Analyzing the Influence of Music on Consumer Purchasing Behaviour

This research proposal investigates the influence of music on consumer purchasing behavior in retail stores. It begins by establishing the significance of music as an environmental factor affecting consumer behavior, referencing the store environment framework encompassing design, social, and ...Read More

Running Head: Research Proposal 1
Research Proposal

Research Proposal 2
Contents
Research Title..................................................................................................................................3
Abstract............................................................................................................................................3
Introduction......................................................................................................................................4
Research Question and Objectives..................................................................................................5
Research questions.......................................................................................................................5
Research objectives......................................................................................................................5
Research Potential Contributions....................................................................................................5
Literature Review............................................................................................................................5
Research Approach......................................................................................................................7
Research Strategy.........................................................................................................................8
Research Design...........................................................................................................................8
Research Ethics............................................................................................................................9
Research Model and Hypothesis.....................................................................................................9
Time Plan.........................................................................................................................................9
References......................................................................................................................................12

Research Proposal 3
Research Title
An influence of music on purchasing behaviour of consumers in store
Abstract
Music is considered as the complex concept that has various aspects and all these aspects have
their own characteristics. It can be referred as the environmental factor that can lead to specific
behaviour. Bohl, (2012), proposed a framework that has integrative feature of store
environmental consequences. There are three factors that entail in the store environment such as
the design factor, the social factor and the ambient factor. It has been found that the impact of
these factors generate the internal responses on the cognitive, emotional as well as on
psychological level. These responses have the ability to lead to specific shopping behaviour with
some aspects such as inside or outside the store, immediate or lagged response and approach or
avoidance. The discussion is made on five aspects such as tempo, familiarity, likeability, volume
and style or genre. Loud music is an aspect that avoid behaviour, at the time of slow music
generates approaching behaviour. Style is the aspect that approach behaviour when it is
functional correctly.

Research Proposal 4
Introduction
The role of the music is important in every day’s life as an existence of music is not noticed by
everyone. Every scenes and dramas are covered with music to get attention of the viewers. Music
can be noticed in every occasion as it has been found that while walking in the city centre in
December, all we hear are Christmas songs. Music has the ability to affect huge range of people
as well as it can change the mood of people (Bohl, 2012). Stores are multifaceted settings where
customers have great experiences of an ample of motivation. A store has many departments and
an effective layout in which the width of the corridors, price information, scents, store employees
and the shelves with all kind of products. It is the major elements which stress endeavour to
impact the customer purchase behaviour.
The research will entail the research questions and objectives that help in determining the impact
of music on the purchase behaviour of the employee. Research potential contributions will be
discussed under this research so that the gap within the research and actual contribution can be
found. Literature review is the section that facilitates to bring better understanding about the
impact of customer behaviour on purchasing due to music. The discussion will be made by
taking help of number of articles, books and online sources. It is required for the research to
gather the data in an effective manner that is why research methodology will be helpful in
describing about the gathered data.

Research Proposal 5
Research Question and Objectives
Research questions
Q- What is the influence of music on purchasing behaviour of consumers in store?
Research objectives
 To determines the factors that associated with impact of music on sales amount.
 To estimate the gain in sales if the music type has effects on buyer behaviour.
Research Potential Contributions
Gaps
The role of the music is integral in affecting the consumer behaviour towards shopping.
Dominance shows the feeling of the consumer controlling as against to being influential as
opposed to influence. The research gap can be come when the focus of the researcher on the
types of music and it is necessary for the researcher o focus on the consumer behaviour. Instead
of developing number of studies on customer behaviour, there is not expanded growth in the
general theory regarding improvement in customer behaviour towards purchasing. Along with
that in the context of the potential gap, it can be said that limited journal article on the subject are
another barrier as it is bound and does not allowed going beyond the topic.
Actual contribution
After discussion about the potential gap, there would be lot of contribution of this research for
future as it helps in facilitating store to understand the view of the customers towards music and
purchasing. The role of the music in the store in order to get attention of the customers will be

