In our previous two blog posts, we explored phygital and omnichannel – two concepts that are key to understanding the digital revolution currently sweeping retail. You can find them here: https://perfecta-retail.com/phygital-what-is-this-beast/ (phygital), https://perfecta-retail.com/omnichannel-3-benefits/ (omnichannel).
In today’s instalment of our guide to the difficult words associated with the fascinating field of trade marketing, we will take a look at what unites and what separates the two approaches. This is essential in order to fully understand the opportunities and challenges of the two philosophies, especially as they address similar issues, and it is not always easy to distinguish between them.
Phygital and omnichannel – similarities
Phygital and omnichannel are two different approaches to company-customer interaction, although they have some common elements that they share.
What they have in common is that both concepts are concerned with how businesses can integrate brand awareness and customer experience across different communication channels, both online and offline.
Phygital refers to the way brands combine the physical and digital worlds to provide customers with a consistent shopping experience. This allows customers to access products and services through a variety of channels, such as physical shops, websites, mobile apps, and social media.
Omnichannel, on the other hand, refers to the way businesses integrate different communication channels to provide a consistent customer experience and facilitate the shopping experience. It too encompasses both online and offline channels, such as websites, mobile apps, brick-and-mortar shops and social media.
Both concepts aim to enable customers to use different communication paths, depending on their preferences and needs, and provide a consistent and coordinated shopping experience. Both philosophies combine these channels to allow customers to easily switch between them and continue their experience across platforms.
Put simply, what both approaches have in common is to enable retailers to integrate different channels and pathways so as to provide their customers with a consistent and personalised shopping experience.
Phygital and omnichannel – differences
Phygital and omnichannel differ in many ways, although both concepts refer to the ways in which businesses integrate the physical and digital worlds to provide a consistent customer experience.
Phygital is a strategy that combines offline (physical) and online experiences to provide a consistent and personalised experience for customers. This can include a variety of activities such as scanning QR codes via smartphones, mobile apps, interactive screens and even virtual reality. The aim is to integrate the different communication channels to create a consistent impression and strengthen the relationship with customers.
On the other hand, omnichannel refers to a strategy that assumes that customers want to access products and services anywhere, anytime, using a variety of communication channels, such as websites, mobile apps, brick-and-mortar shops, social media, call centres, and more. The aim of omnichannel is to create a consistent experience for customers, regardless of which channels they choose to contact a company.
From this we can see that the main difference between both approaches is that the former focuses on connecting the virtual world with the real world, while the latter focuses on integrating different communication channels. However, both approaches aim to create a consistent and personalised experience for customers.
Summary
In summary, both concepts are interlinked. What they have in common is the goal of creating a consistent and personalised experience for customers. What makes them different is the way in which this is achieved.
This is because phygital focuses on bridging the online and offline worlds, while omnichannel focuses on integrating different communication channels to provide a unified customer experience and facilitate the shopping experience.
As a producer of retail furniture, Perfecta keeps abreast of the changes that the digital revolution is having on the retail trade. We endeavour to keep track of the challenges and opportunities facing the industry as technology develops and ensure that we take advantage of these in our products.
And because we like to brag, as soon as we launch something new, we’ll let you know immediately, so keep an eye on our blog and our LinkedIn company profile, available at: https://www.linkedin.com/company/perfecta-retail/.
