The effect of phygital showroom immersion on purchase enchantment among Iraqi consumers: The mediating roles of sensory vividness and brand self-congruity
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Retailers are witnessing the proliferation of immersive phygital showrooms that merge physical and digital components, but there is a dearth of quantitative evidence explaining how these settings impact on consumers’ more profound emotional experiences, especially within Arab emerging markets. Based on the stimulus–organism–response framework, this study examines how phygital showroom immersion influences purchase enchantment, either directly or indirectly through two organismic mechanisms: sensory vividness as a perceptual route and brand self-congruity as an identity route. Data are collected from 400 Iraqi consumers who had recently used electronics, fashion or automobile phygital showrooms in four cities using a purposive (non-probability) intercept procedure and analyzed using the partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM). Phygital showroom immersion was positively related to sensory vividness, brand self-congruity and purchase enchantment. Purchase enchantment was positively correlated with sensory vividness and brand self-congruity, respectively. Brand self congruity was the best predictor. Sensory vividness was not significantly related to brand self congruity as expected. Sensory vividness and brand self-congruity mediated the relationship between immersion and enchantment in parallel, but the hypothesized serial mediation was not supported. The model explained 41.7% of the variance in purchase enchantment. The findings push forward experiential and phygital retailing research to an under-researched Arab market, and provide retailers with evidence-based guidance on designing immersive phygital formats that evoke enchantment. Due to the cross-sectional, non-probability design, the results have to be understood as suggestive of associations rather than causal effects.
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