.

Music is used in many settings, one of which is in retail stores. Excellent background music is the lifeblood of a retail establishment. The proper mixture of tune and rhythm creates a wonderful shopping ambiance that helps shoppers enjoy their shopping experience.

Have you ever been in a retail store that played no music? If you have, you might agree that the silence in a store might be somewhat uncomfortable.

For years, scientific studies have continued to prove that music has a powerful psychological effect on people. Different music alters people’s moods, causing them to feel melancholy, happy, sad, and even motivated.

Music can be manipulated in diverse ways to affect people, and marketers are catching up to this fact. A research article even proves that some musical choices can produce specific buying behaviors in customers by eliciting memories and emotions.

To harness the power of music over shoppers, you need to understand how it works. Why should you play music? What kind of music should you play in your retail stores?

Why You Should Play Music In Your Retail Store

Playing music in your retail store might not seem important, but it can create an ambiance that contributes to the perfect customer experience.

According to several studies, music creates four typical psychological reactions, which are:

• Social: makes the listener think about self-expression and their role in the society
• Emotional: elicit a feeling of happiness, sadness, excitement, and the like.
• Cognitive: enables the listener to feel connected to or dissociated from the world.
• Arousal: the music excites the listener’s auditory sense and encourages them to act on this excitement.

This shows that the correct type of music can put customers in the right mood and provoke shopping reactions. Essentially, retail store music can be used as a tool to attract customers, influence their purchasing decisions, and increase sales.

Some benefits of music in a retail store include:

1. Create A Unique Brand Image

Like your logo and motto, your store music is an effective tool to set your brand apart from your competitors. Your choice of music can paint you in a unique light and communicate your brand personality with your clients and potential customers.

Music is as vital for building a brand image as any other retail component is. Do you want to portray yourself as a vibrant and edgy store? Or do your doors open to cater to families? Your retail store music is a great way to communicate it.

Many people often feel their environment by listening to the music oozing from your store speakers. The tempo, pitch, volume, and style of music you play is a dead giveaway of your brand image before your client even steps foot through the door.

Think about it. Will a kids’ wear store play hardcore metal electronic music? Or will they opt for kid-friendly and/or bubbly music?

The bottom line is music is an effective communicator. To make the most of this tool, you should never forget to match your brand personality with the music you play.

2. Build A Great Shopping Atmosphere

Building the right ambiance to complement your brand style is a great way to provide an incredible positive customer experience. This is important because the better the customer experience, the faster your retail store grows.

Playing the correct type of music goes a long way in creating the optimal shopping atmosphere. The music you play creates not only an ambiance but also changes your shopper’s mood.

3. Creates Privacy

Shopping in silence is an uncomfortable experience as you can always hear the next person talking. With no music to provide a backdrop and muffle the sounds of the other shoppers, you can hear everything from the cashier’s beep to a conversation coming from the next aisle.

Shopping in a retail store without a song to pleasantly mask the background noise can be an intrusive experience. There is no privacy as clients talk about the products in the aisle or make small talk with their companions.

This can leave clients dealing uncomfortable.

Playing music in your retail store not only provides customers with something interesting to listen to as they browse the shelves but also provides privacy as they shop. This increases their comfort and provides them with an enjoyable shopping experience.

4. Sets The Shopping Pace

The speed, rhythm, and volume of music played in retail stores play an important role in setting the pace and flow of customers in a retail store. With retail music, you have little control over how long a customer spends shopping in your store.

The effect of speed and rhythm is evident in many areas of our lives. When you are on a treadmill or out on a run, do you prefer fast-paced music or a slow crawl?

Studies have shown that music with a slower tempo played at a low volume has a leisurely effect on the shoppers. With this type of music playing, shoppers stroll in the aisles and take their time perusing the shelves or contemplating their options.

Slow music provides a soothing atmosphere. It allows customers to think about their purchases and encourages effective sales.

On the other hand, fast, loud, and energetic music encourages shoppers to move faster. It promotes quicker shopping and a quicker flow of traffic in the store.

5. Changes Customers’ Perception And Behavior

A study carried out to study the influence of music on shoppers indicated that music influences shoppers’ behavior. More directly, the study showed that different music genres, tempo, and volume generated different responses.

The genre and type of music affect a shopper’s perception of your retail store. This affects their behavior while shopping and sums up their experience with your brand.

This perception fuels the purchases your customers make. For example, playing classical music creates an ambiance of sophistication and high-end quality. This causes your customer to perceive your establishment as high-end and leads them to adjust their shopping behavior to suit this perception.

6. Reduces Waiting Time

No one likes to be kept waiting. Waiting can become frustrating and contribute to a negative shopping experience.

The longer a customer has to wait to complete their shopping, the more uncomfortable and unimpressed they are. This is significantly worse if there is no background noise to engage them and soothe their stress.

