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The Scent Firms Hacking the Retail Experience

As in-person retail continues to recover, store owners and marketers are working hard to press the main advantage analogue shopping has over digital: its appeal to all the senses.
Aesop Store | Source: Courtesy
Sense marketing became a more organised discipline in the 1990s, and now dozens of firms exist to help store owners develop distinctive custom smells. (Aesop)

When Dallas Pratt worked at an outpost of Aesop in an outdoor shopping mall outside Chicago, one of her and her co-workers’ favourite ways of drawing in new customers was making a concoction they called “sidewalk tea.” They would put a few drops of scented lotion in a cup of hot water, and then they would pour it onto the slab of concrete outside the shop. As the water evaporated, the smell of the lotion would fill the air.

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