Alison Chaltas

New Technology Increases Scent of Shopping

February 28, 2011

FROM RETAILWIRE:
No fewer than three industry spokespeople have recently issued puffs (pun intended) agreeing with the British queen of shopping Mary Portas about the value of scenting stores. What do you think of the potential for scents as part of the shopping experience?      [more...]

Scent is a very important part of our sensory experience in any environment. Just think about how you feel when you want by a custom coffee roaster or fabulous bread bakery. Olfactory glands set off the rest of our desire to buy and can be a powerful retail tool.

The challenge is scent is polarizing, even more so than any other sense. Food retailers have an easier time tapping into our sense of smell for enhanced retail perception (think oranges as you walk in the door. On the down side, grocers have to be the most careful about the curse of negative scents (think a less than perfectly clean dairy case). Beyond grocery, retailers have to be very choiceful about when, how and how much to use scents.

The first step in a retail scent-based effort is really understand your target shopper and her/his relationship with scents. Shopper research is the critical foundation to understand how your most valuable shoppers react to scents, overall and then specific executions. Think about the masters at Abercrombie and the scents wafting into the mall as parents walk by and snear and their tweens run in enthusiastically. Or the heavily made-up perfume sales clerks in Bloomingdale's going after more natural suburban moms who might even be allergic.

Bottom line: scents offer a great way to attract attention and differentiate your retail brand. But proceed with caution and lots of data!