Mistletoe Marketing: An Analysis of How Christmas Stimuli Affects Consumer Behavior

Companies are interested in how store atmosphere affects customer behavior and satisfaction. Particularly useful to know is if seasonal decorations motivate buyers by triggering nostalgia, encouraging optimism, and leading to an increase in purchases. For some companies, sales during the holiday season are crucial for meeting yearly profit goals. Through my research, Christmas stimuli (music, decorations, and scent) has been shown to increase purchases and customers\u27 experience-satisfaction. In this experiment, customers are surveyed in one of two settings: a college convenience store in its normal, non-seasonal state and that same store adorned with Christmas cheer. Shoppers were surveyed on their satisfaction with their shopping experiences, reactions and awareness of stimuli or lack thereof, and their buying intentions vs. actual purchases. Using one particular statistical tool, a strong association was found between a Christmas-like setting and an increase in number of items bought when compared to how many they intended to buy before entering the store. Interestingly, when a different test for the same association was used, this result was not able to be concluded