Have You Noticed Aldi Never Plays Music? Here's How That Benefits You
When you're in Walmart, you're probably not focused on what's going on over the loudspeakers. Every so often, there's an announcement about some mess on aisle six that needs to be cleaned up or maybe a certain customer needs help in a department across the store, but most of the time, it's just the usual top 40 hits of the month playing on repeat. Unless they're playing your favorite song, you're not exactly listening, instead taking in the sounds of today's pop music as part of the usual consumer experience. It's like white noise at that point — music that fades into the background and is only recognized if you stop to listen to it.
Playing music in a grocery store isn't just to make the store seem more inviting to consumers, but there's been some research into how music correlates with sales. A 2011 study in Marketing Letters examined how music can influence one's desire to purchase goods, or more specifically, how the speed of the music's tempo can subconsciously influence a shopper's behavior. Playing "old music" (we'll leave the definition of '"old" up to you) is also believed to help the customer by creating feelings of nostalgia, which in turn makes them feel more relaxed and cheerful. A happier person would be more willing to shell out a little more cash than someone who is unhappy, right?
But one chain, in particular, seems to avoid the trend of playing music in the store, despite all the supposed benefits. Why?
A lack of music keeps Aldi's costs low
When you're at a grocery store, you're more likely than not to hear popular music on the loudspeakers. It's nothing obscure, and it's mainly music that you'd hear on the radio or in movie trailers and so on. Yet, if you go into Aldi, you'll notice that there's a lack of music, something so common in almost every business that you're shocked by its absence despite not really noticing it before anywhere else.
The reason Aldi avoids playing music in its stores has less to do with the employees deeming all popular music to be "plebian" and more about keeping costs down. Popular and mainstream music is more often than not licensed and requires a licensing fee to play it. In order to keep its costs low, Aldi chooses to avoid these licensing fees by simply not playing music altogether. As a result, Aldi is able to keep its overhead low, thus allowing its stores to sell products at such a low price.
How expensive can licensing fees be, you may wonder? The cost to license music can vary, ranging on the label or artist. It may cost $100 to get a song from a small independent label or it may cost a few thousand dollars if you're buying the license from a big-name publisher. Either way, it's still an impressive chunk of profit going for something that's entirely optional. Aldi, in the end, is simply trying to keep its overhead low.
Aldi also aims for a no-fuss attitude
Aldi, like any other business, walks a fine line between being hospitable and being professional. While Aldi no doubt wants customers to enjoy the time they spend in its stores and to feel comfortable wherever they are, the chain also doesn't want to waste time with frivolous, cost-wasting practices.
Aldi is there for one thing and one thing only: to sell quality groceries at a cheap price. It's not there to put on a show for you or fill the store with celebrity pop music — no, it's there to welcome you in, give you some good products at a decent price, and send you on your way. It's this "no-frills" attitude that makes it appeal to so many people. At the end of the day, people want to be in and out of a store with a shopping cart full of groceries and only a few dollars spent. If it means having to sacrifice hearing the latest Billboard hits or putting a quarter into their cart to be able to use it in exchange for low-cost groceries and efficient shopping, most customers probably won't complain.
Of course, this doesn't mean that Aldi is above being friendly to its customers, and the brand's twice-as-nice return policy proves just that. If you have a product that's damaged, spoiled, or in any way unsatisfactory, the store will not only gladly give you a full refund, but it will also replace your unsatisfactory product for free, just to ensure customer satisfaction. A fair trade-off in exchange for some quiet shopping.