###### Abstract  
Interest in the use of scents in retail environments for creating better customer experiences is growing. Yet, knowledge of the effectiveness of aromachology to affect actual customer behavior and ultimately increase turnover is incomplete, as published results present inconsistencies and are often based on highly controlled environments rather than actual store environments. Situated within this context, this paper offers a systematic review on research in aromachology with a focus on effects on actual customer behavior in actual retail environments. As expected, the available research on actual environments (relative to laboratory-based studies) is limited, with only 20 articles meeting the inclusion criteria. While reported results are, overall, indicative of the positive effects of scent on customers' emotional states and on their in-store behavior (dwell time, product choices) and attitudes (purchase intention, intention to revisit), several critical issues with the available literature emerged. These pertain primarily to a lack of sufficient methodological details (specifically on the scents, their compositions, intensity and methods of delivery), a narrow focus on scents without considering interactions with other atmosprics factors, and a general disregard of individual differences in olfaction. The review provides suggestions for addressing these shortcomings and improving the quality and actionability of this line of research. a 2021 28 June 2021 3 July 2021 3  
major clothing chains such as Abercrombie & Fitch and hotel companies such as Marriot being noted for their signature scents), as well as generally to provide better in-store experiences to their customers and increase their spending and likelihood of revisiting the store. The customer experience is a complex construct mainly because it is affected by numerous elements, only some of which are controlled by the retailer. It is based on the set of interactions between a customer and a product or/and a company and also between a customer and other customers, which generate a reaction [10; 11; 12]. [PERSON] [13] distinguishes five types of experiences: sensory (sense), affective (feel), cognitive (think), physical (act), and social-identity (relate). Sensory experience is created by the retail outlet atmosphere (referred to as \"atmospherics\" and regarded as a marketing tool), which is based on the sensory channels: sight, sound, touch, and smell [14]. Additionally, the current concept of retail atmospherics--design-ambient-social-trialability (DAST)--acknowledges odors as an important ambient factor and potentially powerful instrument used for customer experience building [15]. The term \"aromachology\" first appeared in 1982 to denote the science that is dedicated to the study of the relationship between psychology and scents to elicit a variety of specific emotions, such as relaxation, exilization, sensuality, happiness and well-being. Indeed, the sense of smell is considered to be the one most closely related to emotional reactions, as the olfactory bulb is directly connected to the areas of the brain (collectively known as the limbic system) that deal with emotion and memory [16; 17]. Moreover, the sense of smell is emotionally processed and, unlike other sensory modalities, does not require consciously attending to any stimulus and instead exerts emotional consequences without conscious perception of the odor itself [18; 19]. Due to these characteristics, interest in the use of scents to affect human behavior has been steadily increasingly [4; 20]. In recent years, several studies have been published concerning usage of aromas in a retail environment (shops, restaurants, etc. ), and interest in aromachology (as well as retail atmospherics more generally) has been steadily increasing [2; 3; 4; 20; 21]. Historically, the majority of studies who have sought to explain the effect of scents on customer behavior have considered one or both of the following two theoretical frameworks:  
1.