Music is good for the soul💕. Doesn’t it seem to express how you are feeling some days???

Do you notice the background music inside a store or a restaurant???

When you enter a place & the music doesn’t seem to “fit” the mood of place, it can leave an impression on your dining or shopping experience. If the mood and the music match, you will leave remembering your experience as positive one.

All that begin said, Music can be powerful force inside a business.

Richard & I have been discussing music. What type of music is best inside our store???

In the first few years of business ownership, the music was a mash of whatever was playing on the radio. Every tune that came out of the radio, we had begun to realize, just didn’t fit the mood of our store.

So the soul searching began. What do our customers expect for “mood music” inside our store??? Who is our target audience??? Our store has that old, rustic feel… so how does everyone feel about the music, or do y’all even notice it??? We had lots of questions rolling around in our minds.

Decisions…we both love all different types of genres of music, so it was becoming a difficult choice, but our favorites should not drive our final decision… it should be based on what our customers feel as a connection to our store.

Then COVID hit. Things changed quickly for us as we moved into curbside service only. Wayne, one of our longtime employees, decided that home was where he needed to be. It was the safest option for him. Adjustments were made in staffing, and his “boom box” back at the key desk was silent.

I missed those classic country tunes that Wayne always played while he worked. I missed him and his music. His radio station was always a classic country music station. No one turned his radio station to another one… it was just what was always on. So one of my connections to the hardware store was Wayne’s music. 🎶🎶🎶🎶

Music & song lyrics have a way of bringing up memories that are powerful. We missed Wayne, and playing country music in his absence, was a way of having a small part of him there with us. A new pattern began to emerge for us during the COVID curbside. We were listening to country music.

Our discussions turned then to maybe we should look at that genre of music. To us, it seemed to make sense. Country music does have a more laid back tone, & rustic nature. Country music also tends to focus on life in the everyday. The song lyrics communicate ordinary life. Shopping at your local hardware store can be part of your routine errands, usual stops… you know… things you do everyday.

You may not have noticed our music inside our store on your last visit. We are consistently trying to keep the country music 🎶 going. We are still developing playlists, and adjusting our music to hopefully keep our customers happy.

Our ultimate goal, that y’all find our music to be a perfect fit for your shopping experience with us at Wilkes County Hardware. Whether the music just blends into the background or speaks to your soul as you shop.🎶🎶

As a closing footnote: IG stories survey results- 75 percent of our customers think country music is a good fit for our store. It appears we have found our hardware Life soundtrack 😉.