Research Proposal 6
understood by many stores with the help of this study. This study will contribute in making
better understanding about the employee and they can increase the productivity of the employee
by playing best type of music which encourages them to stay with the store for a long time. It can
be said that it would be helpful in employee retention.
Literature Review
According to Morrison, Gan, Dubelaar&Oppewal,(2011), music is playing an integral role on
attracting number of customer towards buying. Store manager can remake the store
atmospherics’ and mood with the help of making changes in the music which should be played in
the store as per the profile of the store. The theme of the store can be judged with playing songs
over there. Music has significant role in attracting number of customers towards purchasing
(Turley & Milliman, 2000). Along with that incorporating appropriate music can change the
mood of the customer and motivate them. Appropriate music at right place can create and
reinforce the retail brand and can spread the word of mouth. Puccinelli, Goodstein, Grewal,
Price, Raghubir& Stewart, (2009), supports the argument and described that store environment
music influences on sensory experiences of shoppers. It has been suggested by the research that
the bonding between features of environmental music and both the perceived and actual amount
of time to dedicate to a task. It has been found that the quality and the feature of music are varied
as per the stores (Tan, Yowler, Super&Fratianne, 2012).
It has been analyzed that the dissatisfaction is another factor of the customers which can be
raised because of delaying in billing systems or rendering of services in store environment which
can be eliminated by manoeuvring the aspects of stores atmospherics which the store manager
can manage. Along with that it has been found that the aspects which arouse the emotions as well

Research Proposal 7
as the feelings of the customer and can be controlled by the store manager can be manoeuvred
which can weaken the dissatisfaction because of late and decrease the damage of waiting time on
the customers. Jang &Namkung, (2009), stated that amongst other things the role of the music is
huge which has the ability to manipulate by the employees of the store. It is required for the
manager and other employees of the store to be conscious while selecting the style of the music
from their marketing toolbox.
It has been found that the music has some certain aspects and kinds which can influence the
purchasing behaviour of the customer (Chang, Eckman& Yan, 2011). There are five kinds of
music which can be played by the stores to attract number of customer towards purchasing.
These are volume, tempo, familiarity, likeability and style or genre. In the context of volume, it
can be said that volume is one of the element of the music which can be evaluated by a number
of decibels. Tempo is the music that can be evaluated by beats per minute. It has been found that
it could not be possible to recognize the features of style or genre, but they can be elaborated in
some specific way (Mattila&Wirtz, 2008). Familiarity and likeability can be evaluated by taking
an example of Cameron. With respect to the Volume which is one of the aspects of music, it can
be stated that it has an objective measure in the relation of decibels; it encompasses a quite
subjective element of music (Leow, Rinchon&Grahn, 2015). It has been found that the volume
can be evaluated quite personal. It has been argued byAndersson, Kristensson,
Wästlund&Gustafsson, (2012), that it is not possible that everyone has same way of thinking
regarding music and same point of view, a music which is loud for someone else, could be nice
for others. It has apparent that background music should be quite as it helps in creating peace in
the mind. It has been analyzed that quite and slow music is played lower than 60 dba.

Research Proposal 8
In the term of musical terminology, it has been found that the tempo can be marked in Italian
markings such as dolce, presto or lento, but the main feature with this music is that it can be
measured by beats per minute (bpm). It has been found that the lower music come under music
with beats with lower than 72, on the other hand, music which beats per music is higher than 94
is considered as the higher music (Heung & Gu, 2012). Tempo is one of the aspects of music
which can be varied in comparison of original one.
With respect to the customer purchasing behaviour, the role of the volume has a significant
impact on the time spent in the store, but it cannot be considered on the sales or the reported
satisfaction of the customers (Jain & Bagdare, 2011). It has been found that the loud music while
working in the store can be the reason of feeling of longer time period. It can be anticipated that
this longer point of view of time can made consumers stay away, as it handles a lot of time to go
shopping, as it is easy to do shopping at one place instead of moving place to place for shopping
(Hsin Chang & Wen Chen, 2008). It has been found that purchasing at one place in one moment
will definitely lead to less expenditure; rather moving more often to a store also elaborates the
experience to all the enticement to but the products. It has been found that loud music can
distract customers and make them feel uncomfortable in an environment (Theodoridis &
Chatzipanagiotou, 2009).
Kim & Moon, (2009), shows that the speed of consumers was considerably slower at the time of
slow tempo music were played. It is cleared that slow tempo music can influence the pace of
customers in a store. It has been found that the slower music affect the power of purchasing
behaviour of customers. It has been found that the music from a specific country can facilitate to
purchase more products from that country. Regner&Barria, (2009), elaborated that strong links
with a country that is developed by hearing the music, leads to purchasing more wine from the

