It runs in almost every store: background music that accompanies the shopping experience. Whether in the supermarket, fashion store or in restaurants, consumers are hardly safe from permanent sound reinforcement anywhere. The music is a marketing ploy used by companies to entice customers to make even more purchases.
The in-store radio provider musik2biz conducted a study on this to uncover how background music actually influences customers’ purchasing behavior. Most survey participants indicated that music makes the shopping experience more enjoyable, that background music lifts their spirits and makes them feel connected. But by no means everyone is enthusiastic about the acoustics in shops, some also see the continuous sound as annoying. And yet the positive consequences that music has for company sales outweigh the negative.
Fast music when there is a high density of visitors, slow music when there are few visitors
If the number of visitors in a store is high, customers buy less on average, according to an in-store music study by musik2biz. However, if fast music is playing, the effect is corrected and customers buy more again. With a high customer density, fast music is appropriate to drive the customer to buy more.
If there is little going on in the store, the music tends to be slower. This encourages customers to stay longer in the store and then shop more often. Slow music in the minor is also said to generate even higher sales than slow music in the major.
The junior professor for marketing and trade at the University of Cologne, Monika Imschloß, explained the same effect to the dpa. “You can achieve a lot with music. If you play slow music, people stay longer.” The sale of French wine can also be boosted, for example, by playing French music.
Own radio stations for instore music
It goes without saying that many shops take advantage of these effects to increase their sales. There are dedicated store radio stations that are tuned to influence customers with their music. For example, Radio POS, which, among other things, at obifood bowl or dikeman is played, or Echion, whose sounds are running at Real, IKEA, Kik and Tacco.
The aim of the radio station is always to strengthen customer loyalty. Among other things, Radio POS would like to increase the impulse to buy and the feeling of customers that they would like to come back. Echion is also committed to creating a positive atmosphere for customers. If it were quiet in the store, it tends to cause unrest and you feel more observed, quotes the dpa Stephan Dewes, program manager at Echion.
create a feel-good atmosphere
Also rewe has its own radio station – Radio Max – which not only runs in the Rewe and Penny branches, but is also played at other retailers. Program Director Claudia Herbst says that shopping is often a hectic affair. That’s why you have to “pick up and slow down the customer – create a feel-good atmosphere”.
In addition, additional purchase impulses could be set in the supermarket radio by advertising sequences, whereby sales could be increased by an average of 25 percent, Herbst explained to the dpa.
Whether you like it as a customer or not, you can never completely avoid music in shops. Incidentally, by far not all supermarkets try to ensnare shoppers with music: At Aldi and Lidl, there is silence in the aisles.
Editorial office finanzen.net
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