Phygital live stream shopping experience can improve customer satisfaction by providing a more personalized experience and even creating ‘moments of delight’ for the customer during interactions that truly matter to them. (McKinsey)
Online shopping has definitely made our life easier. But what if we told you we could bring it to your doorstep from your favorite brands in a more personalized and memorable manner and deliver an advanced, more superior consumer interaction?
Phygital: Bridging the gap between the online and the digital world
Phygital, at its core, focuses on connecting with consumers in an engaging, meaningful way to help giants in the industry regain their footing in struggling sectors. Thanks to virtual and augmented realities that make this omnichannel approach possible for a seamless phygital customer experience.
Phygital – a phygital and digital experience for consumers to give them a store-like experience for premium products is high in demand across retailers, automobile players, mobile giants, and more.
Take a look at the following graph, which talks about the search volume for the word ‘phygital.’ It clearly shows the user’s interest within the last year. Here, we can see that the interest in phygital increases during pandemic phases where consumers prefer to stay home and shop online.
Source: Google trends (Aug 2020 – July 2021)
Brands have started phygitalizing their shopping experience for consumers. In fact, over 40% of Indian enterprises have either adopted or are in the process of adopting a more conversational platform.
Phygital VCommerce: Revolutionizing the online shopping experience for retailers
61% of the consumers prefer retailers who provide phygital experiences. (Source: The Scalers)
Retail industry phygitalizes brands through screens, panels, virtual testers, and augmented reality and localizes its offers for consumers to buy, review, and compare products.
Now that you understand the meaning and importance of delivering a phygital vCommerce experience, let us talk about the seven steps that eCommerce brands need to derive the maximum benefit from such an experience.
- Design a successful phygital experience
The 3Is—Immersion, Immediacy, and Interaction—will be the perfect combination for delivering a delightful phygital vCommerce experience. The former consists of the physical space, and the latter is digital space.
- Choose the right product portfolio.
You must know which of your products would offer the right mix to choose for phygitalizing the experience. Mostly, retailers are using a phygital experience to sell premium products. This allows any organization to take care of its OPEX costs, earn substantial revenue, and optimize operations. Products with a high price and a high demand would be the best to target in this segment. Or the one wherein the scope of cognitive decision making is higher and complex. Multiple query resolutions on the spot would be the right strategy to convert your interested prospects to loyal buyers.
- Leverage technology-integrated platforms
Augmented reality for 3D visuals and sound effects, combined with live product demos, effectively offers a personalized customer experience. This functionality allows customers to receive product information, comparisons, and in-depth details in a single purchase instance, thereby streamlining their end-to-end buying journey in one go. In addition, high-definition video cameras and a thorough, detailed live demo allow users to understand the look and feel of the products accurately.
- Ensure strong network availability
It would be best to have great internet connectivity at your premises while giving a product demo to allow users to view the product clearly and resolve their queries in real-time from assistants. Along with this, a fast internet connection allows you to communicate with your customer properly.
- Capitalize on human capabilities
While selling virtually, your experts handling the customers must be well-trained concerning understanding the technology, product knowledge, store layout, and product features, to name a few. In addition, they should also be well-trained in their communication skills to give customers an enhanced buying experience.
- Set up a suitable environment
Smart fitting rooms with trial mirrors offering a store-like experience for the fit and view of the product are possible with RFID (Radio Frequency Distribution) technology. Here, customers can scan the bar code on the products, and they are free to try the product virtually in the mirror. The customers can then make the payment once they make a purchase decision.
- Define a feedback and payment mechanism
It is essential to constantly have a feedback mechanism to improve your product offering strategy. Gain customer insights and compound your qualities during this phygital experience setup. Understand that it may be new for a customer, and there may be many questions they may have.
To further ramp up your ease of convenience concerning phygitalizing your brand, you can allow users to pay through different online modes, such as credit card, debit card, and multiple payment gateways, to have a hassle-free purchase journey.
To wrap it up
eCommerce brands, like Nike, analyze their consumer analytics data, launch product lines based on these insights, and make their retention strategy through coupons and promotions. The Nike live concept succeeded, and subsequently, Nike expanded this model to two of its stores in Long Beach and Tokyo in 2019.
This is one of the classic phygital experience examples which showed amazing results.
Early bird phygitalized brands will catch the worm to –
- Increase sales
- Repeat customer visits and interactions
- Gain real-time customer feedback
- Reduce acquisition costs
- Personalize product experience
- Promote and sell instantly
Outsourcing your phygital services to an expert will reduce cost, save you from the hassle of understanding complex technology usage, and you will find experts that are well-experienced with regards to demos for such products. Moreover, you will incur lower costs than your in-house plans of implementing a phygital shopping experience.
