Do Pleasant-Smelling Stores Encourage More Spending?

Does shopping pick up in a store with a pleasant scent? If so, would any pleasant smell do, or is it important for the scent to fit the products? A study by Jasper H. B. de Groot published in 2021 investigated this distinction in an actual second-hand clothing store.

The research aimed to do more than find a way to increase store sales. It asked whether scent could help create an environment encouraging clothing reuse, and whether the route from scent to spending involved mood changes or associations with meanings such as cleanliness.

Comparing two fragrances with the usual odor in a second-hand clothing store

The setting was one second-hand clothing store in Utrecht, the Netherlands. The study lasted seven weeks: the first retained the usual store odor without added fragrance, the next two used fresh linen scent, and after a one-week break, the final three used vanilla sandalwood scent. Scents were switched in sequence by week, not randomly assigned to individual visitors.

Fresh linen was selected as a scent associated with clean laundry. In a separate pilot test with 22 people, it received high ratings for both pleasantness and associations with cleanliness. Vanilla sandalwood served as a pleasantness control; it did not undergo the same laboratory pilot test.

Fragrance was dispersed through the store from a diffuser near the entrance. Staff were not told the study hypothesis and served customers normally. Customers finishing their shopping were invited to complete an optional questionnaire about spending, mood, and evaluations of the store, products, and staff.

Respondents were 57 people aged 18–65: 53 women and four men. Twenty-one responded during the linen-scent period, 19 during vanilla sandalwood, and 17 under the usual store odor. The response rate was 16.8%, and spending comparisons were based on amounts reported by responding purchasers.

Respondents reported higher spending during the linen-scent period

Mean reported spending per person was €10.36 during the linen-scent period, €5.76 under the usual store odor, and €6.72 with vanilla sandalwood. Linen was significantly higher than both controls, while vanilla sandalwood did not differ significantly from the usual store odor.

The linen-scent average was about 1.8 times the usual-odor average, but that does not show that total store sales increased 1.8-fold. These were survey averages from only some purchasers. Supplementary counts also considered the proportion of visitors who purchased, but there were too few observation days for formal statistical testing.

Was linen simply more pleasant? Among the 27 people who noticed an odor and rated it, pleasantness was almost identical: 5.43 out of seven for linen and 5.46 for vanilla sandalwood. Not all respondents rated the scents, but the available ratings suggest that pleasantness alone is unlikely to explain the spending difference.

Was buying more because of a better mood confirmed?

Mood and store evaluations were also higher during the linen-scent period than under the usual store odor. However, analyses based on the initial hypotheses did not statistically support a pathway in which improved mood increased spending. A pathway through improved store evaluations was also nonsignificant in that analysis.

The researcher therefore conducted additional exploratory analyses seeking relationships that fitted the data. That model indicated links from linen scent to store evaluation and from store evaluation to spending. A pathway to spending through mood remained unsupported.

Importantly, this additional model did not include a direct pathway from scent to spending. Because its assumptions differed from the initial analysis, it did not establish that better store evaluations caused increased spending. The author treats the result as a lead to test in experiments with larger samples.

Matching a scent’s meaning to the shopping situation

The author’s central interpretation is that a scent recalling clean laundry may connect with the quality people seek in second-hand clothing. In a separate preliminary survey of 79 people, hygiene ranked behind only limited wear and tear as a consideration when buying second-hand clothing. Linen scent may therefore have contributed to an evaluation that the store and goods could be chosen with greater reassurance.

The study did not directly measure activation of the concept of cleanliness in people’s minds. The interpretation nevertheless rests on the absence of a similar spending increase with a control scent rated comparably pleasant, and the exploratory association through store evaluation rather than mood. An interesting feature is its attention not only to a scent’s pleasantness but to what that scent means in a particular place.

Associations evoked by fragrance vary with experience and culture. A freshly laundered clothing scent that was meaningful in this second-hand store might not work the same way with other products, stores, or customers.

Limitations of a real-store study and questions about its use

Although the study examined actual shopping, switching conditions in a fixed order by week means that period-specific differences other than scent cannot be fully removed. Weather did not correlate significantly with reported spending, and differences between scent conditions remained after accounting for day of the week, but these checks cannot exclude every other factor. Time spent in the store was not recorded either.

There were few respondents, predominantly women and frequent second-hand-store customers. Only about one person in six responded, and people favorably disposed toward the store may have been more likely to participate. The mood and store-evaluation measures were also brief; items that did not fit together well were removed before analysis, requiring caution about conclusions concerning mechanisms.

Regarding sustainability, what the experiment directly measured was spending in a second-hand clothing store. It did not investigate whether choices shifted from new to second-hand clothes, or whether total clothing purchases or environmental impacts fell. It may offer a promising lead for encouraging second-hand clothing use, but environmental benefits were not demonstrated.

The author also discusses the ethics of using scent, because people in a store may find dispersed fragrance difficult to avoid. Beyond making a pleasant space, using it to encourage spending calls for considering whether customers should be informed of that influence and whether the resulting choices fit their own values.

Summary

In this second-hand clothing store, survey respondents reported higher average spending during the fresh-linen-scent period. Vanilla sandalwood, rated similarly pleasant, did not produce demonstrably higher spending than the usual store odor.

The author concludes that scent may influence shopping not only through pleasantness but through meanings associated with a store or its goods. Evidence for the mechanism remains exploratory, but the possibility that linen scent worked in a second-hand-clothing setting where cleanliness matters offers a concrete lead for considering how scent fits a space. Using it to support sustainable choices requires research verifying its effects and approaches that respect customers’ own choices.

References

de Groot, J. H. B. (2021). Smells in Sustainable Environments: The Scented Silk Road to Spending. Frontiers in Psychology, 12, 718279. DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2021.718279 · Full original article.

Original article: © 2021 de Groot. CC BY 4.0. The research received an NWO Veni grant; ScentAir supplied fragrance free of charge and installed the diffuser. The author declared no conflict of interest.