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Very few consumers are strictly “online” or “offline” shoppers.
The same, then, is true for most retailers’ customers. While customers tend not to have any cognitive dissonance about how they shop, retailers are still perfecting their identities and strategies when it comes to being “phygital” (a portmanteau of “physical” and ”digital”).
Omnichannel marketing is firmly embedded in brands’ DNA after two decades of ecommerce becoming mainstream. But attempts to generate brick-and-mortar visits, online traffic, and sales through in-person, ecommerce, and social commerce, are always in a state of flux, as business models and consumer habits evolve.
With those constant shifts in mind, Attain looked at how some major retailers are balancing their digital and physical presences. Over the past two years, some surprising leaders have emerged in the race to perfect the “phygital" retail experience. Although conventional wisdom suggests a continued march toward online shopping, the numbers tell a more nuanced story about how consumers actually prefer to engage with brands across channels.
Of all the brands Attain analyzed , Best Buy has made some of the biggest advances in managing showrooming behavior, where customers browse in-store but purchase online. The electronics retailer saw in-store purchases decline from 88% to 81%, while online buying increased from 12% to 19%, Attain’s numbers show. The percentage of customers using both channels also grew from 7% to 10%, indicating an evolving hybrid shopping pattern.
The numbers suggest that Best Buy’s attempts to bring more creativity to its showrooming strategy have been paying off. As Forbes notes, over the last two years, Best Buy opened a compact 5,000-square-foot concept store in North Carolina where customers scan display items with their phones for associates to retrieve from storage, modernizing the Service Merchandise model.
Additionally, the electronics chain also unveiled a 40,000-square-foot “virtual store” within an existing warehouse where online shoppers can experience live video product demonstrations from Best Buy experts, bringing the in-store consultation experience to digital shoppers.
“The walls separating ‘brick-and-click’ are coming down,” says George Musi, chief business officer of Night Market, Horizon Media's commerce agency affiliate. “We're in the era of the pervasive store, where consumers can buy whatever they want, whenever, wherever, and however they want.”
This transformation is evident in the stability of traditional retailers like Nordstrom, which maintained a dominant 91% in-store purchase rate across both 2023 and 2024, while slightly increasing its online presence. Similarly, Attain’s data showed Nike and Sephora made modest shifts toward in-store experiences, with Nike's in-store purchases rising from 59% to 63% and Sephora's gaining from 69% to 76% over this period.
The data suggests that successful retailers are those that transform their physical spaces into experiential destinations while seamlessly integrating digital touchpoints.
Dan Hodges, CEO of Retail Store Tours, points to innovative examples like Rihanna-owned retail brand Savage X Fenty's use of “Magic Mirrors” that provide personalized styling recommendations. He also noted that luxury chain Louis Vuitton's social media-oriented store on Prince Street in New York transforms seasonally for maximum social sharing potential. Even mainstream retailers like Sephora are adopting this kind of tech in their physical stores.
“When you go into Sephora now, they'll say, ‘Would you like to have a hydration measurement?’” Hodges says. “I never knew I needed one, but okay. That record basically follows you around the world, whether you're shopping online or in other locations. It's using technology to really improve the customer journey.”
The transformation extends beyond traditional retail sectors. Take Capital One's café concept, Hodges says. It’s proof of how even financial services know they have to blend physical and digital experiences. These spaces serve as what Hodges calls “three-dimensional infomercials about the brand,” offering everything from coffee to private meeting rooms while subtly gathering customer insights and fostering brand loyalty.
This evolution in retail strategy is already showing measurable results. A recent campaign by Horizon’s Night Market for a CPG client targeting “meat-eating consumers” with plant-based alternatives demonstrated the power of integrated phygital approaches, Musi says. The campaign, which combined traditional advertising with interactive displays and ecommerce integration, delivered a 2.5% lift in unaided brand awareness and generated $28.6 million in media-attributed sales.
That Night Market campaign reflects the notion of how technology should enhance rather than replace human interaction. “Retail innovation is not about imposing technology for its own sake but integrating it in a way that feels natural — favouring customers’ own devices over intrusive in-store screens where possible,” Javier Velo, senior designer at Designit, says. His firm's work on Sephora's Barcelona flagship store resulted in a 10% increase in store visits and sales, demonstrating the power of thoughtfully integrated technology.
The ability to closely measure these results is what’s improving the bridge between online and offline sales and branding efforts, says Casie Friedman, Partnerships & Strategy lead at digital out of home platform DIVE. Friedman notes that retailers can now track the complete purchase path from online discovery and engagement to in-store conversion. This data helps retailers fine-tune their approach to meet evolving consumer expectations.
This sentiment is echoed by Madi Bradford, Product Manager of Platform and Insights at Attain.
“Transaction data offers a powerful view into how consumers engage with brands across both online and in-store channels, " says Bradford. “By analyzing purchase behaviors over time, retailers can identify where their customers are shopping and understand if preferences shift across demographics.”
For example, Bradford adds that while it might be expected that Gen Z prefers online, Attain has seen instances where certain in-store environments actually drive stronger purchase behavior.
On the other hand, Gen X might skew online for convenience in certain purchase categories, she says.
“Retailers can use these insights to refine their strategies and deliver more personalized experiences that connect with their target audience,” Bradford says.
Hodges finds that the most profitable retailers understand shopping patterns at a deeper level: “About 70 percent of what people actually purchase were things people weren’t initially planning to buy,” he says. That notion is what drives strategies like Coach's in-store handbag refurbishment service, which Hodges says creates additional touchpoints of discovery with customers while indirectly promoting values like sustainability that build brand affinity.
And that’s the kind of thing that creates seamless connections between online and offline experience, Hodges says. Most importantly, these strategies leverage physical spaces for data collection and customer insights. As third-party cookies diminish, consumers are sharing a great deal of first-party information about their interests, ages, locations just by walking into a store.
For instance, Hodges recalls noticing Petco’s fashion-for-pets retail offshoot, Reddy, doing a pop-up three years ago in New York’s SoHo. “By 10am, before the store opened up, there were 10 dogs outside, “ Hodges says. “I thought, ‘Okay, this is interesting. Why are the dogs waiting to get into that store?’ So I waited with the dogs and discovered something novel about what Petco was doing.”
Walking into Reddy, Hodges saw an artist drawing a portrait of pets and their owners. There was a section to have a dog birthday party. “And there was consultative selling going on as well,” he says. “And so that was a data suck, basically. Petco used those visits to acquire data which informed the design of a much larger flagship location in Union Square, complete with enhanced services like pet psychologists and emergency veterinary care. That’s how retail magic works now.”
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