Does the scent of a business play with your nose and wallet?: The Saturday weekend review #73

ByMo CanadianBudgetBinder

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Spices ScentsWHAT SMELLS SO GOOD?

 

Have you ever wanted to eat something so bad simply because you smelled it in the air?  It may be your neighbour who has the BBQ filled with steak or it could be walking through a store and a scent fills the air and guides you to the source.

You know that you’ve had your nose guide in the direction of the food because the aroma of something you fancy doesn’t take long to entice you to want it.

I’m not sure if it’s all in our heads but if we like something most people gravitate towards it. The spices that we use to flavour food and other products can easily capture your senses without you even knowing what’s going on.

It’s not always food either.

Mrs.CBB an I think that Yankee candles have some of the best scented candles around and they know the minute the customer smells the scent they are apt to want to buy it. It’s true the scent is mind-boggling and it’s hard to get my wife away from them.

I’m almost sure she’s going to ask for a spoon most times and I cringe if we see a Yankee candle store because I know we are going to be in there for a while smelling candles, lol. So it’s not only food shops using scent to lure you to buy.

 

Let your nose guide you

 

I was not shocked to read what food reporter Sarah Nassauer for The Wall Street Journal uncovered about retailers battling for your wallet with your nose. Stores are relying on smell more than ever now to lure the customers in and motivate them to make purchases in store.

Not only do they guide you through the door the fragrances aim to keep you in the store shopping. That’s how it works on me at least, lol. Aromas are money in their pockets as long as you follow through by spending money. Hopefully not money you haven’t budgeted for but as well all know many people become shopoholics because they love to spend and adding aromas to the mix doesn’t help the cause.

A while back I mentioned we were shopping in Staples when this coffee aroma came out of nowhere. I was completely shocked and thought I was hallucinating. I love coffee and tea you see so when I can smell it, I want it. How could I be smelling coffee in a Staples store?

Sure enough the cashier confirmed that not only do they sell coffee but she pointed up a beam in the store that held an aroma diffuser which she said released the smell of coffee every so often. Some coffee brands are so potent that you can smell them from a mile away. At the checkout they have a sign marketing the coffee they sell, brilliant if you ask me.

 

Smell that scent

 

Food sells and everyone knows it. People sit in front of the Food Network every day and dream of eating the food they share in the programs.

When out and about shopping fast food is a huge seller to the masses. How many times have you said, “Wow, I can smell Kentucky Fried Chicken” and wanted it or something else that appeals to you. I’ve smelled steak in the air from The Keg or bacon from a breakfast dive in the centre of town and it’s hard to turn away.

What about when you are at community gatherings and all you smell is the french fry food trucks, burgers and all sorts of food being cooked up. Is it that easy for you to keep your hands away from your wallet? I’m sure the smell of food and money are team players.

The article also mentioned that places like Cinnabon put their ovens in the front so the smell of those heaven scent cinnamon buns fills the air. You all know what I’m talking about if you’ve walked in the vicinity of a Cinnabon store.

Apparently there are mall rules though when it comes to how much aroma can be released. Oddly enough I believe you can buy Airwick Cinnabon scented plugins now for your home.

Now the sweet smell of food from your plug-in might encourage you to stay home and cook. Think of the advantages of purchasing a few if you are a big spender on eating out during the week, haha!

Seriously though, how do you control that without simply venting it outside the mall? Who would want to anyways, yum? It makes sense though how popular clothing stores might not want this near their shop because the scent of food on clothing isn’t a huge seller.

Then again some people might get turned on by the scent of cinnamon on their clothes. I’m sure there is a perfume or cologne out there with hints of cinnamon in the scientific mix.

You might also notice walking by Bath and Body Works or The Body Shop to see sample displays right outside the front door in the mall. You can certainly smell soap fragrances when you walk by, at least I can.

This is all part of the marketing lure to get the customer in the door and start emptying out their wallet.  There is no difference having reps standing outside a shop offering free samples of products to potential customers or those food sample booths at the grocery store. You will make your way to the sample rep just to see what’s being cooked up or at least look for coupons.

 

Scents aren’t for everyone

 

Although most smells appeal to the masses there are customers out there that really could care-less to smell such powerful odours in the air. One may be sensitive to smells where another simply can’t stand a smell. If a clothing store has the smell of their signature perfume and cologne in the air they may actually turn customers away, especially those with allergies.

I know when we walk into a grocery store immediately we gravitate towards the bakery and fresh cooked foods like the roasted chicken, potato wedges, pasta salads and pizza station. You can’t help but smell this food and it makes you hungry.

I don’t know if they use anything fancy such as fans to blow the scent into the grocery store for the customers to smell but it sure does play with my nose.

