How to Find & Set Up a Retail Store Music System

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What to Consider in a Retail Sound System Setup

In order to decide what kind of sound system you need to set up to create the best ambiance for your store, there are some elements you should think about.

Acoustics

Experts define noise as unwanted sound. When your facility has acoustic challenges, those unwanted sounds can bounce around and annoy your customers.

Sound designers say retailers should start by investigating the space. If your walls and floors are reflective, consider adding noise buffers to the ceiling. If the ceiling can’t be modified, add carpet to the floors.

If the space still seems to echo, adding panels to the middle of the room could help to reduce echo and keep unwanted sounds to a minimum.

This work takes time, but researchers say well-designed rooms can increase sales in shops by up to 50%.

In one published case study, sound engineers worked to reduce echoes within Stella McCartney stores. The goal was to ensure the sound was as crisp as the clothes on the racks. Acoustic panels with ribbed edges were added to the walls in spaces where noise was a problem. The result was a more pleasant experience for staff and customers.

Store Layout

While the materials used to build and decorate your space can have a deep impact on the acoustic experience, so can the layout of the room.

If your store is one square room with items displayed along the perimeter, one speaker placed strategically in the center of the room might be enough. However, if your space is larger, includes many corners, or muffles the sound with plenty of products, you’ll need more speakers to disperse the sound evenly.

Customer Experience

How loud or soft music is influences whether it is experienced as foreground or background sound. Some people prefer foreground music while others prefer background tunes. Additionally, the key each song is written in, the speed at which it is played, and whether there are lyrics or not can greatly influence customers’ behavior and attitude. You can use some demographic research to determine which genre, tone, and volume of music will be most appropriate for the group you want to reach with your business.

Different demographic groups respond to different genres and speeds of music, so creating multiple playlists for different groups, different times of day, or for some holidays can encourage your customers to enjoy the atmosphere of your business.

Do you want to play ads for promotions your store offers? Do you host events you want to talk about? Will you need to page customers to let them know about seating or available items? Your sound system can play music, but it can also allow you to communicate with your customers, and, with new ways to link into smartphones and tablets, allow them to communicate with you.

Business Growth

Working with one company for both hardware and software means that you can get consistent service, updates as the product changes or your business expands, and even help installing the system. Instead of cobbling a new system together, working with a professional company for a complete, synchronized system can greatly improve the sound quality and your customers’ experience.

In one published case study, Louis Vuitton store owners worked with sound designers to improve the acoustic profiles of their retail environments. They wanted the music to warm up the space, but they didn’t want customers to see the speakers. They integrated speakers into the architecture of the room, ensuring the music was audible everywhere without ruining the ambiance. The work made the stores more pleasant for customers.

Why Does Sound Quality Matter?

No one likes to listen to music that’s too loud, too tinny, or punctuated by static. If you’re listening to music in your car and it becomes distorted, you’re quick to fiddle with the knobs and make things better. As a business owner, you must provide the same level of quality control. Your success could depend on it.

For example, researchers interviewed shoppers who made large purchases inside a retail environment. They asked how these customers felt while they were shopping and how they felt about the purchase later. Researchers discovered that consumers who made an impulse purchase (which they might do to quickly exit an environment that made them uncomfortable) were more likely to regret their purchase later. The researchers said store owners should update their environments, including the music, to encourage browsing. When customers can linger, they feel better about the experience.

Sound quality can matter to your employees too. They must listen to the sounds you play all day long. However, giving your employees full control of your songs isn’t always smart. For example, in a 56-week study, researchers gave staff the opportunity to control the songs played in a retail environment. When they could do so, sales dropped by 6%. Staff tended to play high-intensity songs and shift the tunes often, which made for a poor experience for consumers.

The key is to play crisp, clear sounds that stay in the background and don’t offend your staff or customers.

Store Sound System Recommendations at a Glance

We’ll dig into the specifics of a store sound system in a bit, but this chart can give you a good starting point. We’ll provide two recommendations for each component that could make up a typical system for a small or large business.

	Small Business	Large Business
Receiver	Yamaha RX-V4A	Denon AVR-X6700H
Amplifier	Pyle PFA500BT	QSC GX5
Speaker	Bose FreeSpace 3	Electro-Voice EVF-215

Receivers

A receiver accepts the music source (by connecting to your streaming service, for example) and prepares it to play through your speakers. Small businesses may appreciate budget-friendly options that connect via Bluetooth, while larger businesses may need a high-power output with plenty of zone controls.

Amplifier

An amplifier connects to your receiver and makes the sound large enough to fill a space. Small businesses may appreciate an affordable version, while larger businesses may need a professional-grade solution, as they have a larger space to fill with sound.

Speaker

A speaker takes the sound from an amplifier and makes it audible within a room. Small businesses may like speakers like the FreeSpace, as they have amplifiers included. Larger businesses may need a high-tech solution that has a larger coverage area.

