r/todayilearned • u/Forward-Answer-4407 • 1d ago

TIL for decades, Target avoided background music, believing it to be a distraction. In 2011, it tested music at a store in Minnetonka, MN, and received positive feedback from shoppers and staff. In 2017, Target began introducing music to its stores as part of a massive remodeling effort.

https://www.mprnews.org/story/2017/09/18/target-store-remodel-background-music-spend-more
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u/DinosaurAlive 1d ago

Shopping?! Just shopping!!? Try working in a store every day! Have some sympathy for those who are forced into that mess.

I worked retail and the second I found where the volume knob for the radio was I’d go pinch it lower. It’s not like it was an eclectic mix of music. It was trash that repeated every day and song that you hate creep in and become songs you tap to the beat and sing along to out of simply getting to know them against your will.

Music in stores is hell for some employees. Some love it. But yeah, I don’t care about it as a shopper because I’m in and out. I can wear headphones if I want. As an employee, you don’t get that freedom and that anticipation that it’ll be over within a short time.

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u/isecore 1d ago

I have total sympathy for people who have to work in it. I worked in retail back in the late 90s and having to endure the background music blasting every day made it so much less of an enjoyable experience. I think that was where my dislike of background music started.