Happy Customers, Bigger Baskets

Who isn't drawn in with smells of fresh-baked breads, rotisserie chickens, and the aromas of fresh produce?!

We all know restaurants dim lights and play music to set the mood, and more and more retailers are doing it too. Supermarkets are learning how music, lighting, scent and other store-design elements correlate to shopper moods and purchase behavior, as well as to bigger baskets, longer trips and likelier repeat visits.  

Who isn't drawn in with smells of fresh-baked breads, rotisserie chickens, and the aromas of fresh produce?!

But in our opinion they could do more too. For example, tastings.  Sample foods they sell that are known to improve moods, such as chocolate, tea and berries, and omega-3 rich fish and flaxseed; brands could fund these efforts, or stores themselves in the case of private label. Especially with more retail dietitians on staffs, stores could educate and demonstrate caring with sampling to further connect with shoppers.

And there's also an abundance of technology tools to influence purchases more directly, for example, sending mobile coupons to shoppers’ cell phones based on where they are in a store, issuing check-in discounts as incentives, pinpointing where shoppers spend time in a store and the merchandise they look at, and sensing their emotional responses in real-time to staff interactions, special displays and products on the shelf.

By combining classic triggers like aromas and tastings, with these high tech ideas,  in our opinion stores will have a pretty high chance of capturing the attention and the purchasing power of the modern shopper.