CREATING AN APPEALING STORE ATMOSPHERE

To provide a rewarding shopping experience, retailers go beyond presenting appealing merchandise.

Atmospherics refers to the design of an environment by stimulation of the five senses. 33 Many
retailers have discovered the subtle benefits of developing atmospherics that complement other
aspects of the store design and the merchandise. Therefore, they use lighting, colors, music, scent,
and even flavors to stimulate customers’ perceptual and emotional responses and ultimately affect
their purchase behavior. Research has shown that it is important for the atmospheric elements to
work together—for example, the right music with the right scent.

34 Lighting

Good lighting in a store involves more than simply illuminating space. Lighting can highlight
merchandise and capture a mood or feeling that enhances the store’s image. Retailers also are
exploring ways to save energy with technologically advanced lighting. Having the appropriate
lighting positively influences customer shopping behavior.

35 Highlighting Merchandise

A good lighting system helps create a sense of excitement in the store. At the same time, lighting
must provide an accurate color rendition of the merchandise. It also allows the retailer to focus
spotlights on special featured areas and items. The key determinant appears to be achieving an
appropriate level of contrast, which helps attract visual attention. 36 Using lighting to focus on
strategic pockets of merchandise trains shoppers’ eyes on the merchandise and draws customers
strategically through the store. Nike, for example, uses a lot of contrast and shadows, highlighting
the merchandise but not necessarily the architecture.

Mood Creation

Retailers use lighting to set the mood for their customers. Ralph Lauren stores and boutiques in
department stores use low levels of light to coordinate with their overall ambience of resembling a
townhouse. Abercrombie & Fitch keeps stores purposefully dark, discouraging too many parents
from entering. With their lesser concern about atmospherics, full-line discount stores, food retailers,
and category specialists tend to brighter and less-expensive fluorescent lighting.

Energy-Efficient Lighting

As the price of energy soars and retailers and their customers become more energy-conscious,
retailers are looking for ways to cut their energy costs and be more ecologically friendly. One
obvious source of energy consumption is the lighting in a store, which makes up approximately one-
third of a large store’s energy costs. Light-emitting diode (LED) lighting is replacing fluorescent
lighting in many stores because it reduce these costs by up to 75 percent, and they last 10 times
longer than standard bulbs. Yet LEDs are more expensive initially than traditional lighting. 37
Color

The creative use of color can enhance a retailer’s image and help create a mood. Warm colors (red,
gold, and yellow) produce emotional, vibrant, hot, and active responses. Thus, for sellers using
online auction sites like eBay, it may be a good idea to use red tones, because bidders instinctively
respond with higher bids in the online auction, compared with a sale page dominated by blue
hues.38 Cool colors (white, blue, and green) have a peaceful, gentle, calming effect and appear to
induce abstract thinking, leading customers to view products more favorably. Thus brick-and-mortar
stores may want to use these more relaxing colors of the spectrum.39 Although these trends are
common, colors can have differential impacts, depending on various consumer traits, such as their
culture (e.g., in the East, white is a color of mourning, whereas in the West, it often implies purity),
their age, and their gender.

Music

Music can either add to or detract from a retailer’s total atmospheric package. Most shoppers notice
music playing in stores, and nearly half of them say they will leave if they do not like the selections
being played.40 Fortunately, unlike other atmospheric elements though, music can be easily
changed. For example, one retailer has a system that allows different types of music to be played at
certain times of the day. It can play jazzy music in the morning when its customer base is older and
adult contemporary in the afternoon for a 35-to-40-year age range customer. For its West Coast
stores, it wants modern rock in the morning and Caribbean beats in the afternoon. And in Texas, it’s
country music all day, every day. The retailer also can “zone” music by demographics, playing more
Latin music in stores that attract a higher Hispanic population. Retailers also can use music to affect
customers’ behavior. Music can control the pace of store traffic, create an image, and attract or
direct consumers’ attention. For instance, one U.K. toy store switched from children’s songs like “Baa
Baa Black Sheep” to relaxed classical music and watched sales jump by 10 percent.41 Managers
realized that though children are the consumers of their products, adults are the customers. In
general, slow is good. A mix of classical or otherwise soothing music encourages shoppers to slow
down, relax, and take a good look at the merchandise.

Scent

Smell has a large impact on a customer’s mood and emotions. In conjunction with music, it can
increase customers’ excitement and satisfaction with the shopping experience.42 Customers in
scented stores think they spent less time in the store than do those in unscented stores. Scents thus
can improve customers’ subjective shopping experience by making them feel that they are spending
less time examining merchandise, waiting for sales help, or checking out. Retailers also use different
essences in different departments: baby powder in the baby store; suntan lotion in the bathing suit
area; lilacs in lingerie; and cinnamon and pine scents during the holiday season. 43 Some high-end
retailers, such as Saks Fifth Avenue, utilize their own unique scents, and mall shoppers can sniff out
an Abercrombie & Fitch store yards away. Yet these apparel retailers are not the only ones to use
this atmospheric tool. Goodwill Stores now disperse the scent of honeysuckle and sweet orange in
an attempt to make its retail sites more appealing. According to a Goodwill spokesperson, “Even if
the recession weren’t happening, we’d be doing everything we can to create a great shopping
experience. We’ve already taken the approach of trying to have better lighting, [a] great layout . . .
this is just one more thing that we hope will help enhance the shopping environment.” 44 When
New Balance spread into China, it aimed for a (Western) nostalgic sensory experience to introduce
the U.S. brand. Thus, not only did the stores feature wooden floors and 1950s pop music, but they
also smelled like wood and leather. Even pop singers get in on this scent action. During her California
Dreaming tour, Katy Perry appealed to young fans by spreading the scent of cotton candy
throughout the stadiums she played. 45

Taste

It is a little more difficult to appeal subtly to consumers’ taste buds. However, many department
stores are reintroducing an old-fashioned offering to appeal to shoppers: the store restaurant. The
option to grab a bite without leaving the store encourages customers to linger longer and enjoy their
shopping experience more. Café SFA at Saks Fifth Avenue offers a stellar view of Rockefeller Center,
while Bergdorf Goodman’s BG Restaurant shows off Central Park. And for those shoppers who must
have a $36 lobster club sandwich to complete their shopping expedition, Fred’s at Barney’s New
York is the place to go. 46