Did you know that your store horribly stinks?

In my opinion it is a totally unacceptable thing for a brand with a store not to focus on the following two things: smell and music. Because they are part of your branding too!

Smell

Because the first thing that hits your customer when he enters your store is the smell. Not the fact that you have 50% discount or that you have an over expensive counter or that your cashier has a push up bra and a v-neck or that you have an awesome LED that you got at a promotional sale.

Not the fact that you have arranged your products so as to attract attention from the moment the door opens. It’s so simple and yet many still do not understand that smell is an important factor in a store.

People associate smells with memories from their lives, people associate smells with good things on with bad things from their lives.

For example, when I still lived in my home town, Oradea, Romania nearly every time I went into a sports shop from at the Mall, 98% of the time they were waiting for me with the same smell. A nice fragrancy, sporty, one that kept the same identity everyday. Noo … Please don’t get me wrong when I say that your store smells and rush to a supermarket to buy 20 liliac and lavander room deodorizers.

I want you to understand a little how important the smell in your store is and that this is a deciding factor when your client comes through your door.

Music

Well … this music thing amuses me every time I walk into a store. It seems like every store is playing the general radio stations.

If the boss enjoys music from XFM and he has all his house and car appliances set to XFM then it is a sure thing that his store has to play music from XFM too because … he likes it that way and that’s that. Ok, and what if he owns a pharmacy and he still plays just XFM’x music there? How do you think the pharmacist can interact with the customer in pain while the background music is so loud and commercial and sometimes in such a bad taste?

Ok, I understand the copyright issue and that you cannot download whichever music you want to and then play it in your shop and that radio is the easiest way to go because you only pay a small fee to the broadcast. But why don’t you make a deal with a studio and get a monthly playlist from them in a genre that goes hand in hand with your store? Well … that’s just one idea.

Conclusion

Take into consideration the fact that the smell and the music in your store are part of what makes the customer decide to purchase something from you.

How much importance do you give them?