Smelling Oranges Sells Homes

A recent study on the scent of orange yields powerful results

A recent study on the scent of orange has yielded some powerful results… With home-sales and students’ performance in the classroom. 

First… Here is what the scent of orange has to do with the selling price of your home:

We now know people spend 20% more on a home when they smell just the scent of orange. This was tested in a study in the Journal of Retailing. For the experiment, researchers used a home-goods store to test two similar scents that had been determined to be equally pleasant and equally subtle. 

One was the simple scent of orange; the other was a more complex blend of orange, basil, and green tea. Over several weeks of testing, the researchers found that customers spent 20% more when the store smelled only of oranges. 

Then, the researchers did another experiment……. 

This time, they scented classrooms with the same two fragrances to see if it affected students’ grades. And it did! Students who took a test in an orange-scented room solved a higher percentage of problems correctly, and solved them more quickly. 

So why would a single-note-scent be more effective? It’s because complex scents are too overpowering for the brain. Your brain ends up working in the background trying to figure out what it’s smelling, so it cannot focus on anything else. 

Bottom-lining this:  Home buyers will spend 20% more on a home, and students will perform better in the classroom when they smell the scent of orange.