How to Use Music to Increase Sales in Your Store

Written By Chris Le Roy

Many retailers in the western world only rely on one key sense when dealing with their customers and that is the sense of sight. How often do you go into a store and find a store to be visually attractive, yet your other four senses are either not stimulated or left disappointed.

One of the things retailers must remember is that every customer has five senses, sight, touch, taste, smell and hearing. Simply focusing on making a store visually attractive can in fact limit your selling capability and your turn over. One of the senses that can be stimulated to increase sales is the sense of sound.

Research throughout Europe and the United States has learned that certain types of music can influence a persons spending habits. For example, it has been shown in the past that if you play classical music in a wine cellar store you will find that your customers are more likely to purchase a higher priced wine product. Knowing this information can in fact help increase sales.

If you are playing music in your store at this immediate moment in time, watch the beat of the music. Focus groups found that if you play high beat music in a store then your customers are more likely to move around your store quickly and then leave, purchasing less. Where as when a slower beat music is played they are more likely to spend more time in your store and buy more.

This is a great exercise to try out in your store. The best time to try this is during a peak buying period when you have the maximum number of customers in your store. I recommend that you try this technique over a few different days so that if the impact is dramatic you don't severely affect your sales.

On the first day, make this your control day. Simply trade the day as you normally would. Make sure that you count the number of people who enter your stored during the day. At the end of the day, simply see what your total sales were.

On day two, play a fast beat music. Once again, count the number of people who came in your store during the day and then add up the total sales. On day three, play a slow beat music and follow the previous process.

For most stores, you will find that your sales will increase when you use the slow beat music. A few things to remember though, one, always ensure that the music is relevant for your market. For example if you were a surf store and your market was in the 14 to 25 bracket and you played Bach for your slow music, you will at a guess, have a bad sales day. You would be better off playing some slow beat music that is relevant to that age bracket.

The key to using music is to test and measure. Try out different types of music and then test to see whether your sales go up or down during the day. Once you have identified music that helps you increase sales, you can then identify another sense to further increase your daily sales.

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