Just last week in Wal-mart the wife and I both smelled something delicious and we were starving and we literally went looking for that smell. I hate to admit it, but it works although we didn’t buy anything.

We stand true to our budget as much as we can and try not to let any type of marketing ploys get to us but it’s not always that easy. This is why you should never shop hungry and how easy your grocery budget can get off track. Marketing works and if it didn’t they wouldn’t be doing it.

  • What aromas play to your senses and your wallet when you are out and about?
  • What other shops do you know of that rely on the smell of their product to lure in customers?
  • Do you know of any stores that use scent dispensers to push smells into the air for customers to smell?

 

CBB at home and blog

 

Our Garden May 2014

Although we haven’t planted any vegetables our chives and spring onions have come up nicely. We actually have more than we anticipated so we will make sure we use them all up.

I do have 2 big loads of basil ready to go and I’m hoping the basil grows as big as it did last year. I was able to make quite a few freezer bags of basil cubes to use throughout the winter in soups, stews and other dishes that we created.

As you can see the rhubarb came up in abundance as always so I twisted it off, cleaned it and it’s in the freezer. We have so much rhubarb that I really need to figure out what to do with it all. I might end up making some sort of jam but I’m not really sure. Someone also mentioned to us that we could donate it to local church groups.

I can’t get over how pricey rhubarb is at the grocery store and I certainly wouldn’t want to see it go to waste. We tried it the other evening with sugar and it was very tasty but very tangy at the same time.

Other than that I’ve pretty much finished the landscaping although I have a few more touch ups to do as well as finish up the planters. We did buy all of our plants and shrubs so they are just waiting to be loved.

Our Heuchera plants that we purchased at Zehrs last year died but since we kept the receipt all we needed to do was dig the dead plants up and bring the receipt in for replacement plants free of charge. The best part was that the plants were on sale for $5.99 and we paid $6.99 last year so she gave me money back, lol. I was shocked but didn’t complain.

You may start to see changes at CBB but I’m not too sure yet. I’ll explain more near the time that I have to but for now a heads up that I may have to scale back on the blog posts. I’d love to be a full-time blogger as a career but unfortunately I have a full-time and part-time job as well. I do the best I can to bring you the best each week.

I was thinking of blogging Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday. Sunday will still be a delicious recipes and Tuesday will be the Grocery Game Challenge.

I will combine the Friday and Saturday post once again to free up another day. What are your thoughts? I always enjoy feedback and if there are any topics you think I haven’t covered and I’m sure there are loads let me know. If you have a story you want to share email me because I always love hearing stories from the fans.

So, that’s how our week went after returning from spending a couple of days with my wife’s family out-of-town. It was nice to get away and just relax.

How was your week?

-Mr.CBB

 

Weekly CBB posts

 

If you missed any CBB posts from the week here is the list of posts you can catch up on reading!

 

Fan deals and inspirations

 

Garage Sale finds Canada

Submit your Brag or Inspiration If you have a brag that you want me to share email me at canadianbudgetbinder (@) [yahoo] [.ca] or fill out my contact form by Friday each week to have your brag considered for the Saturday post.

Today CBB fan Jen Peacock shares her garage sale finds which are always so impressive. Thanks Jen~

I was very pleased with my bargains today.  I now have painting supplies for when the basement is ready for a coat of paint and some insulation and piping for the plumbing for the basement at a fraction of the retail cost.

My best friends’ daughter is turning 8 soon and now loves brand name clothing so the sweaters are for her birthday (she is very accepting of second-hand clothing as her family usually shops at thrift stores and consignment shops).

  • Long black pipe for plumbing – $.50 (they were asking $1.0o we went to Home Depot later and saw a short piece of this for $8.00)
  • Pipe insulation – FREE (they were asking $.25 but when I pointed out that they originally got it free from the door to door energy-saving kits they gave it to me free)
  • Painting kit with tray, roller handle, roller cover and brush – $5, Cold air return vent – $0.50, 3 pack paint rollers – $2, 2 pack small paint rollers – $1, Aeropostale sweaters 2 x $2.00=$4.00…this came to $12.50 but I bartered and got it for $10.00.
  • Teacher’s gift pin – FREE
  • Total spent $10.50

 

Making a difference

 

Wise dollar

If you know a personal finance blogger that is making a difference and want to nominate them please send me an email canadianbudgetbinder (@) yahoo.ca so I can reach out to them for a feature story.

Note: If you are a blogger who gives back and would like to be featured by all means get in touch with me as I am filling spots up for the rest of 2014 and they are going quickly.

Today I would like to introduce to you my friend John which many of you know from Frugal Rules and now runs the personal finance blog Wise Dollar.

