Creating business enterprise value with mall atmospherics: Impact of ambient odors on mall shoppers' emotions, cognition and spending

The bulk of shopping mall research is real estate-oriented. Managerial attention is directed at the quantification of the business enterprise value. Market attraction, anchor store selection, and tenants mix are the main factors in creating business enterprise value. Until recently marketing had not been considered a key element in the success of a shopping mall. We suggest that mall atmospherics such as music, decor, or ambient scent can mediate shopping trip frequencies, sales transactions, and average sales, and thus significantly lift sales. In the end, superior gross sales will affect upward tenants' leases, and heighten the business enterprise value.; We tested the effect of ambient scent on shoppers in a mall environment. Two competing models were used. The first model is derived from the environmental psychology research stream (Mehrabian and Russell, 1974; Donovan and Rossiter, 1982) where atmospheric cues generate pleasure and arousal, and then in turn an approach/avoidance behavior. The emotion-cognition model is supported by Zajonc and Markus (1984). The second model tested is based on Lazarus (1991) cognitive theory of emotions. In this latter model, shoppers' perceptions of the retail environment and product quality mediate the effects of ambient scent cues on emotions and spending behaviors. Positive affect is enhanced from shoppers' evaluations. Using structural equation modeling, we conclude that the cognitive theory of emotions better explains the effect of ambient scent.; Environmental cues interact with each other to create enhanced or unanticipated effects. In the second experiment, we investigated the moderating effects of ambient odors on shoppers' emotions, perceptions of the retail environment, and perceptions of product quality under various levels of retail density. The pleasing ambient scents are hypothesized to positively moderate shoppers' perceptions of their environment. A multi-group invariant SEM model that accounts for different retail density levels shows that the relationship between ambient odors and mall perception adopts an inverted U-shape. Ambient odors positively influence shoppers' perceptions only under the medium retail density condition. Incongruity theory informs the interaction effect between the two atmospheric variables. A moderate incongruity level is more likely to trigger a favorable evaluation of the situation (the shopping experience), object (the products sold), or the person (the salesclerks).; The two experiments were carried out in an actual shopping center location and within a bicultural environment involving English and French-speaking shoppers. Prior to building path analysis models, we had to ensure that measurement constructs were invariant and equivalent across cultural groups. English and French Canadian shoppers were tested for invariant latent means on the shopping value scale (Babin, Darden and Griffin, 1994) and on the mall habitat scales (Bloch, Ridgway and Dawson, 1994).