Skip to footer

Customers are more likely to buy books if they smell chocolate, says study

A group of Belgian researchers that concluded shoppers are more likely to buy items at a bookstore (especially cookbooks and romance novels) if the scent of chocolate is in the air.

|
Peterbrooke Chocolatier/AP
Might the smell of chocolate tempt you to purchase an extra book? If so, you're not alone.
  • By Molly Driscoll Staff Writer

Many readers love to curl up with a good book and a piece of chocolate.

But did you know that just smelling chocolate makes you more likely to purchase a book?

A group of Belgian researchers concluded just that in a study published in the Journal of Environmental Psychology. According to the study, customers are 40 percent more likely to bring a cookbook or romance novel to the cash register (more women did this than men) and around 22 percent more likely to buy books of other genres if they could smell chocolate.

The researchers observed customers in a bookstore that is part of a chain and noted their behaviors based on the chocolate smell. Shoppers were also three times more likely to talk with bookstore staff when they smelled chocolate and two times more likely to stop and take a look at more than one book.

The group observed 201 customers total.

As noted by NPR, a study in 2008 already found that when women smelled chocolate chip cookies, they were more likely to purchase clothing items they may not have been planning on buying originally, so perhaps the Belgian study results are not totally surprising.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to Customers are more likely to buy books if they smell chocolate, says study
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/Books/chapter-and-verse/2013/0802/Customers-are-more-likely-to-buy-books-if-they-smell-chocolate-says-study
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe