Book publishers sell nearly 20 million romance novels every year, but there's a way bookstores might be able to sweeten the deal: Sell chocolate, as well.
According to research by two Belgium universities, bookstore browsers are almost six times more likely to buy a romance novel if there is a noticeable scent of chocolate in the air. In fact, that sweet smell also encourages more browsing and keeps people lingering longer in the store.
The findings are the work of Hasselt and Antwerp researchers, who spent 10 days observing the habits of shoppers at a high-end bookstore. The whiff of cocoa was specifically tied to romance novels and cookbooks, showing only moderately enticing effects for other genres.
"When consumers smell chocolate, concepts associated with chocolate, such as cooking, become more readily accessible to the consumer's mind and cause consumers to react differently when encountering a cookbook than if they had not smelled chocolate," said researcher Lieve Doucé.
Sweet chocolate facts:
- While one cacao tree produces about 2,500 beans, a pound of chocolate requires 400 beans.
- Cacao beans were so prized by the Aztecs that they used them as currency.
- The first mass-produced chocolate bars were first sold by the competing British confectionery companies Fry's and Cadbury in the late 1840s.