Research Proposal 9
same nation. It can be anticipated that this kind of activity would be facilitated in purchasing of
other product categories, as long as their link with a nation is decided by the customers. Visual
images can be recognized in faster way with the help of the classic as well as rock music (Lewis,
2015). It is the only reason why manufacturer use this kind of music while making
advertisements for their products. It has been assumed that the role of the music is huge in
searching particular products. For instance, when a consumer is searching for something to drink,
and the same song which is embedded in advertisement of drink plays in supermarket, it would
be easy for the customer to remember that what he wants in drink. That is why purchases can be
impacted by playing music that is linked with specific products. In the context of familiar music,
it has been found that when music is familiar to employees of a store, they can prefer to play
music again and again which can increase their productivity of working. On the other hand, it
can be possible that the employee (Inman, Winer& Ferraro, 2009).
Along with that it has been analyzed that the workers lean to perform in better way for their jobs
when they love the music that is being played in their surroundings. Employees of the store are
service oriented and if they like the music which is playing at the time of their working, they will
feel enthusiastic and perform in more efficient manner (Karageorghis, Jones, Priest, Akers, R. I.,
Clarke, Perry & Lim, 2011). It has been found that the better services have the ability to lead to a
better evaluation of the store. However, it is not easy to judge the like or dislike of the customers
and play as per their taste, but store should play a music with light sound and after analyzing the
trend which is going on that specific area (Jain &Bagdare, 2011).
Research Approach
It is necessary for the research project to select the research approach as it facilitates to justify
the opted research design and methods. With the help of the research approach, the data can be

Research Proposal 10
presented in more systematic manner. Inductive and deductive are two research approaches
which help researchers to rationalize the use of specific collection method for data and analysis
method for projects. It is vital for the researcher to have an effective knowledge regarding the
method in the research. Deductive research is considered as an appropriate approach with the
positivism philosophy while the relation of the interpretivism philosophy is connected with the
deductive approach. It has been evaluated that the deductive approach develops the hypothesis
for the research issue by taking help of various theories. It is required for the researcher to gather
various kinds of information as well as data for the purpose of rejecting and accepting the
hypothesis. On the other hand, the feature of inductive approach is to show the flexibility to
improve hypothesis regarding to the research concerns.
For this research paper, inductive approach will be taken into consideration over another
approach that is deductive approach as it helped the researcher to attain prejudiced knowledge on
the issue of the research. With the help of this approach, the researcher would be able to increase
the validity as well as the reliability of the results. Along with that the chosen approach would
facilitate to draw an effective conclusion to elaborate an influence of music on purchasing
behaviour of consumers in store.
Research Strategy
Research strategy is vital component which helps researches to explore the research concern by
providing the research questions in an effective ways (Lewis, 2015). Research would be able to
gather the information with the help of the research strategy as it would provide the background
information and evaluate this data in order to develop specific conclusion. There are various
research strategies which can be used by the researcher to attain the aims and objectives of this

Research Proposal 11
research paper. The research strategies for this research paper can be questionnaire, experiment,
case study, focused group, literature review and many more.
There are two research strategies such as interview and survey will be chosen to gather the
information regarding the research topic in which the researcher would be able to gather the
plenty of information as well as data regarding influence of music on purchasing behaviour of
consumers in store. With the help of survey strategy, the researcher would be able to gather
information in less time and cost that would be able to increase the reliability of the research
among the major stakeholders (He, Merz& Alden, 2008). On the other hand, by taking
consideration of the interview strategy, researcher would be able to meet with the participants in
personal way by which it would be easy to understand the individual’s perception regarding the
topic.
Research Design
There are two kinds of research design such as descriptive and exploratory research designs.
Both will be selected for this research paper because with the help of the exploratory research
design, the researcher would be able to accumulate the data in-depth manner regarding an
influence of music on purchasing behaviour of consumers in store. Conversely, the descriptive
design method is helpful in creating better understanding bout the features of the group as well as
individuals. Along with that these research designs would be able to gather the point of view as
well as the perception of participants, for the purpose of meeting the objectives of this research
paper.

Research Proposal 12
Research Ethics
In the research study, ethics represents the accomplishment of the tasks in ethic and valid way by
following the guidelines and privacy of participants. The researcher will take earlier appointment
of those who want to participate in the survey. With the help of this, the researcher would be
helpful to gather the information regarding the topic from the candidates in an effective manner.
Primary data will be collected by using the Survey research strategy in this research paper. This
kind of activity of the research will be supporting to maintain the effectiveness of the data in an
effective manner. Along with that the researcher would ensure that the personal information of
the participants would not be disclosed no matter what.
Research Model and Hypothesis
Research Model
Hypothesis
H0 The music can influence the customer purchasing behaviour in store.
H1 The music cannot influence the customer purchasing behaviour in store.

Research Proposal 13
Time Plan
S.
No.
Activities Time
frame
(week)
Descriptions
A Selection of topic 1 week Selection of the topic for demeanour the research.
B Planning of the
research
1 week It is the second step that entails the planning of the
research and this will be considered as the roadmap
as it guides the entire research.
C Execution of the
selected plan
3 weeks It is the carry forward step of previous step in which
the planning will be carrying which has been
developed in the second step.
D Selection of the
methods of data
collection
1 week The selection of the data will be considered under
this section in which the suitable approach will be
considered to gather the information regarding the
topic.
E Data analysis 1 Week It is the step in which the collected data will be
analyzed in proper and valuable way.

