Stop Leaving Sales on the Floor

We’ve shared a number of insights recently about how strongly psychological factors shape human behaviour.

So let’s start with a deceptively simple question:

What is the point of playing audio in your store?

Many retailers struggle to answer this clearly. Common responses sound like:

• “Everyone else has music.”
• “So it’s not silent.”

Keep pushing the question.

Why does everyone have it? Why is silence a problem?

Eventually, the real answer emerges:

In-store audio exists to influence human behaviour.

That influence might be aimed at:

• Supporting staff focus and energy throughout a long shift, or
• Making customers feel more comfortable, relaxed, and confident than they would in a competitor’s store.

Once you accept that audio is a behavioural tool, a critical implication follows:

If behaviour changes by context, your audio must be able to change just as easily.

That’s why in-store audio works best when it’s software-defined.

A simple example with expensive consequences

We recently spoke with a grocery store specialising in natural, organic, and specialty products. One area of the store is dedicated to vitamins and supplements, staffed by trained specialists.

By simple observation, the section manager noticed something important:

customers browse more slowly, ask more questions, and behave very differently here than in the rest of the store. This area competes directly with standalone specialty shops, not mainstream grocery aisles.

Her conclusion was straightforward but powerful:

This section needs different music.

Music that slows customers down, puts them at ease, and supports thoughtful decision-making — not the same soundtrack designed to keep traffic flowing through produce or packaged goods.

She had correctly answered the “what is the point?” question. The goal wasn’t music for music’s sake; it was helping customers succeed at what they were trying to do.

Flexibility is the difference between insight and action

With a software-defined audio system, this kind of change is trivial:

• Select the relevant loudspeakers
• Assign them to a new zone
• Apply a different program

All in software. All reversible. All adjustable if the department moves next quarter.

Without software-defined audio, the same decision becomes expensive and disruptive:

• New cabling in ceilings
• Additional amplifiers
• Physical reconfiguration that discourages experimentation

The result?

Good behavioural insights go unused — not because they’re wrong, but because acting on them is too hard.

The hidden risk of rigid systems

Static audio systems quietly lock you into yesterday’s assumptions about how customers behave.

As layouts change, product mixes evolve, and customer expectations shift, your audio stays frozen — and starts working against you.

That’s lost dwell time. Lost basket size. Lost differentiation.

At CUBE, we help organisations think clearly about how customers perceive them — often unconsciously — and how sound influences those perceptions. We then help specify and deploy software-defined in-store audio systems that keep your options open.

Because if you can’t easily change your audio, you’re not really answering “what’s the point?” — you’re just hoping it doesn’t matter.