The Future is Phygital!

Whilst there has been a lot of chatter over the past couple of decades about the ‘Death of the highstreet’, Springboard’s 2022 UK Annual Footfall Review revealed that only 34.4% of all sales of fashion and accessories were made online in 2021, suggesting that the remaining 65.5% of sales were made in-store. This is really interesting when we put this figure into the context of COVID.

On top of this, there were significantly more in-store sales of fashion and accessories in 2021 than in 2020, proving that consumers really do enjoy the tangible, leisure, and dare we say, convenience factors that can be attributed to bricks-and-mortar retailing.

This suggests that whilst digital realms are popular, they are certainly not the sole future of retail. Nor do we believe that purely bricks-and-mortar stores utilising a monochannel shopping journey are the sole future of retail.

We believe there has to be a balance between physical and digital, especially when we consider changing consumer attitudes and behaviours. Gen Z, for example, who are a digitally-native generation, are having an ever-growing influence on the consumer market, and it is believed that over 50s are embracing technology more than ever.

We believe the future is phygital!