A new study found that the smell of chocolate boosts sales of romantic books.

Independent book stores are having a tough time competing with online retail stores to draw customers to their shops and increase book sales. The findings of a new study can help these bookstore owners drive up sales of romantic novels.

Retail marketing specialists already know that smell influences customer behavior. Scents can affect brain function regulating attention levels, memory and evaluation. Hence a team of researchers conducted a study to see if and how the smell of a particular item can affect a customer's shopping behavior.

Researchers at Antwerp University in Belgium found that customers are more inclined to buying romantic novels when they smell chocolate. However, this doesn't hold true for other genres of books like crime, suspense and thrillers.

"When consumers smell chocolate, concepts associated with chocolate, such as cooking, become more readily accessible to the consumer's mind and cause consumers to react differently when encountering a cookbook than if they had not smelled chocolate," said research author Lieve Douché.

For the study, researchers observed the behavior of 201 customers in a high-street chain bookshop over a period of 10 days. They found that customers were 3.48 times more likely to examine romance books when they smelt chocolate and were 5.93 times more likely to buy them.

The Antwerp study confirmed that "the presence of a chocolate scent has a positive influence on general approach behavior and a negative impact on goal-directed behavior in the store."