The big impediment though, is loiterers. If there is a problem with people loitering in or in front of your store that tends to drive away more people than the music will.
eg if I'm going to the mall to buy a shirt, I'm not really interested in how many "loiterers" are in the store browsing, I just want to go in and buy a shirt.
If the music's offensive then I'm not going in at all.
I'm sure they've done studies and focus groups and whatever, it's just odd to me that even with all the comments here to the contrary, businesses still think they're going to make more by making their stores unpleasant to go into.
I have quite a bit of discretionary income so I would have thought I'd be a desired customer, but malls are so unpleasant that I do almost all of my buying online.
Depends. Some places just like it, but a lot of it is to shoo loiterers away.
>eg if I'm going to the mall to buy a shirt, I'm not really interested in how many "loiterers" are in the store browsing, I just want to go in and buy a shirt.
You're not thinking like a status conscious retailer. Some retailers prefer to not have people of certain races be seen associated with their brands. Their target market will be disinclined from shopping there.
Also, in many cases loiterers actually just intimidate people.
Classical music is actually really mentally engaging. I've tried listening to stuff like Brahms or Gershwin while working and it's kind of hard. Chamber music is designed to be kind of ambient and inoffensively bland, but most of what's on a classical album just engages your brain too much to let you focus on what you're doing. Even if people don't realize that's what they're listening to, I can see how just being around it a lot can get agitating unless you can consciously tune it out.