Can music make your store feel more expensive?
Two identical bottles, same vineyard, same vintage, same price. Shoppers in one store rate theirs as higher quality. The difference overhead is the music.
Perceived value is one of the most powerful and least used levers in retail, and music moves it directly. You probably already know which of those two wine stores wins, and so does the research.
Genre sets the quality tier
The foundational study, in Advances in Consumer Research in 1993, alternated classical and top 40 in a wine store. Same inventory, same prices, same staff. With classical playing, customers reached for more expensive bottles. The total count held flat. The price point moved up. The music changed what quality tier felt appropriate, and behavior followed. A 2003 study in Environment and Behavior tested the same idea in restaurants across three conditions, classical, pop, and silence. Classical brought in about £32 a head. Pop and silence landed near £29.50, nearly identical. Classical didn't change which dishes people ordered so much as their willingness to order the premium ones.
Volume is its own signal
A subtler one most people miss. A 2003 study in Perceptual and Motor Skills tested volume in restaurants. Soft music, just lower volume rather than a specific genre, raised average checks by about $35 a person, roughly 15 percent. Genre didn't matter. Volume did. Soft music signals quality. The room where conversation flows easily feels more refined than the one you have to shout across, and refined reads as worth spending in. Most stores run a little loud.
Bad fit destroys value
The other direction is real too. A 2006 study in the Journal of Business Research showed music can actively destroy perceived value. When the music clashes with the brand, customers don't just ignore it. They rate the brand as less authentic, less coherent, less trustworthy. Premium leather goods under dorm-party music make the products look cheaper. The soundtrack drags the whole perception down with it.
The actual point
Music shapes perceived value through at least three channels. Genre builds quality associations. Volume signals refinement. Brand fit either backs up what everything else in the store says or contradicts it. There's no neutral setting. If the music is an afterthought, your perceived value has a leak you haven't found.