Research Proposal 14
F Discussion 1 week The data which is analyzed in previous step will be
elaborated in an effective manner to carry out the
answers to the selected questions of this research.
G Conclusion and
Recommendation
2 weeks As per data analysis as well as discussion, the
conclusion and the recommendations will be made.

Research Proposal 15
References
Andersson, P. K., Kristensson, P., Wästlund, E., &Gustafsson, A. (2012). Let the music play or
not: The influence of background music on consumer behavior. Journal of retailing and
consumer services, 19(6), 553-560.
Bohl, P. (2012). The effects of store atmosphere on shopping behaviour-A literature
review. Corvinus Marketing Tanulmányok, 2012(1).
Chang, H. J., Eckman, M., & Yan, R. N. (2011). Application of the Stimulus-Organism-
Response model to the retail environment: the role of hedonic motivation in impulse
buying behavior. The International Review of Retail, Distribution and Consumer
Research, 21(3), 233-249.
He, Y., Merz, M. A., & Alden, D. L. (2008). Diffusion of measurement invariance assessment in
cross-national empirical marketing research: perspectives from the literature and a survey
of researchers. Journal of International Marketing, 16(2), 64-83.
Heung, V. C., &Gu, T. (2012). Influence of restaurant atmospherics on patron satisfaction and
behavioral intentions. International Journal of Hospitality Management, 31(4), 1167-
1177.
Hsin Chang, H., & Wen Chen, S. (2008). The impact of online store environment cues on
purchase intention: Trust and perceived risk as a mediator. Online information
review, 32(6), 818-841.

Research Proposal 16
Inman, J. J., Winer, R. S., & Ferraro, R. (2009).The interplay among category characteristics,
customer characteristics, and customer activities on in-store decision making. Journal of
Marketing, 73(5), 19-29.
Jain, R., &Bagdare, S. (2011). Music and consumption experience: a review. International
Journal of Retail & Distribution Management, 39(4), 289-302.
Jain, R., &Bagdare, S. (2011). Music and consumption experience: a review. International
Journal of Retail & Distribution Management, 39(4), 289-302.
Jang, S. S., &Namkung, Y. (2009). Perceived quality, emotions, and behavioral intentions:
Application of an extended Mehrabian–Russell model to restaurants. Journal of Business
Research, 62(4), 451-460.
Karageorghis, C. I., Jones, L., Priest, D. L., Akers, R. I., Clarke, A., Perry, J. M., ...& Lim, H. B.
(2011). Revisiting the relationship between exercise heart rate and music tempo
preference. Research quarterly for exercise and sport, 82(2), 274-284.
Kim, W. G., & Moon, Y. J. (2009). Customers’ cognitive, emotional, and actionable response to
the servicescape: A test of the moderating effect of the restaurant type. International
journal of hospitality management, 28(1), 144-156.
Leow, L. A., Rinchon, C., &Grahn, J. (2015). Familiarity with music increases walking speed in
rhythmic auditory cuing. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1337(1), 53-61.
Lewis, S. (2015). Qualitative inquiry and research design: Choosing among five
approaches. Health promotion practice, 16(4), 473-475.

Research Proposal 17
Mattila, A. S., &Wirtz, J. (2008).The role of store environmental stimulation and social factors
on impulse purchasing. Journal of Services Marketing, 22(7), 562-567.
Morrison, M., Gan, S., Dubelaar, C., &Oppewal, H. (2011).In-store music and aroma influences
on shopper behavior and satisfaction. Journal of Business Research, 64(6), 558-564.
Puccinelli, N. M., Goodstein, R. C., Grewal, D., Price, R., Raghubir, P., & Stewart, D. (2009).
Customer experience management in retailing: understanding the buying process. Journal
of retailing, 85(1), 15-30.
Regner, T., &Barria, J. A. (2009). Do consumers pay voluntarily? The case of online
music. Journal of Economic Behavior& Organization, 71(2), 395-406.
Tan, X., Yowler, C. J., Super, D. M., &Fratianne, R. B. (2012). The interplay of preference,
familiarity and psychophysical properties in defining relaxation music. Journal of Music
Therapy, 49(2), 150-179.
Theodoridis, P. K., &Chatzipanagiotou, K. C. (2009).Store image attributes and customer
satisfaction across different customer profiles within the supermarket sector in
Greece. European Journal of Marketing, 43(5/6), 708-734.
Turley, L. W., & Milliman, R. E. (2000). Atmospheric effects on shopping behavior: a review of
the experimental evidence. Journal of business research, 49(2), 193-211.