It’s long been established that music plays a large part in enhancing the retail store shopping experience. But that just leads to one crucial question: what should retail stores play? This is not a simple question at all, and in fact some retail stores even employ or contract professional DJs and playlist curators to create the ideal playlist for their shops. The fact that these stores are willing to pay top dollar for such services underscores its importance.
If you’re looking to create your own playlists, here are some tips that can help:
Create a Huge Playlist
What you need for your retail store playlist is a lot of variety, for many reasons. This means that there’s no chance that a customer will hear the same song in a single visit, or even when they come back on the next weekend. Hearing the same songs can be tiresome, which is why it’s never a good idea to just pipe in a local radio station. Most commercial radio stations these days only have a hundred or so songs in their daily playlists.
Having a huge playlist also provides relief for your retail store employees. They’re at the shop day in and day out, and pretty soon they’ll be hearing the same songs over and over again if the playlist isn’t varied enough. This will be bad for morale and worker productivity.
Pick Music that Reflects and Complements Your Brand Identity
Music can help define your brand, so you better make sure that the music you play reflects your products and your brand ideals. If you sell dainty feminine products, for example, then it doesn’t make sense to play angry masculine music.
So it’s not enough that you pick music your typical customer will like. You need music to help make your brand and your shop unique as well in the minds of your customers.
Consider Multiple Playlists
You may have different playlists for different days to reflect the different circumstances and the change in the makeup of your customers. For example, you may have a different playlist for weekday shoppers who may not have time to dawdle but would rather find what they’re looking for quickly. But you may want a different playlist during the weekends when people are more relaxed.
In fact, you may want to have different types of songs playing during different times of the day. You may play more upbeat music during the early afternoons to combat people’s midday blues (and the urge to nap after lunch). During the evening and the end of the day, you can play more soothing music for people who have had a busy day and who may want to just relax.
Get Feedback
Some shops use apps to get feedback from customers regarding the music they play in their shops. But you can always just conduct short surveys of your customers regarding their opinions on the music you play in your shop. You can then use their comments to further tweak your playlist to make them more effective in providing a better retail shopping experience for your customers.
