Investigating the Effect of Background Music on the Intention to Buy through Stimulation, Joy, Trust, and the Moderating Product Level

Abstract

Objective Most of the experts in marketing consider the market (store) environment as an effective factor to attract customers which is used as a strategy to create a pleasant purchasing experience for the customers and influence the consumers’ behavior. Nowadays, hypermarkets pay more attention to the custormers’ comfort while purchasing and try to use a variety of strategies, nice background music or good smell in the market, to make the customers stay longer in there. Intention to buy can be affected by many factors like background music, stimulation and joy, trust and the products level. Music refers to the ability to conbey feeling through sounds that can help relies your feeling or thoughts and to show your inner characteristic. Hence, playing music can help keep the customer in the market for longer which may be effective in their purchasing intention. The main goal of the present study is to evaluate the role of background music on the customers’ intention to buy considering the intervening variables like stimulation, joy, trust and the determining variable of products level. Methodology This is a practical study in nature and is considered as a causal descriptive survey. The statistical population includes all customers of the 5 branches of Ofogh Kourosh Hypermarkets in Gorgan during the first four month in 2017. According to Cochran formula, a sample size of 420 were selected and 384 questionnaire were collected at the end. SPSS and structural equation modeling (SEM) through Smart PLS were run to analyze the data. Findings The findings of the study showed that background music positively affects customers’ stimulation. Besides, such stimulation influences the customers’ purchasing joy. The joy positively affects the formation of trust among the customers. The joy and the trust can both have a positive role in the customers’ intention to buy. Finally, product level keeps a balance on the purchasing joy among the customers. Conclusion Music distinguished features have remarkable effects on people’s feelings and perceptions. Happy music can help create a joyful marketing environment for the customers. Low tempo music can convey mild thoughts and feeling to the customers, while high tempo music raises their excitement. Such stimulation can lead to a more pleasant purchasing experience. An appropriate marketing environment will increase the joy of the customers. New and simple designs can help customers enjoy the products more and can lead to a bigger trust. The trust helps customers make easier decisions while purchasing. The intention to buy can be estimated through perceptions and norms of a society. Joy and trust can lead to the intention to buy. A desirable environment may increase the customers’ joy which can result in a bigger customer population in future through word of mouth advertisement. Interesting and joyful products will create good feeling among the customers leading to an intention to buy. If you can stimulate purchasing joyful products, the customers will play around the environment which may result in the purchasing of unnecessary products. However, if the customers try to purchase based on the benefits and their needs, they consider the cost-benefit of the products and may lead to an economical purchasing after all.

Keywords

• Arousal
• Background music
• Pleasure
• Purchase intention
• Trust