Playing music in the store provides engagement and contributes to a positive experience. With music playing in the background, customers waiting in line or waiting to be attended to by a staff member are less likely to be annoyed.

With their mind focused on the music playing in the background and off the amount of time they are kept waiting, customers have a shorter perception of time spent waiting. With the correct type of music, a half-hour wait time can feel like fifteen minutes.

Retail music is an effective tool that helps your customers wait longer without hurting their shopping experience.

7. Encourage Impulse Buying

The type of music you play enhances your customers’ sensory influences. It arouses them and influences what they choose to buy and at what price.

Playing great music in your retail store is an impressive way to encourage impulse purchases without regard for the price. This effect is often subconscious and triggers unplanned purchases.

8. Improve Staff Productivity

Great music in your retail store not only provokes positive behavior from your customers but also benefits the staff. Good music can be enjoyed by anyone, including workers in your retail store.

Great music improves staff concentration and mobility. It puts them in a good mood, encouraging them to work faster and approach every task with a positive attitude.

Choosing The Best Music For Your Retail Store

While music is great for retail stores, it is essential to note there is no one-size-fits-all approach to picking the best music for your retail establishment.

There are a lot of factors that go into picking the best music to add to your retail store playlist. These factors range from your store’s aesthetic to your target audience and brand personality.

All genres of songs are great as long as they are unintuitive and fit into your brand. To choose the best music for your retail brand:

1. Consider Your Audience

What age group is your target niche? What gender makes up the majority?

These are likely questions you should ask when carrying out an audience persona check to help you determine the best music for your store.

For example, your audience’s age group can hint at how loud the music should be. Most young adults prefer loud music; middle-aged adults like their music in the foreground where it isn't so loud to be intrusive but also not so low it can be ignored, while older adults like to listen to music in the background.

As a plus, it is essential to provide each customer group with familiar music.

2. Consider Your Product

What do you sell? What type of services and activities do you provide your consumers?

The type of music you play should be a direct reflection of what you provide.

If you sell the latest trendy urban fits for teens and young adults, your music should cater to this group of people. This will include playing genres like hip hop, rap, pop, jazz, and even country. Your best bet to playing impressive music will involve consulting the latest top 100 charts.

If your establishment offers sophisticated products and services like wine tastings, you want to select more sophisticated music. This might include jazz, blues, and classical music.

Choosing the wrong type of music for the incorrect product setting can be jarring and provide an unpleasant shopping experience.

3. Consider Your Business Goals

When choosing music for your retail store, you should also consider your business goals.

Do you want fast transactions that will get the traffic moving fast? Or do you aim for a more sensory experience with your customers lingering around to enjoy every bit of their stay?

If you want people to browse your products and make a purchase, you will need a different type of music from a brand that wants its clients to linger.

If you like fast transactions, your playlist should consist of fast and energetic songs. If you want slower transactions, you should settle for slower and calming songs.

4. Volume, Tempo, Tone, And Genre

People are different and enjoy their music differently. Some like it loud, some like it fast, and some like it relaxing. It is vital to study all the factors of your business before choosing to play music.

Loud music can lead to less time shopping in your retail store. There is, however, no proof that this harms sales.

Music on low volume helps your shoppers relax, enjoy, and appreciate the total shopping experience.

You can choose to adjust your volume to fit your traffic and the time of day. A higher volume is significant for rush hour, for example.

Tempo also plays an essential role in buying behaviors. Play slow music to convince your customers to spend more time in your establishment and fast music to decrease the time they spend shopping.

The lifestyle your brand tries to portray often determines the genre that works for your business. This will create a unique brand image that lures people in to make purchases.

Always remember to choose a sound that matches the experience you wish to provide.

Tips To Choose The Right Music For Your Store

Music as a part of your brand strategy can make or break your business. Here are some tips and tricks to help you discover the potential music offers and make the most of this opportunity.

• Play music that matches your brand.
• Always plan your music carefully.
• Create a playlist for different days and different times during the day.
• Update your playlist regularly.
• It's not your playlist. Don't choose music only you will like to hear.
• Always regulate your music to fit your traffic.

Choosing The Best Retail Store Music With Loop TV

There is no formula to choosing the best music for your retail store. To make it work, you have to determine what works for your brand and target customers.

Before blasting your speakers, you must make sure you are not breaking any regulations or licensing rules. This will help you avoid paying a heavy fine.

Getting music for your retail store doesn't always have to be expensive. Don't break your bank, get Loop TV instead.

Loop TV is a business TV content and signage service that provides a world of entertainment. With Loop TV, you gain access to over two hundred licensed channels of exciting, entertaining content, including music videos and audio.

With Loop TV, you can play music, display music videos, and carry out unique actions like creating a playlist for your business.