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A curated background music service for boutiques, fashion stores, specialty shops and flagship retail. Built for stores that want a coherent sonic identity from storefront to checkout, not a generic playlist someone compiled years ago from a personal streaming account.
From £12.99$16.99€14.99 per month.
Billed in GBP.Billed in USD.Billed in EUR. Seven-day free trial. No credit card required.
Single store? The plan above is ready, activate in two minutes.
Retail chain or franchise network? Write to sales@mycorporateradio.com for a multi-location quote.
Retail invests heavily in the visual and tactile dimensions of the shopping experience: the window display, the fixture design, the lighting, the product placement, the fitting room finishes. The sonic dimension receives a fraction of the same attention, and yet it is the one layer the shopper perceives continuously, without interruption, from entry to exit.
Walk into any store in the world and observe what the shopper actually experiences through their ears. At the threshold, most of the time it is either silence, which feels cold and institutional, or a generic commercial radio station with advertising, which is jarring and off-brand. On the sales floor, either nothing, or a playlist the store manager compiled from a personal streaming account years ago. Near the fitting rooms, the same music at the same volume, even though the shopper is in a completely different emotional state. There is no coherence, there is no intention, and there is certainly no brand. The irony is that the same retailer has spent months selecting the shade of the feature wall behind the cash register to match the brand identity.
A well-designed in-store audio environment does the opposite. It ties the entire shopping journey together with a continuous, curated sonic thread that reinforces the retailer identity at every moment. The entrance, the main sales floor, the feature aisle, the fitting area, the checkout: each has its own mood adaptation, but all of them are recognisably part of the same sonic world. Retail marketing research, from the early work of Milliman onwards, consistently shows that shoppers who describe a store as "welcoming" or "distinctive" are partly responding to its sonic environment, even when they do not explicitly attribute their feeling to the music.
From the moment the shopper crosses the threshold to the moment they leave the store, there are five distinct sonic touchpoints in a typical retail visit. Each has its own role, its own mood, its own communication needs.
The first four seconds. The shopper has just left the outside world, the noise of the street, the attention-drain of the mall, and stepped into the brand own space. The music at the threshold is the first voice the store speaks to them, and it sets the tone for everything that follows. A threshold with the wrong music signals a brand mismatch before the shopper has even looked at a product.
Role: brand signature, invitation to stay.The longest touchpoint, where the shopper browses, picks up products, compares options, asks staff questions. The music here needs to support exploration without rushing the shopper or bogging them down. Tempo and genre directly affect the pace at which shoppers move through the aisles, as documented by retail marketing research since the early studies on music tempo and shopping behaviour.
Role: support browsing, modulate pace.The most emotionally charged touchpoint for apparel and personal product retailers. The shopper is making a decision about how they look, how they feel about themselves, whether this product becomes part of their life. The music here needs to support that moment with warmth and confidence, not undermine it with jarring transitions or inappropriate lyrics.
Role: confidence, warmth, support the decision.The touchpoint where the retailer wants attention directed. A feature wall, a seasonal display, an end-cap with a promotional product, a new collection launch. Music in these zones can be subtly differentiated from the main sales floor to create acoustic focus, and announcements about the promotion itself can be inserted at appropriate intervals.
Role: directed attention, promotional reinforcement.The final impression. The shopper is committing to the purchase, waiting in line, exchanging small talk with the cashier, receiving the receipt. The music here should reinforce the positive closure of the experience and leave the shopper with a memorable final note. The last 90 seconds of a retail visit are disproportionately strong drivers of return-visit intention.
Role: positive closure, return-visit intention.There is a useful parallel between a shopping visit and a radio listening session. Both are bounded moments in the listener day, both accompany a specific mental state, and both succeed or fail on the quality of the sonic journey they build for their audience.
The five curated stations are editorially supervised by Emanuele Carocci, a radio broadcaster with over 20 years of professional on-air experience. He works as a host on national commercial radio and leads the music curation team at My Corporate Radio.
