Hyperphysical stores, our retail macrotrend for 2022, emerged as the sector adjusted to the post-Covid landscape, with changing consumer needs pushing retailers to rethink bricks-and-mortar stores as more engaging, sensorial and memorable spaces.
While e-commerce is accelerating to offer multi-layered and sometimes confusing experiences for customers and brands, bricks-and-mortar shops are becoming the bastion of extraordinary, sensorial moments. These next-generation spaces can be seen through the lens of hyperphysicality; that is, the essential soulfulness required in physical spaces in the wake of global lockdowns.
This approach has trickled down from few disruptive concepts in early 2022 to becoming a distinguishable trope in retail, with instances of hyperphysical consumer touchpoints across sectors, regions and business types. Creating retail sanctuaries that facilitate a sense of wellbeing and foster emotional connections, but also bridging the phygital gap by adding values to immersive technologies, retailers are finding multiple ways to gain strategic edge by adopting hyperphysicality.
‘In this next chapter of retail innovation, many store environments will be less about selling products and more about providing us with enriching, emotional, ethereal and exclusive experiences,’ adds