Technical Details for Commercial, Restaurant, or Retail Sound Systems Can Be Tricky

Any basic sound system, whether commercial or home-based, will start with a music or sound player, like a radio, smartphone, or record player. Then, this will be attached to an amplifier that boosts sound to the speakers. An amplifier is an electronic device that increases the amplitude (simply put, the loudness of sound) of electric signals. The term “amplifier” also refers to a device that is used in conjunction with a loudspeaker, which is most popularly used to amplify electric guitars and other electric musical instruments. For this guide, we will be using the first definition. An amplifier’s job is to take an electric current, magnify it many times over, and then send it to a loudspeaker, so that an audience can hear an enhanced version of the original sound.

Finally, the system will have at least one speaker; retail and restaurant settings will have at least four speakers. In the context of sound systems, the full word to use is “loudspeaker,” which converts the electric current provided by the amplifier, into audio sound waves. Without the speaker, there would be no human way of understanding the currents being thrown out by the amplifier.

Multiple Speakers

A 70-volt commercial system is standard, but the setup is different than with a home 70-volt system. Home systems have multiple inputs or multiple amplifiers. A retail speaker system with one amplifier with no load impedance problems can work well with many speakers attached to it. Having multiple speakers is key because it helps you control the overall volume of each individual speaker without sacrificing the clarity of the music. In this way, customers are not overwhelmed by the volume, but the music is still more than an indistinct hum in the distant background.

Speaker Placement

Placing the speakers depends a lot on the square footage of your retail space. Generally, the rule is to take the height of the ceiling, subtract five, and then multiply by two. For example, your business has 15-foot ceilings; 15 minus 5 is 10; 10 multiplied by 2 is 20. Each of your speakers should be about 20 feet apart. Unfortunately, getting this kind of audio fidelity doesn’t come cheaply. Nonetheless, you will make a good return on your investment.

Daisy Chaining

One way to do this is to purchase two or three hi-fi amplifiers, and connect them together in a process known as daisy chaining.

This method tends to work well in coffee shops, because the noise of the espresso machine tends to be exacerbated in the acoustic environments that are otherwise conducive to conversation and work. Daisy chaining allows you to give each speaker its own volume, so no matter where a customer sits, they aren’t deafened or underwhelmed by your music. The way to achieve this is through a stereo amplifier that as a “rec out” ability, which allows you to hook the amplifier out to the input of a second amplifier – hence, daisy chaining.

Room for Growth

Once you have decided on your store radio system, consider if is it enough for your store. Ideally, your business will grow and expand, so you may need to move to a new location or develop a franchise. If you have multiple locations, you will want to create continuity in the atmosphere between all your stores or restaurants, which you can do with music, but you may require a different speaker configuration.

Consider working with a commercial music for business streaming service that licenses music with performing rights organizations (PROs) to give you access to the widest variety of music, sound, and even streaming radio, so you can create the perfect feel for your store. Many of these services work with specific hardware, so you can coordinate your streaming service with specific sound system options.

Amplifiers and Speakers

If you want to think bigger, a combined amplifier and speaker set will be helpful. Bringing the two together allows you to control the space and volume of your sound output. Conventional wisdom suggests that the volume from one speaker to the next should not be different by more than 10 decibels, and this works well for stores that range from 500 square feet all the way up to 4,000 square feet.

JBL, Bose, SONOS, Atlas, Crown, and QSC all offer the kind of speakers you’re looking for, most of them starting at $700.

Restaurants will especially benefit from this arrangement, but this depends to a large extent on the kind of speakers an owner has. If you are going to go as far as pairing your amplifier with speakers, it’s worth considering spending a little more to get decent speakers that will give your business or office high-fidelity audio. This will minimize the number of audio hotspots you must have in your location, and you can scale your sound equally and effectively.

The Importance of Quality

Perhaps the most important suggestion in this guide is that you should invest in your speakers more than anything else. Amplifiers and audio mixers are important, and deserve due consideration, but no matter how good they are, a bad set of speakers will let you down.

Every business location has unique pressure zones, which impact the volume levels of the music you play, and this can be very distracting for your customers. Better speakers and better coverage maximize the control you have over how the music sounds in various locations throughout your store.

Optimizing your music playback gives your customers a better experience, and it helps you create the perfect atmosphere for the general public to enjoy your business.

Audio Mixers

If price is not a factor, then you can think about investing in an amplifier with digital sound processing, and an audio mixer with multiple inputs and outputs. Audio mixers are also known as soundboards, sound mixers, or mixing consoles. However you refer to them, an audio mixer’s job is to take two or more audio signals, mix them together (hence the name), and produce one or more output signals. An audio mixer is like the conductor of an orchestra, collecting all the individual sounds and channeling them in one direction. The audio mixer filters and optimizes sound levels, adding equalization and other effects to enhance the sound as best as possible. Audio mixers are mainstays at live music events – you cannot have a live performance without an audio mixer and someone to run it – but they are also very useful for recorded music.

How Audio Mixers Benefit Businesses

In a business, having an audio mixer as part of your setup allows you to change both your audio zones and your volume zones. This is especially useful when you have a large space where you have multiple sounds coming through your speakers, and you need a mixer to balance and stabilize different outputs. In cases like these, you don’t need to have the most expensive speakers (although that wouldn’t hurt); it would be a better investment to buy a better amplifier since this would give you more control over the audio zones in your business or office space.

