## 2 Methods  
Since this review focuses on the application of aromachology in retailing and its effects on consumer behavior, the main inclusion criteria were that studies should present experimental data on ambient scents of retail areas and include at least one behavioral variable. By contrast, studies were excluded if (1) they were not based in actual retail environments (e.g., exclusively lab-based studies or using mock-ups and simulated environments), (2) they focused on food products, (3) they focused on scents originating from the product itself rather than the environment (e.g., [17]), (4) focused on the general experience of the retail environment but did not include any behavioral variables, and finally (5) if they did not include any experimental data (e.g., reviews, editorials, etc.). The reason for excluding food-related studies was twofold: first, because the use of scents on food-related behavior has received more attention in the literature, especially in the context of how to use to scents to direct consumers towards making healthier choices, and secondly because using scents in food establishments presents some specific technical issues (e.g., safety/hygiene regulations, interaction between ambient scents and odors originating from food items), which are not necessarily shared by other retail environments. Readers interested in applications of aromachology in food stores are directed to the review paper by [PERSON] and collaborators also appearing in this special issue [35].  
The protocol for the systematic review was informed by the PRISMA guidelines [36] and is shown in Figure 1. A literature search was performed using two databases--Web of Science (Core Collection) and Scopus. The search in the aforementioned databases was performed during April 2021. No time limits were applied to the search itself. Search terms were initially identified by discussion between the authors, and the list was subsequently refined after conducting a preliminary set of scoping searches from the focal databases. Keywords used for the search were _retail atmosprics, aroma marketing, ambient scents, consumer behavior_, and _aromachology_ using Boolean operators. A wildcard asterisk (*) was applied to all word stems in order to retrieve all articles that included terms starting with each word stem. The following Boolean search terms were defined based on the outlined research requirements:  
_TS = ((retail atmospheric* OR aroma marketing* OR ambient scent* OR scent* OR aromatology*) AND (consumer* OR customer*))._  
The search yielded, respectively, 617 records on Web of Science and 733 records on Scopus. The records came from a wide variety of research fields, with business, management, food science and technology being the fields most represented (Figure 2). The database search further supplemented by a manual search using the \"snowballing\" method, from which additional six records were found (Figure 1). Complete documentation on this process and the full list of records are available as supplementary materials to this paper.  
The initial list was screened and duplicate records were removed. After excluding duplicates, the titles and abstracts of each record were inspected to assess their relevance according to the inclusion criteria. Studies that met the inclusion criteria were analyzed in-depth with a focus on the following theoretical and methodological aspects: type of retail environment, product category, hypotheses and findings, type of scents used and method of delivery in the retail environment, number of subjects and target behavioral variable.  
Figure 1: PRISMA flow diagram for the systematic review of aromachology and customer behavior.