THE EFFECTS OF AMBIENT SCENT ON CONSUMER BEHAVIOR: A REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE

The main purpose of this paper is to present an extended literature review of relevant empirical studies which examine the effect of ambient scent on consumers’ perception, consumers’ emotions and consumers’ behavioral responses in the context of retailing. Compared with other atmospheric stimuli (such as background music), ambient scent has received little attention from researchers. This paper is also concentrated on identifying de principal dimensions of ambient scent (presence versus absence; congruity versus incongruity and pleasantness versus unpleasantness) and examined how these dimensions of ambient scent have an impact on evaluation of a product, of a store or of a shopping mall and their impact on shopping behavior within a store. The paper also presented the Gulas and Bloch (1995) model, a complex conceptual framework on the influence of ambient scent on consumer responses, in their model the authors introduced the influence of mediating factors on behavioral responses to scent. Their model is a first step on the understanding the role of ambient scent in influencing consumer behavior. Davis, Kooijman and Ward (2003) extending and elaborating the Gulas and Bloch (1995) model by introducing concepts from cognate disciplines and examines mediating factors that help shape the emotional and behavioural responses that are stimulated to encompass current research on human olfaction and brings another specific points for future research. Based on the results of the relevant studies the authors of the present paper concludes by identifying gaps in the literature and suggest future research to explore how the use of scent help to create an overall store atmosphere which influence shopping behavior in the context of retailing.