Need a sales boost? Try a smell machine

A good supermarket offers customers not just the sight of wonderful foods, but also the smells as well, whether it is from fresh-made bread or bakery treats.

But a grocer in Brooklyn, N.Y. has gone one step further. It has added scent machines to fill certain departments with the aroma of bread, fruit and chocolate.

The store, Net Cost, has five machines hanging on store walls that are made by a company called ScentAir, according to a CBS report.

Merchandising co-ordinator, Angelina Khristichenko, said the machines seem to be working.

Sales in the produce department, where the scent machine emits a grapefruit smell, have risen seven per cent.

"I think because of these machines it makes customers hungrier," she told CBS.

(Click here to read the article and see a video report.)