It is easy to buy unnecessary items when shopping online, but apparently buying with the right background music leads to smarter shopping choices. According to a new study, radio pop music, football commentary and the sound of people chatting create the perfect soundtrack to prevent buyer's remorse.
The research conducted by eBay and Goldsmiths University found that the right tunes help us make better shopping decisions.
Approximately 2,000 participants browsed through an online store that featured a blender, wine, a board game, trainers and a barbecue. Researchers measured their perceptions of value, quality and emotional responses as the participants listened to different sounds.
"Any wine store owner will tell you that playing French music increases sales of French wine, but there is almost no research looking at this phenomenon online," Patrick Fagan, consumer behavior expert at Goldsmiths University says. "This study has shown us some of the surprising ways that sound can help us make better purchasing decisions when we shop online, and some of the sounds we should avoid."
The researchers found that listening to popular radio runes, football commentary and loud background chats made the online shoppers think more rationally about what they are buying, helped them find a bargain, and reduced poor shopping choices.
Less than a third of the shoppers made a poor purchasing decision when they listened to pop music. The music made them feel so good, allowing them to splurge without getting "suckered" into a bad deal.
Football commentary and listening to news about the economy led four out of five shoppers to make rational shopping decisions to save them from overspending.
Background noise from television or radio reduced the amount of poor purchase choices and the sounds of air conditioners helped the shoppers accurately value the products. Classical music was found to make people overate the quality of a product by 5%. Another noise associated with quality, restaurant noise, was linked to overspending.
EBay released the perfect Sound of Shopping soundtrack based on the study to celebrate the popular auction site's 15th anniversary.
"Our senses affect the way we shop -sometimes in a good way, sometimes in a bad way," spokeswoman Laura Wilkinson-Rea says.
While the soundtrack features the best sounds for online shopping, the research found that crying babies and traffic noise led to poor decisions and altered assessments regarding value and quality of a product.
