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How Retailers Manipulate Your Senses To Increase Their Sales
If you notice that display racks this holiday season are nicely scented, it’s not just shops are tidier at year’s end. Scents like citrus and floral can make you linger and stay alert in the shop to buy more. Marketers believe scents do sell, with an increasing number of scientific studies backing such claims, that the whole act spawned a new marketing sub-industry: scent marketing. It reminds us of germ warfare, an unseen weaponry that has your wallet in the crosshairs.
Real estate agents are already deploying this trick to unsuspecting buyers; the smell of freshly baked goods is said to encourage prospects to buy property during ocular visits. Similarly, talcum powder makes you feel nostalgic and, perhaps, want to buy that cushioned reading chair you don’t need.
The use of scent is just one of four sensory marketing tricks being used on us by shops eager for more sales. Collated in the new infographic below you can find a number of scientific studies that indicate what we see, hear or touch affect our buying decisions. You’ll be surprised at some of the seemingly unrelated factors that have a profound effect on your shopping. In one experiment published in the Harvard Business Review, participants were found to be a harder bargainer when sitting on a hard chair.
Likewise, you may already know that colors have meanings. For instance, sale signs are in red (urgency) and many insurance logos are in blue (trust). You’ll also get an idea how a number of your favorite shops, such as Bloomingdale’s, Apple Store, and Nike Town, lure you by playing tricks on your senses. Do you know why Apple Store leaves its notebook display half-open, or why you suddenly crave for a tropical vacation while inside Bloomingdale’s?
Made available by: alternativesfinder.com Author: Kate Stephens
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I guess it is good that I stay away from malls!
Last time I was in Target it smelled like Grand Daddy Kush
Hmm, I don't see that kind of marketing in the ammo department. There is no particular smell, no particular packaging color, and no particular color of signage. What should the ammo department smell like?
Forward (over the cliff)!
Buy this box of 1000 for $20k! Or buy this box of 10 for $10k...OR buy THIS box of 100 for just $199.99. Just guess which one I'm sellin'
Pimps, politicians, and retailers know how to program you to buy what they want you to buy because you don't spend the time to educate yourself as a consumer, voter, etc. It's called the illusion of choice.
No store ever made me buy anything. Ever.
Bernaysian conditioning, elevated to a high science, and re-branded as "marketing."
The smell of Ammo. "Smells like victory." - Appocolipse Now.
The smell of Pussy. "Smells like victory."
It's "Apocalypse."
And the Skinner box...
http://www3.niu.edu/acad/psych/Millis/History/2003/skinbox3.gif
What should the ammo department smell like?
Napalm. It smells like victory.
Cordite
i never did hooters, but they opened a tilted kilt by me, i was looking at and talking my pals and i heard 'would you like a drink' and turned to face some big pouting puppies. it works.
that is marketing.
teats work great on me. And nice asses. Some of the guys comments get by easier because of their avatars. Latina lover and the guy with the chick wearing the ass high green and black stockings. Umm!
Hooters was all good when I was in my 20's. But those joints are kinda creepy now that the waitresses are all girls my daughter went to school with.
Quick loook and I saw ALL I need to see to know this article is complete bullshit....They pictured Bud Light under 'Bitter'.
The article: meant for people who have NEVER had a real beer.
I'm guessing Bud Light cans are blue to advise that they contain 99.999999% water with .000001% artificial beer flavoring.
So, is poop smell used in the ceramic bowl section at Lowes?
Elicits the "Yeah, now that's what I'm talkin' about" thoughts.
ROFLMAO!!
knucks, you've really been on with the humor the last couple of months. Rafterman FMJ too. You guys finish your apocalypse preps and just hanging until we're all Detroit or what?
Doc, the end of the world only happens once.
I did go to the mall for the first time in a long time on Sunday. The music was horribly distracting at the clothing stores, and the smells were also annoying. I did not buy anything. Maybe their nefarious tricks don't work on frugal, annoyed shoppers looking for their mind control tricks?
No shit, bro. I'm with you. Over-stimulating.
About the only place I go to shop is the ACE hardware or gun store. Everything else is online or I don't need it.
I don't know about scent, but the enhanced breasts on my salesgal at Sports Authority had me loading up a new Ping Pong Table in my pickup. A little touching would have added to my shopping pleasure..
How to sell more crap
I have no problem relaxing for a couple of hours inside a Borders store, particulalrly one with comfy chairs. Then I go home and buy the books I want from Amazon, the "used" section... Marketing is SOO overrated...
deleted
Adorable. So what happens when everyone is broke as fuck?
Nothing, except they free-fuck some more...
Easy....go get the scented candles out, light em up and reminisce.
Credit from the Federal Reserve (except it is by proxy; aka Discover, Visa, Mastercard etc)
Evidently they just keep pretending they're not.
I don't know about buy, but horny, yes.
