Folgers had the famous tag line, “The best part of waking up is Folgers in your cup,” complete with commercials showing sleepy parents roused to wakefulness not by noisy children, but by their coffeemaker automatically brewing a fresh pot in the morning. Our long love affair with coffee is about more than the pick-me-up from caffeine, though. Coffee is associated with feelings of comfort, and you can use that to your advantage by adding coffee to the retail setting. Here are a few good reasons why you should.

Coffee Smells Great

In the real estate industry, a well-known secret for making any home more attractive is baking cookies before an open house. The power of the olfactory sense to elicit an emotional response cannot be underestimated. Our sense of smell is linked to memory and emotion. When you consider that it even helps us subconsciously choose a mate, you begin to understand how important it can be, and how underestimated it often is in retail settings.

Many adults drink coffee in the morning and associate the smell with a pleasant routine and arousal of the senses. In other words, consumers frequently have positive associations with the smell of brewing coffee. This can work to your benefit, causing shoppers to experience a sense of familiarity upon entering your store and creating positive feelings about your brand.

Coffee is Hot

As McDonald’s infamously discovered back in 1992, when the company was sued by a woman scalded by her coffee, this isn’t always a good thing. You can learn from their mistake, though. As long as you don’t serve “dangerously hot” coffee that could cause serious burns, you can avoid such outcomes.

The benefit of serving hot coffee, aside from the fact that it’s a great way to warm up on a cold day, is that it takes time to cool, and this gives shoppers a reason to spend some time browsing as they sip and wait for coffee to reach a temperature at which it can be more easily consumed. Drinking coffee isn’t something you do fast; it takes time. This will encourage more extensive browsing, and potentially, increased sales.

Added Revenue

You could give coffee away for free, but if your retail space allows and there’s little competition from neighboring vendors, consider setting up a coffee counter and perhaps a small lounge area (complete with tablets for shoppers to virtually browse your inventory) so you can sell coffee and increase revenue, even if customers don’t end up making other purchases. Creating an inviting atmosphere that encourages socializing, brand interaction, and even online sharing is becoming more important in the retail environment, and coffee is a great way to welcome customers and increase the time spent in your store.

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