What does phygital really mean? A conceptual introduction to the phygital customer experience (PH-CX) framework
Abstract
Although phygital is overly used across businesses, the construct lacks an academic conceptualization. The existing studies define the concept in regards to the marketing channel approach, where phygital is most of the time utilized to refer to multichannel, crosschannel, or omnichannel strategies. This view limits its application and provides only a narrow view of the enormous potential of phygital. Instead, phygital should be viewed as a comprehensive framework for better managing customer experiences. Such a framework guarantees a continuum in value delivery by connecting offline and online offerings. Instead of confining phygital to the channel logic, which has been dominant so far in marketing and retail, we propose the phygital customer experience (PH-CX) to be a new holistic framework that examines the dynamics created by customers’ shifting from physical to digital settings or vice versa. The PH-CX framework identifies the fundamental driving forces, connectors, and pillars of the phygital customer experience strategy to help managers design compelling customer experiences. This is done by fluidifying the journeys of customers from online to offline and inversely, along with capturing consumers’ values and responding to their tangible needs (e.g., their needs for quality) and their intangible needs (e.g., their emotional needs).
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Phygitality transcends omnichannel management and requires retailers to extend beyond bounded channel logic to fully realise the potential of phygitality for CXM.
“aligning with recent recognition that phygitality transcends omnichannel management and requires retailers to extend beyond bounded channel logic to fully realise the potential of phygitality for CXM (Batat, 2022;Klaus, 2021).”
From Retail futures: Customer experience, phygital retailing, and the Experiential Retail Territories perspective (2025) · cites this paper as Batat, 2022
Phygitality is viewed as a customer-centric approach that extends beyond purchase and channel.
“Rather, phygitality is viewed as a customer-centric approach that extends beyond purchase and channel (e.g., Batat, 2022;Bonfanti et al., 2023).”
From Retail futures: Customer experience, phygital retailing, and the Experiential Retail Territories perspective (2025) · cites this paper as Batat, 2022
The findings concur with Alexander and Blazquez Cano's (2020) channel integration theme but go further as it is now an expectation, with phygitality as the conceptual progression from omnichannel.
“This concurs with Alexander and Blazquez Cano's (2020) channel integration theme but goes further as it is now an expectation, with phygitality as the conceptual progression from omnichannel (Batat, 2022;Bonfanti et al., 2023;Klaus, 2021).”
From Retail futures: Customer experience, phygital retailing, and the Experiential Retail Territories perspective (2025) · cites this paper as Batat, 2022
The findings concur with Batat's (2022) definition of phygital as a holistic, integrated ecosystem.
“Our findings concur with Batat's (2022) definition of phygital as a holistic, integrated ecosystem.”
From Retail futures: Customer experience, phygital retailing, and the Experiential Retail Territories perspective (2025) · cites this paper as Batat's (2022)
The findings suggest that the distinction between Alexander and Blazquez Cano's slow and fast retail dyads is less pertinent, as retail has morphed towards phygital.
“Our findings also suggest that the distinction between their slow and fast retail dyads is less pertinent, as retail has morphed towards phygital (Batat, 2022).”
From Retail futures: Customer experience, phygital retailing, and the Experiential Retail Territories perspective (2025) · cites this paper as Batat, 2022
The definition of phygitality closely matches the expressions used by experts to describe the interplay between physical and digital retail channels.
“We find that the definition of phygitality (Batat, 2022) closely matches the expressions used by experts to describe the interplay between physical and digital retail channels (Table 4).”
From Retail futures: Customer experience, phygital retailing, and the Experiential Retail Territories perspective (2025) · cites this paper as Batat, 2022
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Rahman, M. S., Bag, S., Hossain, M. A., Abdel Fattah, F. A. M., Gani, M. O., & Rana, N. P. (2023) · Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services · doi:10.1016/j.jretconser.2023.103273 · Cited by 170 · see citing works
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- Authors
- Batat, W.
- Affiliations
- EM Normandie Business School, Metis Lab & University of Lyon 2, Paris, France
- Venue
- Journal of Strategic Marketing
- Publisher
- Informa UK Limited
- Published
- 2022-04-05
- Volume
- 32
- Issue
- 8
- Pages
- 1220-1243
- ISSN
- 0965-254X
- 1466-4488
- Cited by
- 168
- References
- 5
- Language
- en
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