What Physical Retail Is Not Yet Measuring — And Should Be

There is a question few brand experience managers ask out loud, but many feel: does what actually happens inside the stores truly reflect what the brand stands for?

Not the visual merchandising — that gets audited. Not the customer service — that gets trained and measured. Something more diffuse, more constant, and probably more influential than it appears: the atmosphere. The lighting, the temperature, the scent, and above all — the music.

Physical Retail Is Still the Most Important Channel. And the Least Measured.

A recent Valtech report surveyed 750 senior retail executives globally and reached an uncomfortable conclusion: 75% of retailers cannot demonstrate the return on their experience investments using concrete performance metrics. They invest, implement, innovate — but cannot close the loop between what they do and what it generates.

And this happens while 80% of global purchases still take place in physical stores. The most relevant channel is also the hardest to measure.

For those who manage brand experience in retail, this has a very concrete translation: it is known what the customer should feel, but it is rarely possible to confirm whether they are actually feeling it.

The Fragmentation Nobody Sees

The same report identifies another structural problem: more than half of retailers fail to deliver consistent experiences across their different locations and channels. Every touchpoint lives in a silo. When systems do not integrate, neither does the experience.

In brand terms, the consequences are concrete. Months can be invested in defining what someone should feel when entering any store in a chain. The space is designed, the team is trained, the colour palette is chosen. But if one location sounds completely different from another, the brand experience fragments — even if nobody decided it should.

Sonic inconsistency is one of the most silent problems in multi-location retail. Silent in the literal sense: nobody reports it, nobody audits it — and yet the customer perceives it. Not always consciously, but they do.

The Most Emotional Element of Physical Space Is Also the Least Managed

Music has something unique: it is the only element of the environment that cannot be ignored. Lighting can go unnoticed, scent can pass undetected. Music cannot. It is present in every second the customer spends in the store.

And yet, in most retail organisations, music is managed in one of two ways: either it is fully delegated — someone selects a playlist and that is the end of it —, or it is centralised without real visibility — a criterion is defined at headquarters, but nobody knows with certainty what is actually playing in each location at any given moment.

The Valtech report states it clearly: competitive advantage in modern retail does not come from technology itself, but from integrating it to create experiences that connect emotionally. Music is that emotional connection. And most retailers are leaving it to chance.

The Questions That Should Have Answers

If music is a brand variable, it should be measurable like any other. Some questions that any experience manager should be able to answer:

Does the musical energy of the locations follow the different moments of the day, or does it remain the same whether it is ten in the morning or eight at night? Is the sonic profile of the brand consistent across locations, or does each one sound like something different? Are there locations where the music fails, pauses, or simply cuts out without anyone noticing? What does the team perceive about the music — does it feel aligned with the brand, or uncomfortable for the working environment?

Today, most retailers have no answer to any of these questions. Not because they are difficult to obtain, but because nobody was measuring them.

Starting to See What Was Always There

Closing this gap does not require an infrastructure overhaul. It requires starting to treat music as what it is: a brand experience variable, with the same weight as any other.

That means being able to visualise whether the musical energy of the locations is aligned with occupancy and the time of day. It means having a sonic profile of the brand — not as an abstract concept, but as concrete data — and being able to compare it across locations over time. It means knowing whether there are zones in silence right now, without waiting for someone to report it. And it means considering the team's perception: their assessment of the music is as valid a brand signal as any customer survey.

Some of this data already exists. The question is whether it is available to those making experience decisions, or still scattered across systems that do not integrate.

What Is Not Measured Simply Happens

Retail is at a crossroads, the Valtech report concludes. The gap between retailers who truly transform and those who accumulate initiatives without real impact is widening. And that gap, in many cases, is not about technology or budget. It is about visibility.

The sonic experience of a brand is happening right now in every one of its locations. The question is whether it is being managed — or simply being left to occur.

Is there visibility into what is playing in the stores today? At Brandtrack it is possible to see that in practice. For more information, contact your account manager or reach out to us and we will get you going.

‍