His perspective on retail audio comes from the discipline of building radio programmes for listeners who are doing something else while they listen: driving, commuting, preparing a meal. A shopper in a store is exactly that kind of listener: moving through a space, attention split between products, other shoppers, their own thoughts. The craft required to accompany them is the same craft required to accompany a listener through a radio show.
The difference compared to algorithmic playlists from consumer services like Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube Music is substantial: every track is selected to work as commercial background, with coherent dynamics, curated transitions and a consistent mood that supports rather than distracts from the customer experience.
A comparison of the two main models available for retailers that want legal background music: consumer streaming used improperly versus a directly licensed commercial catalogue.
| Feature | Consumer streaming (Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube) | My Corporate Radio |
|---|---|---|
| Legal for commercial use | No. Terms of service forbid commercial use. | Yes. Direct license included. |
| PRO fees on catalogue | Separate ASCAP / BMI / PRS / SIAE fees required. | None on the MCR catalogue. |
| Curation | Algorithmic playlists. | Curated by a 20-year radio professional. |
| Advertising | Ads between tracks on free plans. | Zero ads, ever. |
| License certificate | Not provided. | Issued in the store name. |
| True annual cost | Spotify £132/yr + PRS+PPL £300-600/yr = £432-732/yrSpotify $155/yr + ASCAP+BMI+SESAC $350-800/yr = $505-955/yrSpotify €143/yr + SIAE/GEMA/SACEM €250-700/yr = €393-843/yr | £156/yr$204/yr€180/yr — all included |
My Corporate Radio operates as a direct licensor of original AI-crafted music under EU Directive 2014/26/EU and in transparency with EU Regulation 2024/1689. Comparison is intended to illustrate the differences between consumer streaming (not legally usable in commercial venues) and a directly licensed catalogue. Performing rights organisations such as ASCAP, BMI, PRS for Music, PPL, GEMA, SACEM, SIAE and SCF remain the reference for their own repertoires, which are outside the scope of this catalogue.
Research in retail marketing consistently shows that tempo, genre and volume of background music measurably affect dwell time, pace of movement and perceived service quality. Most stores invest heavily in visual merchandising and lighting while leaving the sonic dimension to chance. A well-designed in-store audio environment is one of the lowest-cost, highest-leverage branding investments a retailer can make.
Yes. The catalogue is proprietary and licensed directly by My Corporate Radio under EU Directive 2014/26/EU. No PRS, PPL, GEMA, ASCAP, BMI, SESAC or SoundExchange fee applies to this specific catalogue, because My Corporate Radio is the rightsholder and the licensor. Every customer receives a written direct license certificate in the store name.
£12.99 per month, billed in GBP. Customers in the US pay $16.99, customers in the EU pay €14.99.$16.99 per month, billed in USD. Customers in the UK pay £12.99, customers in the EU pay €14.99.€14.99 per month, billed in EUR. Customers in the UK pay £12.99, customers in the US pay $16.99. Seven-day free trial, no credit card required. Cancel anytime.
No. The terms of service of Spotify Free, Spotify Premium, Spotify Family, Apple Music, YouTube Premium and Amazon Music explicitly restrict usage to personal and domestic use and prohibit public or commercial broadcasting. A retail store is a commercial environment open to the public, where music contributes directly to the commercial activity of selling products.
The research is nuanced. Music influences pace of movement, dwell time and perceived service quality, and these correlate with spending behaviour under specific conditions. A poorly chosen sonic environment can make customers leave a store faster than a well-chosen one would, which directly affects conversion.
The five stations are curated by Emanuele Carocci, a radio broadcaster with over 20 years of professional on-air experience on national commercial radio. He leads the music curation team at My Corporate Radio.
Yes. The service supports multi-location management. A chain can create a coherent brand sound across all locations and customise mood or announcements for individual stores. For chains and franchise networks a Pro plan is available on request, write to sales@mycorporateradio.com.
Yes. No contract, no commitment. Cancel with one click from the link in the confirmation email.
Related guides from the My Corporate Radio editorial catalogue on commercial audio branding across different venue categories.
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