Hi Mr.CBB and Fans!

Wise Dollar is about teaching people to be, well, wise with their money.  🙂 Over my years working in the financial services industry I got to see first-hand just how much individuals were struggling with their finances.

They were either struggling with debt, not saving for retirement or lacked the know how of where to start. That is what drives me with blogging. I get to share my story about the challenges I dealt with and how I’ve been able to grow in knowledge.

How I hope to make a difference to readers of Wise Dollar is to help them learn basic everyday things they can do to save more money, prepare themselves for the future and, overall, be wise with their finances.

That is going to look different for each individual, but my desire is to give them the tools necessary to learn what that’s going to look like for them and the confidence to tackle those situations head on.

Many think that they need all sorts of money or need a certain level of education to begin making wise financial decisions but that is simply a myth. My hope is to be able to help those who are in need of help the confidence they need to get started down the path of wise financial living.

I would like to thank Mr. CBB for all the efforts he’s doing here on his site to do many of those same things as well as thank him for allowing me to share how I hope to make a difference with Wise Dollar.

 

What is a blog carnival?

 

Some fans have asked me “what is a blog carnival?” so a little explanation is due here for anyone reading for the first time or for my long-time fans.

A blog carnival is where a blog or website hosts what we call a carnival of blog posts from around the web. Most blog carnivals have a theme and certain rules for submitting which must be followed.

If you are a blogger and would like to learn what blog carnival directories I submit to each week you can find the information in a previous Saturday Weekend Review post that I wrote.

 

Carnival glory

 

A big thanks to these pages for accepting my blog posts and sharing them in the following carnivals and/or sharing my blog posts with their fans. If you don’t see your blog it’s likely because I don’t know that you shared my post so send me an email to let me know. Thanks.

 

Carnivals

Mentions

 

Google search terms

 

Every week I get thousands of people visit Canadian Budget Binder because they did a search online and found my blog. Keep in mind any spelling errors below are because I share with you the exact way they typed their search engine query to land on my blog.

  • Is $160,000 too much debt? – I think any debt is too much debt but that’s just me.
  • What do we call money? – Money? Moola, Cash….
  • $100,000 dollar windfall Canada– I wish!
  • How to make good pizza sauce? – You follow my Famous Pizza recipe *wink

Thanks for joining me for this edition of The Saturday Weekend Review #73. Join me here again for more crazy stories from around the web and at home!

 

Money Quote Logo CBB

 

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Photo Credit: Freedigitalphotos.net/Artur84

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10 Comments

  1. The store across the street has the deli counter right near the check outs…. The smell drives the cashiers crazy some days, it is so good and they get so hungry smelling it!!! As well we have the local New Orleans Pizza there too and we can smell that a lot!!! Love the smell of the garlic bread wafting around the area!!!!!!
    Some of those stores can really be smelt from a distance depending on wind direction too… My favourite place to inhale is the Chocolate Factory here in town….so nice!!!!! I could stand in there and just breathe the lovely smells…………….
    I would love some of your rhubarb to make a coffee cake here. I’m trying to get it written up and sent your way but I need to make another batch as a few of the pictures I took the first time didn’t turn out.
    My pot of chives is doing well outside, it survived the winter in the garage. Hubby has been outside with the weeder trying to get rid of the dandelions in the front lawn. Gets him outside and doing something after a winter of being stuck inside. I have a couple of tomato plants and a green pepper to plant out with some basil. The younger boy saved a few seeds from last falls pumpkins and has them growing but they need to get into the garden soon! His fruit trees are all doing well too..
    Enjoy the good weather now that it is finally here!!!! As for the blog, all you can do is what you can do. You are already stretched thin so we can handle fewer posts if that is what it takes. You do need to take care of you!!!

    Reply

    1. One of these days I might have to visit your little town. I’ll probably just have to ask at the FoodLand and they will direct me your way hehe!! What chocolate factory do you have in town? Can you get discount prices? Our chives stay in the bin all winter outside and come back every year. We do have one pot we bring in but I don’t think you can kill chives. They seem to be like mint lol. Thanks for your support with the blog Christine. You have no idea what a pleasure it is to read comments here from my fans. I spend hours upon hours on each post so it’s nice to have the fans share their thoughts and to let me know they read the posts. 🙂 You have a great weekend as well. Mr.CBB

      Reply

      1. That is the name of the place … The Chocolate Factory. Ron and Pat make the best chocolates there!!!! I know them as my daughter worked for them here and in London for a number of years from her last year of high school through college and beyond. They make the chocolates here in town and also have a store front at the Covent Garden Market in London. I don’t get a discount but I take Ron in some of my Christmas baking including a fruit cake just for him. He loves it so he gets his own!!! It’s nice to be appreciated and he sure loves his fruit cake!!!
        Yea, they know me at Foodland…Lol!! been shopping there for years. We’ve been in town now for 22 years and I shopped there for 6 years while we lived in the country before that…..:)
        The chives made it to the garage last fall as I asked the older boy to move my pots in there for the winter and it went with the rest of them, not that they needed to. I have catmint in the garden too and I leave a clump of it here and there in the garden. Started with one plant a few years ago, and it spread. I don’t mind, it’s a pretty thing and smells nice.

