Shopping During the Week? Background Music May Get You to Spend More

Does background music encourage customers to buy more goods? Perhaps, but it depends on what day it is.

In a study based on three supermarkets in Sweden, researchers showed that background music did boost customer spending—but only Monday through Thursday.

The researchers looked at three supermarkets in Stockholm serving in total about 150,000 customers over three weeks, during which the stores switched between playing popular songs or elevator music in the background, or playing no music at all.

The type of music didn’t make a difference on purchases. But Monday through Thursday, music encouraged customers to spend more. In a follow-up experiment, the authors found that in one of those stores on weekdays, customers spent an average $23.31 per person for each excursion, compared with $14.96 when no music was playing.

On the weekends, however, the difference between having background music and no music wasn’t statistically significant.

Depleted customers

What explains the differences in shoppers’ behavior?

“On the weekdays, people tend to be more mentally and physically depleted,” says co-author Carl-Philip Ahlbom, a senior lecturer at the University of Bath’s School of Management in England. In such a state, he explains, shoppers tend to use intuitive processing, rather than active reasoning, making them more receptive to the relaxing effects of music. The music causes them to linger longer in the store, look more, and ultimately buy more items, he says.

To further test how music might affect the shopping experience, Ahlbom and his colleagues asked 600 people in the U.S. to imagine several activities that happen either on the weekend or weekday and how they felt during this activity. Then the participants were asked to specifically think about grocery shopping either on a weekday or weekend. Participants were shown an image of a shopping cart and then asked to select any item they would like to purchase from a list of 24 items. While selecting items, one-half of the participants heard music and one-half did not.

Effects of music

Afterward, the authors asked participants to rate, on a scale of one to seven, with one being “do not agree at all” and seven being “completely agree,” if they felt mentally tired, mentally worn out, stressed, anxious, happy, satisfied and excited. With seven reflecting the more positive feelings, participants who heard music on the weekdays scored 4.31 while participants who heard no music on the weekdays scored 3.96.

That is a statistically significant difference of 8.8%, says Ahlbom. There was no significant statistical difference for the two participant groups—those hearing and those not hearing music—while shopping on the weekends.

The idea, says Ahlbom, is that music makes people feel better when they are depleted and often encourages them to continue shopping. But when people are already relaxed, as they tend to be on the weekend, music has much less of an effect. “They don’t need to take the mental shortcut.”

China’s securities regulator is ramping up support for the country’s embattled equities markets, announcing measures to funnel capital into Chinese stocks.

The aim: to draw in more medium to long-term investment from major funds and insurers and steady the equities market.

The latest round of policy boosts comes as Chinese stocks start the year on a soft note, with investors reluctant to add exposure to the market amid lingering economic woes at home and worries about potential tariffs by U.S. President Trump. Sharply higher tariffs on Chinese exports would threaten what has been one of the sole bright spots for the economy over the past year.

Thursday’s announcement builds on a raft of support from regulators and the central bank, as officials vow to get the economy back on track and markets humming again.

State-owned insurers and mutual funds are expected to play a pivotal role in the process of stabilizing the stock market, financial regulators led by the China Securities Regulatory Commission and the Ministry of Finance said at a press briefing.

Insurers will be encouraged to invest 30% of their annual premiums earning from new policies into China’s A-shares market, said Xiao Yuanqi, vice minister at the National Financial Regulatory Administration.

At least 100 billion yuan, equivalent to $13.75 billion, of insurance funds will be invested in stocks in a pilot program in the first six months of the year, the regulators said. Half of that amount is due to be approved before the Lunar New Year holiday starting next week.

China’s central bank chimed in with some support for the stock market too, saying at the press conference that it will continue to lower requirements for companies to get loans for stock buybacks. It will also increase the scale of liquidity tools to support stock buyback “at the proper time.”

That comes after People’s Bank of China in October announced a program aiming to inject around 800 billion yuan into the stock market, including a relending program for financial firms to borrow from the PBOC to acquire shares.

Thursday’s news helped buoy benchmark indexes in mainland China, with insurance stocks leading the gains. The Shanghai Composite Index was up 1.0% at the midday break, extending opening gains. Among insurers, Ping An Insurance advanced 3.1% and China Pacific Insurance added 3.0%.

Kai Wang, Asia equity market strategist at Morningstar, thinks the latest moves could encourage investment in some of China’s bigger listed companies.

“Funds could end up increasing positions towards less volatile, larger domestic companies. This could end up benefiting some of the large-cap names we cover such as [Kweichow] Moutai or high-dividend stocks,” Wang said.

Shares in Moutai, China’s most valuable liquor brand, were last trading flat.

The moves build on past efforts to inject more liquidity into the market and encourage investment flows.

Earlier this month, the country’s securities regulator said it will work with PBOC to enhance the effectiveness of monetary policy tools and strengthen market-stabilization mechanisms. That followed a slew of other measures introduced last year, including the relaxation of investment restrictions to draw in more foreign participation in the A-share market.

So far, the measures have had some positive effects on equities, but analysts say more stimulus is needed to revive investor confidence in the economy.

Prior enthusiasm for support measures has hardly been enduring, with confidence easily shaken by weak economic data or disappointment over a lack of details on stimulus pledges. It remains to be seen how long the latest market cheer will last.

Mainland markets will be closed for the Lunar New Year holiday from Jan. 28 to Feb. 4.

Shopping During the Week? Background Music May Get You to Spend More

A study finds that music can add to sales—but not on weekends

Depleted customers

Effects of music

The latest round of policy boosts comes as stocks start the year on a soft note