Samsonite Case Study: Scent Marketing in Retail Across 5 Locations
As a global leader in premium luggage and travel accessories, Samsonite is known for creating durable, high-quality products for modern travellers. To strengthen its in-store brand experience and create a more memorable customer journey, Samsonite partnered with Scent Australia to introduce professional scent marketing across selected retail locations.
The result was a refined, welcoming and consistent sensory experience designed to reflect Samsonite’s premium positioning while making each store feel more polished from the moment customers walked in.
Complete the Find Your Fragrance Quiz or find your scent to discover the right fragrance for your own business.
Creating a Premium Retail Environment with Scent Marketing
In competitive retail environments, customers are influenced by more than product displays alone. Store atmosphere, music, lighting, layout and fragrance all contribute to how people feel inside a space. Research into retail atmospherics and ambient scent has shown that scent can influence customer emotions, behaviour and perception of a brand. Studies into aromachology and retail environments continue to highlight the role fragrance can play in shaping customer experience.
Samsonite wanted to use scent as part of a broader sensory branding strategy. The objective was not to overpower the space, but to create a subtle and sophisticated atmosphere that aligned with the brand’s reputation for quality, travel, reliability and premium design.
Samsonite’s Key Scent Marketing Objectives
Samsonite’s retail scenting program was designed to support several important brand and customer experience goals:
- Enhance the customer experience from the moment shoppers entered the store
- Create a stronger first impression in high-traffic retail environments
- Reinforce Samsonite’s premium brand identity through atmosphere and sensory design
- Deliver a consistent in-store experience across multiple locations
- Use fragrance to create a more memorable and emotionally engaging retail space
Scent Australia Introduced Zen Garden as Samsonite’s In-Store Fragrance
In October 2025, Scent Australia implemented the Zen Garden fragrance at Samsonite’s Victoria Airport location using the ScentPro™ Medium Diffuser.
The fragrance was diffused throughout the first 150sqm of the store, ensuring customers experienced an immediate sensory touchpoint when entering the retail space.
Fresh, green and invigorating, Zen Garden blends green ozone with powdery notes of green melon, lime and petit grain. The result is a vibrant yet refined fragrance profile that suited Samsonite’s travel-focused brand while creating a calm, polished and welcoming store environment.
Looking for a fragrance that suits your business? Explore Find Your Scent or complete the fragrance quiz.
Why Scent Works So Well in Retail Branding
Scent has a powerful connection to memory and emotion. The human olfactory system is closely linked with areas of the brain involved in emotional processing and memory, which is why a familiar fragrance can instantly trigger a feeling, place or experience. Research into indoor scent and human response also shows growing interest in how ambient smell can influence mood, behaviour and wellbeing in built environments.
For retailers, this makes scent marketing a valuable tool for brand differentiation. A carefully selected fragrance can help customers associate a store with a specific feeling, whether that is luxury, calm, freshness, energy, sophistication or comfort.
For Samsonite, the goal was to create an in-store scent that complemented the customer’s travel mindset: fresh, refined, reliable and premium.
Positive Staff Feedback Led to Expansion Across More Samsonite Locations
The impact of scenting was quickly recognised by Samsonite staff, who noticed the improved atmosphere and more elevated store environment.
Following the success of the Victoria Airport location, Samsonite expanded the scent marketing program to four additional stores, bringing the rollout to five locations in total.
This expansion demonstrated the value of scent as part of a multi-site retail branding strategy. By using the same fragrance across multiple locations, Samsonite was able to create a more consistent sensory experience for customers.
A Consistent Signature Scent Helped Reinforce Samsonite’s Brand Experience
For a brand centred on travel, comfort, quality and reliability, scent created another layer of customer experience. Zen Garden helped Samsonite introduce a subtle sensory cue that supported its premium retail environment.
Instead of relying only on visual merchandising and product presentation, Samsonite used fragrance to build a stronger emotional connection with customers in-store.
This is where scent marketing becomes especially powerful for retail brands. It can help create a memorable first impression, improve the atmosphere of a store and support a more distinctive brand identity.
Scent Marketing for Retail Stores, Showrooms and Multi-Site Brands
Scent marketing is ideal for retail stores, hotels, showrooms, shopping centres, gyms, salons, real estate offices and other commercial spaces where customer experience matters.
Whether you operate one flagship location or a national retail network, a signature scent can help your business:
- Create a more memorable customer experience
- Strengthen brand identity through sensory branding
- Improve first impressions when customers enter your space
- Support a premium, polished and professional atmosphere
- Create consistency across multiple business locations
- Differentiate your brand from competitors
Explore how scent can support different commercial environments through Scent Australia’s industry scent marketing solutions.
Find the Right Signature Scent for Your Business
Samsonite’s rollout shows how professional scent marketing can help premium brands create a more engaging, consistent and memorable in-store experience.
From retail stores and showrooms to hotels, wellness spaces and large commercial environments, Scent Australia helps businesses select and implement fragrances that align with their brand, audience and customer experience goals.
Ready to discover the right scent for your space?
Complete the Find Your Fragrance Quiz, find your scent, or contact Scent Australia to discuss a signature scenting solution for your business.
Helpful Scent Marketing Resources
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Brian Clark
