Aromachology and Customer Behavior in Retail Stores: A Systematic Review

Barbara Borusiak,Davide Giacalone,Bartłomiej Pierański

doi:10.3390/app11136195

Barbara Borusiak, Davide Giacalone + Show 1 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3390/app11136195

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Abstract

Interest in the use of scents in retail environments for creating better customer experiences is growing. Yet, knowledge of the effectiveness of aromachology to affect actual customer behavior and ultimately increase turnover is incomplete, as published results present inconsistencies and are often based on highly controlled environments rather than actual store environments. Situated within this context, this paper offers a systematic review on research in aromachology with a focus on effects on actual customer behavior in actual retail environments. As expected, the available research on actual environments (relative to laboratory-based studies) is limited, with only 20 articles meeting the inclusion criteria. While reported results are, overall, indicative of the positive effects of scent on customers’ emotional states and on their in-store behavior (dwell time, product choices) and attitudes (purchase intention, intention to revisit), several critical issues with the available literature emerged. These pertain primarily to a lack of sufficient methodological details (specifically on the scents, their compositions, intensity and methods of delivery), a narrow focus on scents without considering interactions with other atmospherics factors, and a general disregard of individual differences in olfaction. The review provides suggestions for addressing these shortcomings and improving the quality and actionability of this line of research.

Highlights

Scents have been used for religious purposes, in traditional treatments as well as in everyday life
The present paper presents a systematic review of the literature on aromachology with a focus on customer behavior in actual retail environments
Since this review focuses on the application of aromachology in retailing and its effects on consumer behavior, the main inclusion criteria were that studies should present experimental data on ambient scents of retail areas and include at least one behavioral variable

Summary

Introduction

Scents have been used for religious purposes, in traditional treatments as well as in everyday life. That model received a lot of attention from researchers as a promising method to detect how to induce a desirable behavior in people by design of environmental settings [8] Both service and retail companies are highly interested in creating strong and appealing in-store experiences, and the use of scents is, in this context, generally regarded as a potential source of competitive advantage [9]: for example, scents may be used to differentiate the brand in an increasingly competitive market where the usual marketing mix is not sufficient (an example being major clothing chains such as Abercrombie & Fitch and hotel companies such as Marriot being noted for their signature scents), as well as generally to provide better in-store experiences to their customers and increase their spending and likelihood of revisiting the store

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