The COVID-19 pandemic and the resultant lockdown greatly changed consumer behaviour. People preferred digital medium due to concerns related to social distancing and hygiene. But the online platforms were unable to cater to all the requirements in a time-bound manner. As the lockdown required some urgent deliveries, people had to depend on local shops using physical currency. It was observed that offline to online and online to offline buying became the way of life. Therefore, most retailers tried to adapt to this omnichannel strategy. This was necessary as consumers liked a convenient medium of purchase, e.g., a hybrid of cash and digital payment. Studying the consumers’ changing behaviours, many digital e-commerce companies started offline stores. Such stores also use artificial technology to provide a real feeling of physical buying.
Against this background, the omnichannel strategy gave birth to a new term—‘phygital’ which is now being widely used in retail sector and gradually spreading to other areas of business and commerce.
The term ‘phygital’ is a combination of two words—physical and digital. It is an emerging approach to retail which combines physical and digital experiences by taking the best elements of e-commerce and combining them with the unique aspects of browsing or shopping in a real store. Digital platforms using artificial intelligence (AI) cannot satisfy a customer. As the world becomes increasingly reliant on digital technology, people also long for physical experiences. Personal interaction between the customer and the sales promoter or personnel, brings unexpected results in boosting sales and customer satisfaction.
Companies now use marketing automation software to send personalised messages to customers in email, via SMS text or on social media, among other options. Such an approach not only bridges the gap between the digital and the physical but also enables companies to provide proactive, unique shopping experience to customers. It also helps brands to seamlessly integrate their physical and digital marketing efforts and get more opportunities to sell their products.
Following are some of the examples of phygital technologies:
Cashier-less Shopping With the rise of cashier-less shopping, the in-store shopping models are gearing towards a personalised and digitised physical shopping experience in place of human assistance.
Amazon has been a pioneer in the field of such phygital technologies. With ‘Amazon Go’, a cashier-less supermarket experience, all of the shopping and payments are done on shoppers’ phones.
Augmented and Virtual Reality Augmented reality enhances the consumer experience and boosts sales. Thus, it is gaining traction from gaming to shopping.
Location-based Push Notifications Location-based push notifications enable sending target notifications to consumers, based on their geographical locations. This way retailers can also remind mobile users of the presence of their app, if they have one. This is considered as an effective way to drive app engagements.
Live Chats The medium of the live chat is gaining immense popularity. Many web users are found to be more likely to return to a website with a live chat option over one that does not offer this feature.
Personalised Content Ads Personalisation on digital platforms is an important means in which retailers enhance the user experience. It boosts the profits of businesses by driving sales.
Apart from ‘Amazon Go’, phygital banking and Timberland TouchWalls, introduced in 2016 in Manhattan, are some other examples of phygital experience.
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