Only a smaller number of companies offer the necessary hardware when you get up to this level of audio fidelity; Bose and DBX have options that start at $3,000.

Using an iPad as a Music Source

Many businesses use an iPad or a similar tablet at their point-of-sale, opting to replace the traditional cash register with a single device that can process payments, and keep inventory and customer records at literal and metaphorical fingertips. But an iPad or comparable tablet can also be a music source; any recognized app will create and play playlists while still being used for point-of-sale transactions.

For iPads, the AirPort Express wireless router is perfect for connecting the iPad to the amplifier, saving you the trouble of physically connecting your music source to the amp; Bluetooth connections will also suffice. This way, you can bring your transactions and music management under one umbrella.

What about Smart Speakers?

A relatively new kind of speaker in the market is the smart speaker. These are wireless speakers with a built-in voice control capability. A user activates the speaker with a “wake word,” gives it a command, and the software in the speaker carries it out. The speakers are usually single-unit wireless speakers or soundbars working via a Bluetooth connection. The software is developed as an artificial intelligence by Apple, Google, Amazon, or Microsoft, with other technology brands like Samsung coming up with their own versions. Google Assistant powers the Google Home device; Amazon’s Alexa is the voice inside the Amazon Echo unit, and Apple’s iconic Siri is behind the HomePod speaker.

Smart speakers allow users to request anything from music to local or even international news, from weather to sports, from traffic conditions to flight information, from radio stations to trivia games.

Partnerships with other companies allow users to request cabs or order pizza, and installation into a smart home gives users the power to control their lights, air conditioning, garage doors, and home security system with literally the sound of their own voice.

Smart speakers are big business. A 2016 study found that 61% of users liked the hands-free feature of their home devices, allowing them to multitask while interacting with the smart speaker.As of July, 18% of American consumers had at least one smart speaker in their homes.

Smart Speaker Benefits

Benefits of smart speakers include the following:

Variety

Smart speakers allow users to request anything from music to local or even international news, from weather to sports, from traffic conditions to flight information, from radio stations to trivia games.

Productivity

TechRepublic writes that the Apple HomePod speaker is great for conference calls and improving employee productivity by allowing workers to perform hands-free multitasking while working with relevant, real-time information, such as stock reports, calendar updates, and even sending text messages through a shared office Apple account.

In this way, an amplifier, a set of speakers, an audio mixer, a smart speaker, and a computer to hold them all together can take your customer’s experience of your business to an unprecedented level of service and access.

Ease

Smart Speaker Drawbacks

Drawbacks of smart speakers include the following:

Shifting

Some consumers could interact directly with your smart speaker and do things like increase the volume or change the channel without your permission.

Security

Companies like Amazon can listen in on the commands you give a smart speaker and use that data to enhance their products.

Technology

You may need to learn a bit about how to handle the speakers and set them up properly to use them.

Setting Up Smart Speakers

If you do choose to use a smart speaker for your retail environment, choose the right spot for it. These speakers aren’t as loud as the other speakers we’ve outlined above. Find a spot that’s in an area where customers can hear it, but not close enough to the register to keep staff from helping customers.

To set up a smart speaker, pair it with something like your phone or a tablet. Typically, you need an app from the manufacturer to do so. The app will help you choose a channel and lock down your security profiles.

Commercial Licensing for Music

Before you can play music in a retail environment (including a big-box store, warehouse, or tiny shop), you must have a license to do so.

The U.S. Copyright Office explains that intellectual properties (such as songs) are protected by copyright law within the United States. That means the owner of the copyright has the exclusive right to reproduce the work, distribute it, perform it publicly, and more. Those protections last for at least 70 years after the author’s death.

If you use a protected piece without permission to do so, you can be subject to lawsuits and statutory damages of not less than $750 and not more than $30,000, per song. Courts can award more damages, if they can prove that people are habitual violators.

Most artists and other music copyright holders hire performance rights organizations (PROs) to manage their licenses. You can contact organizations like BMI and ASCAP directly and ask for a license to play music in retail. Or you can work with companies like Pandora CloudCover and get access.

Frequently Asked Questions

Am I required to have a store sound system?

You’re not required to play background music in a store. You could let your customers shop in silence. However, background music can muffle unpleasant sounds (like employees on the phone) and provide your shoppers with privacy as they pay for their items. In general, a store sound system is a good investment.

Can I play personal CDs or records in my store?

No. The products you buy for personal use aren’t designed for commercial applications. To play music legally, you must have an arrangement with a company that handles copyright payments, such as Pandora CloudCover. If you play music without a license, you could face fines.

How many speakers do I need?

It depends. The size of your space, the acoustics in the room, and the environment you’re trying to create all play a role in helping you pick the right number of speakers.

What type of music should I play?

It depends. Every store is a little different. In general, look for music that matches your brand and products, and play it at a volume that encourages customers to linger and browse.