a b s t r a c tThis research aims to study the effect of a carefully selected congruent and simple ambient scent in a real-world supermarket setting. Specifically, we study how different levels of scent intensity affect shopper's mood, behavior and evaluations in a space with naturally occurring scents. Using electrostatic aroma diffusers, we apply a carefully selected melon scent at three different intensity levels in a large store of a major supermarket operator. The results show that, in the condition with high scent intensity, the scent has a significant positive effect on shopper's store evaluations, time spent in store and store level sales. We provide evidence that mood is, as expected, a strong mediator of the effect of scent on positive evaluations. We also find that scent, used as a mood inducer, is especially effective for hurried shoppers. Interestingly, in terms of general mood inducement, we find that shoppers tend to overestimate the amount of time spent shopping at lower intensity levels and underestimate time spent shopping at high scent intensity levels. Implications for marketing and store management are discussed.

Auctions often require risk taking under time pressure. However, little is known about how time pressure moderates the relationship between uncertainty of outcomes and bidding behavior. This study consists of a field experiment in which participants are invited to a Vickrey auction to elicit their willingness to pay for a lottery ticket. The time available to place a bid and also the skewness of the lottery (holding the expected value constant) are systematically manipulated. We find that under high time pressure participants are less likely to place a bid at all. Furthermore, participants who do place a bid under high time pressure bid significantly less than participants under low time pressure. The main finding is thus that increased time pressure significantly decreases risk taking. The effect seems to be particularly strong for the lottery with a high probability of winning and for female subjects.

In a laboratory experiment, we compare two auction mechanisms that are designed to improve a queue's efficiency by allowing customers to trade places. In the server‐initiated auction, the server, when idle, sells the right to be served next to the highest bidding customer in the queue and distributes the proceeds among the remaining customers. In the customer‐initiated auction, new arrivals can sequentially trade places with queued customers. We use two novel experimental protocols to examine the behavioral properties of both auction mechanisms. We find that both auction mechanisms improve a queue's efficiency on average and that both perform equally well in terms of efficiency gain. We also find evidence of the sunk‐cost effect but not of the endowment effect. Participants indicated that they found the server‐initiated auction a fairer mechanism than the customer‐initiated auction. When voting between the two auctions, the participants tended to favor the server‐initiated auction.

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