Playing with music while shopping online : the effects of interactive music on consumer engagement and behavioral intention

The current study investigates the potential of applying interactive music to the design of e-commerce website in order to create more engaging consumer experience. Through a single-factor experiment with three conditions (the control condition without background music, the static background music condition, the interactive background music condition), behavioral and attitudinal data were collected via Google Analytics and a self-report questionnaire (N = 251). We found that consumers in the interactive music condition were more affectively engaged in the shopping task, regarding the website more novel due to its perceived vividness. This enhanced engagement led to more positive brand attitudes and perceptions and increased users’ behavioral intention to purchase. Additionally, three moderators were found crucial to predict the target audience profile for application of interactive music – existing attitudes of users toward online shopping, price and web features as purchase decision-making factors.