Managerial practices and perception of how music affects customers’ shopping behaviour: an insight from clothing retailers :  

Abstract: Background Several researchers have studied atmospheric factors like crowding, col-ours, music and olfactory cues and tested their effect on shopping behav-iour. In the particular case of the influence of music in consumers‟ be-haviour, several notable observations have been made. Yet, the majority of the studies have focused on the phenomena of the music and the influences of its different factors towards consumers‟ be-haviour but little research has focused on managerial awareness of such effects on its consumers. Thus, there are still a lot of doubts about man-ager‟s practices and perception regarding the use and effects of atmos-pheric music. In line with the approaches mentioned above, this thesis intends to fill this gap in the literature through the attainment of two objectives: the first one is to study what exactly clothing retailers are doing in terms of atmospheric music and the second objective is to examine their implicit theories about the impact of the music on consumers‟ shopping behav-iour. Purpose The purpose of this thesis is to study managerial practices and percep-tions of how music affects customers‟ shopping behaviour in clothing retailers in Sweden. Method This study employs a qualitative method. The Data was obtained through semi-structured face to face interviews with managers and staff of clothing retailers in Jönköping. These interviews were conducted in clothing stores located in the two main commercial areas of the city where the majority of the stores were located. Conclusions Our research found that in the big retailers the atmospheric music is used in a more systematically way than in the small ones. This level of sys-tematization is directly related to the level of centralization in decision-making and to the size of the store. On the other hand, with regards to our second objective we found thatnot only managers but also the salespersons working in the clothing stores have a high degree of knowledge about how music affects their customer´s shopping behavior. Some of their implicit theories coincided with what previous researchers have found while others didn´t.