Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jretconser Interacting with background music engages E-Customers more: The impact of interactive music on consumer perception and behavioral intention Angel Hsing-Chi Hwang a,∗ , Jeeyun Oh b a Department of Communication Cornell University 452 Mann Library Building Ithaca, NY 14853, United States b Stan Richards School of Advertising & Public Relations, Moody College of Communication, The University of Texas at Austin, 300 West Dean Keeton (A1200), Austin, TX, 78712, , United States ARTICLEINFO Keywords: Interactivity Interactive music Consumer engagement E-commerce Theory of interactive media efects (TIME) ABSTRACT The current study investigates the potential of applying interactive music to the design of e-commerce websites, aiming to create more engaging consumer experience. The model of Theory of Interactive Media Efects (TIME) is applied to propose two psychological mechanisms – heightened consumer control and perceived vividness of the website – that explain the efect of interactive music on consumer engagement. A single-factor experiment with three conditions (the control condition without background music, the static background music condition, and the interactive background music condition) was conducted and data from 248 consumers were collected. Results found that consumers in the interactive music condition were more afectively engaged in the shopping task compared to those in the other two conditions due to a higher level of novelty. The novelty dimension of afective engagement subsequently led to stronger behavioral intention and more positive perception toward the website and its brand. Whereas consumer control explained only afective engagement with the online store, perceived vividness of the website predicted both cognitive and afective engagement. In conclusion, the present study contributes to scholarship by addressing limited discussion on interactive music under the context of consumer behavior and drawing attention to perceived control and vividness as critical mediators of consumer engagement in the digital retailing environment. 1. Introduction Theonlineshoppingmarketisevolvingatanunprecedentedpace. In 2017, global e-commerce sales amounted to 2.3 trillion US dollars and e-retail revenues are projected to double in the next fve years (Hall, 2017). According to Nielsen Holdings’ Nielsen, 2017 Total Consumer Report (2017), in the United States, the online merchan- dising market is expected to thrive with a growth rate of 12.2% through 2020. The business becomes ever competitive among online retailers who strive to create one-of-a-kind shopping experience. Hence, the current study attempts to integrate interactive music as an innovative media format to e-commerce environment and in- vestigatesitsefectsononlineconsumers.Interactivemusicreferstoa category of audio media where specifc actions of a user lead to al- teration in various aspects of music, such as tempo, mode, texture, andvolume(Winkler, 2001). Specifcally, the media format raises the interest of the present research for two main reasons. To begin with, research in non-business realms has revealed positive efects of in- teractivemusic.Forinstance,itsuseinmusictherapywasfoundtobe efective in enhancing attention and task performance of children with attention defcit disorder (ADD) (Haslbeck, 2014; Schwartz et al., 2017). However, there has been little discussion on interactive music under business context, and its impact on consumer behavior remains unclear. On top of that, we see potentials of applying inter- active music to online retail stores as both music and interactivity are found to increase the level of user engagement, which is a critical factor that yields greater e-consumer perception and behavioral in- tention. In online retailing, music has traditionally been considered as an important atmospheric component that can create more vivid shopping environment and more hedonic consumer experience (Cuny et al., 2015). The presence, tempo, volume, dynamics, and atmospheric ef- https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jretconser.2019.101928 Received 21 August 2018; Received in revised form 30 June 2019; Accepted 19 August 2019 ∗ Corresponding author. E-mail addresses: hh695@cornell.edu (A.H.-C. Hwang), jeeyunoh@utexas.edu (J. Oh). Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services 54 (2020) 101928 0969-6989/ © 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. T