By lifting shoppers’ spirits, in-store music has been shown to encourage higher basket spend among those who grocery shop Monday to Thursday, but it may have a detrimental effect at the weekend, according to research from the University of Bath’s School of Management.
Mentally-drained weekday supermarket shoppers who are cheered with a few tunes tend to scrutinise their purchases less, buy more, treat themselves to additional items, or upgrade to more premium purchases, researchers found.
However, the magic effect of music wears off by Friday when people are feeling happier and less depleted, so the way they make decisions alters. What’s more, playing music in-store over the weekend may actually cause stress to shoppers, resulting in them spending less, suggested Dr Carl-Philip Ahlbom from the University’s School of Management.
“During the week people are short of time and many get their grocery shopping done after a full day at work,” he said. “Pleasant music appears to have a mentally soothing effect which impacts the way people shop.
“At the weekend people are essentially happier, and so the positive power of music is less noticeable. In fact, playing music at the weekend may even mean people buy less, possibly because it’s an additional stressor in an already busy environment.”
In the first study to look at the impact of music on sales on different days of the week, the researchers interviewed supermarket industry executives and shoppers to gather information about consumer shopping habits and how they differ throughout the week, combined with field experiments carried out in a Swedish supermarket chain in Stockholm. They tracked purchases from 7am to 11pm, analysing sales of approximately 150,000 shopping trips.
Playlists were developed by a professional sound design agency that specialise in music for public spaces. A background playlist featured music without vocals, described as elevator music, while a foreground playlist featured songs popular at the time of the study, with vocals. There was no distinction found between the two types of music.
“The research points to a clear uplift in sales, with high returns on the relatively modest investments required to install in-store sound systems (approximately £12,000 per store in the study),” said Professor Jens Nordfält, co-director of the University’s Retail Lab.
“For retailers this could be an attractive investment to boost weekday marketing, but clearly they will need to look to other techniques to match the effect at the weekend, when consumers are feeling more energised and less susceptible to this particular strand of subconscious marketing.”
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