Supermarket shopper movements versus sales and the effects of scent, light, and sound

•Shopper behavior in supermarket sections is characteristic for specific categories.•Sales are affected not necessarily by shopper numbers but by shopper behavior.•Effects of local scent, local sound, and local light conditions (nudges) are small.•Interactions between products–ambiances–shoppers require tailor-made interventions. Common sense assumes that supermarket sales of specific products are driven by the number of visitors and by their behavior during their visit. In addition, certain shopping ambiances probably stimulate a certain shopper behavior, resulting in more sales. Surprisingly, these relationships have rarely been experimentally tested in real-life supermarkets. Number of shoppers, shopper movement patterns, and sales of selections of white wines, coffees, and fruits in a medium-size supermarket were monitored over an 18-week period. Wines were visited for longer (9.5s) than coffees (4.4s) and fruits (4.5s), but visitors to wines were relatively stationary and visits resulted less often in a sale (1 sale per 41.2 visits) than visits to coffees (1 sale per 21.7 visits) and fruits (1 sale per 3.7 visits). Visit frequency correlated positively with higher sales for coffee (Beta=0.64, p