The Smell of Chocolate Could Save Book Stores

Before you read: some questions to help you think about the topic and the words you might need.

Do you visit bookstores much?

Why do you think sales of books at bookstores might be decreasing?

First it was the music and movie industry and now it is the book industry that is experiencing competition from technology which is leading to declining sales. And if book stores can’t find some creative ways to keep and attract customers then they might go the way of the dinosaurs.

Booksellers could soon have a secret weapon in the war against declining trade - the smell of chocolate.

Researchers in Belgium have discovered that shoppers are more likely to take their time browsing and buy books from certain genres if a bookstore smells of chocolate.

Scientists from the Hasselt University in eastern Belgium conducted a 10 day experiment in a general interest book shop.

The team dispersed a subtle smell of chocolate into the store that wasn't immediately noticeable to customers, but strong enough so that it could be identified once pointed out.

The smell was present in the store for around half of the store's opening hours and researchers found that customers were more likely to take their time in the store and talk to members of staff.

The report, published in the Journal of Environmental Psychology, found specifically that 'customers were 2.22 times more likely to closely examine multiple books when the chocolate scent was present in store, compared with the control condition.'

Shoppers were less likely to search out a particular book and more likely to browse the shelves.

The scent also appeared to influence the genre of books customers bought.

More than a fifth of books sold were either food and drink and romance novels or history books and crime thrillers.

Sales in the first two book groups increased by 40 per cent when the scent was dispersed, and this was opposite to sales in the second two groups which increased by just over 25% when the scent was absent.

But the smell of chocolate seemed to move customers away from the history and crime thriller section.

The report, which studied every fifth customer of the 201 who entered the store, found that: 'Retailers can make use of pleasant ambient scents to improve the store environment, leading consumers to explore the store.'

Try to guess the meaning of the words in bold and match them with their closest meaning from the choices in the right. Some of the answers are very close and have similar meaning. The meaning of these words is how they are used in the reading.

 The answers are below the table.