KEY POINTS:
The next time you are out shopping and inhale the tempting aroma of grapes, leather or even freshly roasted coffee beans, you may not be smelling the real thing.
Retailers in New Zealand are increasingly using artificial fragrances to entice shoppers and increase sales.
It's called in-store fragrancing and has been popular overseas for several years, but has only taken off in New Zealand in the past 12 to 18 months. The fragrances are automatically released from an aerosol can at programmed time intervals.
An expert in consumer trends from Australia's Monash University told the Herald in-store fragrancing could increase the overall pleasure of a shopper's experience and in turn make them spend more money.
"[In-store fragrancing] is another way of connecting to emotions. You connect and engage and excite consumers using the five senses, so one of those is a sense of smell. So a combination of music and aroma or whatever can certainly influence behaviour," said Michael Morrison.
"It's designed as a strategy to attract people into a space, to hopefully make them come back and stay longer. So the fact they are in there longer and they come back, the chances are they are going to purchase more."
North Beach Surf n Skate in Westgate uses in-store fragrancing. Manager Ross Armstrong said the store started using a coconut fragrance last Christmas.
"It creates a nice atmosphere especially over summer and the coconut scent fits in well with our image of being summery and at the beach. The shop smells nice and is nicer to be in as well and it probably does help a little bit in persuading people to buy stuff subconsciously ... It gets people in the mood to buy summery sort of clothes and stuff."
Ecomist, a company specialising in in-store fragrancing, said several thousand shops in New Zealand used it.
Ecomist general manager Helen Thompson-Carter said in-store fragrancing had been popular in the United States and Europe for a number of years, but had only recently caught on in New Zealand.
She said some homeware stores pumped out coffee smells above coffee machines, while some surf shops used tropical smells.
"You can go into a shoe store and think 'Gosh this is full of beautiful, leather shoes', but in actual fact the leather fragrance will be puffing out somewhere."
But stores pumping out leather smells only did so if they sold leather goods, she said.
"It's not trickery or bribery. It's about enhancing someone's experience."
Other users include video shops and movie theatres, which pump out the smell of popcorn.
"If you want to keep somebody in a store, there's three things you need to get right. One of them is your image, the second is music and the third is aroma. One of the retailers that has got it right is [clothing store] Supre. When you go into a Supre store, you'll find the music is very young, funky and really loud. And the smells they have are young, funky smells. One of the most popular smells for them is vanilla because young people love vanilla ... it's sweet and fresh and something they can identify with. Whereas when we get older our tastes in perfume change completely."
She said research had shown that subtle aromas made people stay in shops longer and spend more money, as well as creating a point of difference.
"They have an increased perception of quality in the product and the service they receive, there's an increase in impulse buying, and there's an increase of returning customers to the store."
Seductive smells
* Surf shops: coconut
* Shoe and furniture shops: leather
* Video stores and movie theatres: popcorn
* Menswear stores: aftershave
* Coffee stand: coffee beans
* Liquor stores: grapes
* Baby stores: talcum powder