During college I worked at a clothing store in the mall with a bunch of fine ass chicks. Customers too. Holy shit.
I had friends that worked at other clothing stores in the mall. Those friends were fine, and their colleagues were fine. Their customers too.
Anyways, the clothing was dyed with dyes that have a distinctive scent when new and on display.
Now, whenever I walk into a store and smell that scent, I get as horny as hell. "Yeah, baaaaby, yeah! Do I make you horny? Do I?"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CsnEIjgqW7A
A horny American, not US subject.
If you are looking to get laid, find a girl with daddy issues.
Then...buy a nice cheap bottle of Old Spice, English Leather or Brute.
Instant Pavlov's Poontang. You're welcome...but have an escape plan and a place in another city to stay when shit goes sideways. It will.
If you want a real woman, skip the fancy stuff, skip the shower after the gym or jog and dab some blood and 10w40 motor oil on your wrist. The one that's attracted to that wants a man...and hopefully you can live up to the smell.
Actually a man walking in sweaty from chainsawing a cord of wood will always make me swoon. Nothing better.
Miffed
It's easy, go into any clothing store, go in the dressing room wait a few minutes, then start hollering where's the fucking toilet paper.
So, what's ZH's strategy on this?
I'm not picking up on the smell of Tyler's hand crafted soap over this thing.
What the fuck they used to sell this president?
McCain and Romney. I rest my case.
GWB, lest we forget.
Affirmative Action
Touche, brother! Touche!
Employees touching shoppers.... more sexual harrassment suits...
But not until 30 or 40 years have passed.
If this works on you, you still vote...
Have a blast retailers. I'm a non consumer.
So you pull down your strides and allow yourself a good tugging in the lingerie section packed out with booty citing scent as your defense
"Likewise, you may already know that colors have meanings. For instance, sale signs are in red (urgency) and many insurance logos are in blue (trust)."
White styrofoam columns (fake).
But you already knew that ;-)
Apparently blue and yellow (Walmart) attracts the FSA.
Smell of nursing mothers?!?
I had that same question and was gonna ask if it has to be a baby sucking on a teat to produce the same sensation and then thought better of it and while thinking better of it, then forget. But now that you remind me....
That explains why I never see a victoria's secret store next to a seafood restaurant.
LOL
Trying to not laugh too loud so Mrs K doesn't ask me what's so funny.
ROFL
my monitor is now sprayed with morning tea
I'm not sure if this strategy would work personally. I think they would have to first entice me into their store. To me, going to a mall is ranked on par with a high colonic and I can't imagine what scent would counteract that.
Miffed
What about the smells of a crop dusted fart as I stroll around holding my wife's purse? Intrigue
What?
ROTFLMAO!
I think he means laying one out as he moves along.
I like the subtle brilliance. Intrigue is a perfume, probably most gents would not know this.
Miffed
The thing about music...it's tricky. I find that I'm more inclined to want to buy something from a place that plays classic rock, or something that makes me feel nostalgic, but that would be different for everyone. If you want to drive me out of a store immediately, play something with autotuned vocals. If you're a North American retailer, play something Icelandic, and I WILL buy something. ...or bagpipes, any store with the balls to play bagpipe music gets my money immediately. I'll just throw it at the cashier, even if I don't want anything you're selling.
I think the Apple store trick is geared more towards people's compulsion to fix something that's wrong. Clearly, a laptop being displayed for sale should not be in such a state, so I've been caught by this trick and "fixed" it at least once in an Apple store, not from any desire to get any kind of better look at the product.
Of course, then I promptly marched out of the store to find the nearest facilities where I could thoroughly wash my hands, due to the revulsion I had for actually touching an Apple product. Even just being in an Apple store makes me want to go straight home and take a shower with a metal scrub brush.
A good way to counteract the subliminal marketing is to leave your credit cards at home and only use cash. Then eat a heavy meal, and sit in the parking lot and smoke some pot before you go in. You probably won't buy anything at all; you'll have a good time, and maybe by the time you get home you'll remember what you'd wanted to buy in the first place and order it on Amazon.
Dupe
I do find I like gun stores more if there is a gunsmith in it....the smell of burnt powder and gun oil is nostalgic to me. other than that and hardware stores, I generally stay out. i Do like my Chinese tailor. ...the two old guys he employs break out the opium in the afternoon. ...can't recommend him to any of the cops I know. and taking them up on the offer is a really bad idea....lol.
Wait. What? Borders? How old is this article?
Touching? Seriously? I don't want a waiter, petitioner, survey taker, or salesperson touching me. Of course that could work with male shoppers, but with female shoppers? I just can't see it; talk about creepy and presumptuous.
Amazon is looking better and better. And Walmart, I guess - no way will there be any staff person in sight even if you want one, let alone someone who is going to grope you in the hopes of making a sale.