What phygital is and why it is beneficial for your business

While the pandemic has incentivized consumers to adopt more digital shopping habits,
on the other hand, it led to re-evaluate the value of physical experience, giving impetus, as a combination of these two trends
opposite, to the phygital phenomenon. Let’s find out what it is, how it works and why it can be beneficial.

How many times have we gone to a shop to see, touch and try a product and then go out empty-handed
and order it online? And how many other times, before buying in a physical store, have we informed ourselves on the web, consulting
e-commerce of the brand and reading dozens of reviews to make a decision?

Just think about how often we have found ourselves in both situations to understand why the phygital phenomenon
is becoming the new frontier of the customer experience, confirming itself as one of the main trends of
digital strategies 2021.

What is phygital
The phygital, as the term suggests, is the bridge between online and offline,
a new way of living the shopping experience in which the boundaries that separate the two environments
they end up getting confused, creating a hybrid model. The aim is to combine the best of the physical world and the digital world
to offer a complete and satisfying customer experience.

How does it work
The three “i’s” that make up the phygital experience

The phygital phenomenon is based on three essential elements, the so-called three “i’s”:

– immediacy
– immersion
– interaction

A customer experience, to be truly phygital, must combine all these components, combining
the immediacy of the experience and the immersion of the user typical of the digital world
with interaction, the prerogative of physical experience. For this combination to be possible it is necessary that:

in the physical space a technology is introduced that plays the role of facilitator to guarantee
immediacy and immersion
in the online space, tools are used that encourage interaction between consumer and product
or between consumer and company
In practice, the basis of the phygital phenomenon is the adoption of a multi-channel approach
and the use of Marketing Automation strategies and digital technologies such as artificial intelligence,
chatbots and augmented reality.