Effects of music in service environments: a field study

Abstract

Reports the findings of a controlled field study examining the effects of background music on shopping behavior in a traditional service environment: a supermarket. Finds that musical preference influenced both the amount of time and money shoppers spent in the service environment, although musical tempo and volume had no observable effects. Provides additional insight into the effects of background music on shopping behavior as well as some important considerations for the design of retail and service environments and ambience.

Are Risk-Preferences Dynamic? Within-Subject Variation in Risk-Taking as a Function of Background Music

“…Some earlier evidence on the effect of music could also be interpreted as being supportive of this idea. Herrington and Capella (1996) find that people spend more time and money in a supermarket when the background music conforms to their musical taste. Other studies find some evidence that classical music leads to higher sales in restaurants (North and Hargreaves, 1998;North, Shilcock, and Hargreaves, 2003).…”

Investigation of Mall Atmosphere in Experiential Shopping During Holiday Season: A case of Malaysian Shopping Malls

“…Moreover, Yalch and Spangenberg (1988) stated that younger shoppers who were exposed to the background music tend to spend more time to shop while older shoppers showed similar tendency in the presence of foreground music. Milliman (1986) discovered that the behaviour of patrons were affected by soothing background music whereby patrons are likely to spend more time in the restaurant in the presence of slow-tempo music whilst Herrington's (1996) research study provided that the customers' music preference regardless of the music tempo and/or volume also played an important role to influence the amount of time customers spent in the supermarket. Music ambience was found to affect consumers' behaviour from previous researches.…”

Effect of Store Atmosphere on Consumer Purchase Intention

“…Music generally influences positively while fast tempo music mediates influence on the shopper's perception of the mall (Michon & Chebat, 2004). Music has a constructive impact on the customers' sum of time and money spent due to good environment (Herrington, 1996). H2: Music has significant impact on purchase intention of consumers.…”