        Reply

        1. I’ll have to check that chocolate factory out if I come to town. I may have bad news about the fig tree. It might be dead. I’ll put it out this week and see what happens. It’s a shame but my father in law has more that I can get. The tree did so well last summer and we got lots of figs from it. It was a cold winter even though we brought it in.

          Reply

          1. The little mock orange blossom bush the younger boy had in the garden took a beating from the cold winter too as did the blueberry plant he bought me last year. But there are signs of life on both right now as they are outside so I trimmed the dead looking stuff off both so they do look a little better. Give the fig a chance outside in a sheltered area and it may still surprise you. The lime has lost leaves since last year but it still has flowers and it looks like there may be some fruits forming, we will keep an eye on it. No sign of fruits on the lemons yet but they do look good and healthy…

          2. Did your lime ever get any mould on it? Ours has mould on a bit so I’m going to trim that off. I have the plant indoors all winter so I don’t know how that happened. Looks like we might even have garlic growing out back too lol.. we use the compost for everything so when I spread the compost at the end of the year the garlic must have been inside the compost haha! I will keep you updated.

  2. Thanks so much for the special highlight Mr. CBB, I really appreciate it! It really doesn’t surprise me that retailers will use things like scent to lure people in to hopefully buy something. We don’t work with many retailers with our business, but those we do we know full well that it all comes down to sales. Thankfully I don’t leave home much with the working from home so I’m pretty safe there. 😉

    Reply

  3. I am actually one of those people that dislikes being bombarded with scents. I will give a Body Shop or a candle store a really wide berth just because I find the scents turn my tummy queazy. The worst is getting locked on an elevatore with someone wearing a heavy perfume or after shave. And, as a person prone to migraines, I find scents are huge triggers for me so they really do not induce me to spend. In fact I scurry away as quickly as possible. I’m not a coffee lover but hubby would certainly follow that scent for a good cup of Joe. 🙂

    First of all, let me say Mr CBB that you need to do what is right for you and your wife to have a happy and fulfilling life together. None of us are working this hard on budget and building our wealth for the guy down the street. LOL We need to ensure our spouses, friends, children and neighbors get the time and attention they deserve. With that said Mr CBB, I would be very sad to not have WFD feed daily but I could easily live with an abbreviated number of blog entries during the course of the week … my personal favorite being the GGC post. I am not sure that your budget info and financial updates couldn’t easily be pared down to become a quarterly or semi-annual event. They are a lot of work for you and I am not sure the target audience invests a lot of time reading or thinking about your numbers. I think perhaps most folks are a wee bit more interested in the “how can I manage my finances better” than how is your budget working for you. I could be wrong on that though.

    If you want to take certain days off, why not upload the WFD and simply ask the CBB fans to declare the winner for you. That frees up the rest of your evening for friends and family. If last night’s feed was any example, there’s no shortage of caring and sharing tips and ideas going on… nor any shortage of gals that would happily declare the winner based on the number of likes that evening. It’s easier for those on a computer than a phone though as they can cut and paste the winning or tied dinners. I for one have been happy to declare a winner for you in the past. 🙂

    The opinions expressed here are strictly my own though so take them with a grain of salt. They may or may not be indicative of the majority of your fans. 😀

    Reply

    1. Thanks Mary, can always count on you to lift me up!! Life is going to get even busier so I’m working on trying to figure out how to manage my time with the blog and what’s going on around here. I won’t get rid of the GGC as it’s important to us and many of the fans. You are right with the WFD though. I know that I can count on all of you to help me out whether fans take turns or you all sort it out together. I know that I’m fortunate to have a family of fans who have been around for a long time and great relationships have formed. I have noticed new fans posting which is good so hopefully they will stick around. Good suggestions with the budget and net worth posts. My other options are to not make the posts so long which is sometimes hard for me because I talk so much lol. I can slim them down and save myself some time as well. I”d also like to get more fans on board to share their own stories like we used to back at the beginning with the Paid By Cash stories or other success stories. Thanks Mary 🙂 Have a great weekend.

      Reply

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