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Music, signage and atmosphere influence how long customers stay, how they feel, and how they perceive a brand.
In a competitive retail environment, these elements play a critical role in shaping brand identity and in-store engagement.
Dunelm has built a strong position as one of the UK’s leading home retail brands, offering accessible style across homeware, furniture and décor categories. With long dwell times, broad customer appeal and growing omnichannel services, our observations and suggestions could support and further enhance that positioning.
Music was present throughout the store, but generally at a very low volume and inconsistently audible across different areas.
In some areas of the store it was difficult to hear any soundtrack at all, while in others it was only noticeable directly beneath ceiling speakers.
This creates an opportunity to refine both speaker coverage and playlist strategy - ensuring music is consistently felt throughout the environment, while tailoring sound to different zones such as retail floor, browse areas and café spaces.
For a home retail environment like Dunelm, music can play an important role in creating a calm, comfortable atmosphere that encourages customers to browse for longer and engage more deeply with products.
There was no visible use of digital signage during our visit, with communication led primarily through printed point-of-sale and directional signage.
While this supports a practical customer journey, there is an opportunity to introduce more dynamic visual communication across key touchpoints in-store.
Digital signage could support seasonal campaigns, room-set inspiration, click & collect guidance, store navigation and promotional messaging - helping create a more modern and engaging retail experience.
Review speaker placement and volume levels to ensure music is evenly heard across the store and contributes positively to the atmosphere.
Move beyond quiet background radio-style music with a carefully curated soundtrack designed to create the right in-store mood, reflect the brand and enhance the browsing experience.
Introduce digital signage across the estate to support navigation, click & collect, seasonal campaigns and product discovery.
Based on your brand, audience and environment, here’s an example of how your music could feel with Startle.
This playlist has been designed to reflect Dunelm’s warm, stylish and approachable identity - blending soulful grooves, laid-back contemporary tracks and feel-good modern selections to create a relaxed, comfortable atmosphere that complements longer browsing visits.
The aim is to:
Choose from our library of over 100 professionally crafted playlists spanning genres, moods and sectors, or opt for curated soundtracks for your stores.
We offer simple, scalable digital signage to showcase campaigns, collections and promotions - making it easier to keep stores fresh, relevant and visually engaging.
With Startle Studio, you’ll have full visibility and control of all your stores’ schedules from a central platform, ensuring consistency across every location.
We’ve worked with multi-site retailers to create more engaging, brand-led environments that reflect the quality and identity of the brand at every touchpoint.
We partnered with Charles Tyrwhitt to help transform their in-store music experience across a growing international estate. Their previous solution was difficult to manage and left some stores without music, creating inconsistency across locations. Startle helped deliver a more reliable, scalable and brand-aligned approach.
This included:
Startle worked closely with us to create a tailored playlist that perfectly suits both our customers and store colleagues. They took the time to understand Charles Tyrwhitt as a brand, resulting in a varied playlist that reflects our customers’ shopping habits throughout the day.
Visual Merchandising Coordinator
Book your discovery call to explore how music and signage could enhance experience, consistency and engagement across your estate.
On this call we’ll:
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