# Music subconsciously influences purchase decisions — and customers don't know it's happening

> A 1999 study found that background music changed which wine customers bought — yet only 1 in 44 mentioned the music when asked. What that means for businesses that design (or neglect) their audio environment.

Published 2026-05-26 — https://cubegroup.global/insights/music-subconsciously-influences-purchase-decisions

Ask anyone in a store whether the background music has any impact on what they are purchasing.

Almost everyone will say no.  But the evidence proves them wrong.  This means two things:

First, if you don't understand the science of human behaviour, you will be totally mislead when asking customers about subconscious influences.

Second, if your in-store audio isn’t deliberately designed, it may be quietly hurting sales.

Here’s the science.

A 1997 study published in the science journal "Nature" by University of Leicester psychologists Adrian North, David Hargreaves, and Jennifer McKendrick demonstrated how music directly shapes purchasing behaviour. In a wine store, researchers alternated between French accordion music and German beer-hall music.

When customers were asked afterward what had influenced their choice, they pointed to price or taste. Only 2% mentioned the music.

However:

* With French music playing, about 3 out of 4 bottles sold were French.
* With German music playing, about 3 out of 4 bottles sold were German.

Nothing else changed - just the music.

In other words: the most powerful influence was invisible to them.

This is the risk. If you treat music as filler - something to avoid silence - you’re leaving a behavioural lever untouched, or worse, pulling it in the wrong direction.

The opportunity is the opposite: to engineer your auditory environment with intent.

That’s where CUBE comes in. Through our global partner network, we combine behavioural science with software-defined audio and visual systems so your environment doesn’t just sound right, it drives the right actions.

Because if you’re not designing for behaviour, you’re still shaping it - just not on purpose