The vehicle purchase journey no longer begins at the dealership; it begins on the screen. Today, much of the research, version comparison, price analysis, and exploration of technologies happens before the customer even visits the store. In a recent McKinsey survey, nearly 60% of buyers said they rely exclusively on digital channels during the research and configuration stages. Even so, more than 85% say they want to take a test drive before purchasing, and half prefer to discuss the final details and place the order in person with a dealer.
This data helps explain why the rise of digital has not reduced the importance of the physical dealership; it has simply changed its role. The space is no longer where the customer "discovers" the car, but where they validate, experience, and build trust. In other words: digital accelerates the journey, but the physical environment remains decisive when the purchase needs to gain form, perception, and confidence.
This shift connects directly with the logic of the Experience Economy, a concept popularized by B. Joseph Pine II and James H. Gilmore in Harvard Business Review. The central idea is simple: in mature markets, companies do not compete only through products or services, but through their ability to create memorable and relevant experiences. In automotive retail, this means that the dealership can no longer be treated as a simple vehicle display point. It needs to function as a living extension of the brand.
This is exactly where the concept of Phygital comes in. More than installing screens or digitizing service steps, Phygital means designing a frictionless journey between online and offline. The strongest evidence of this appears in the most recent Cox Automotive study: 63% of buyers say the ideal experience combines online and in-person activities; only 28% prefer a fully online purchase, and just 7% actually completed the entire process that way. When steps such as credit approval and pre-filled documentation are completed before the visit, the customer saves an average of 42 minutes at the dealership. Among new-vehicle buyers who completed more than half of the steps online, 82% reported high satisfaction with the dealer experience.
In other words: the customer does not want "less dealership"; they want less friction. What creates value is not eliminating the physical space, but ensuring that it takes on a more qualified role. McKinsey has pointed out that dealerships need to evolve from points focused on contracts and service into more strategic functions — trusted advisors and product experience centers where the brand guides, demonstrates, and welcomes rather than merely transacts.
This repositioning inevitably goes through architecture. When we talk about the showroom as an experience center, we are talking about an environment that needs to translate brand attributes into concrete perception. Lighting, materials, acoustics, layout, thermal comfort, product visibility, circulation flow, and delivery areas are no longer operational details; they become conversion components. If the website informs, the physical space convinces. If the online comparator rationalizes the choice, the in-person environment transforms that choice into desire.
Another decisive point is consistency across channels. In a global Salesforce survey with more than 16,000 consumers and business buyers, 69% said they expect consistent interactions across departments, and nearly 60% said they prefer fewer touchpoints to complete a task. In automotive retail, this means the configuration completed online needs to appear during the in-person consultation, that customer history must be integrated into the CRM, and that a conversation started in one channel cannot restart from zero in another.
In aftersales, this reasoning becomes even more strategic. The service experience remains one of the strongest drivers of loyalty. According to J.D. Power, when overall service satisfaction reaches 950 points or higher, 86% of mass-market brand customers and 88% of premium brand customers say they would "definitely" return for paid services. Yet maintenance visits still take an average of 1.61 hours for mass-market brands and 2.46 hours for premium brands — significantly longer than equivalent operations in the aftermarket.
That is why the waiting area is no longer a peripheral detail. In a CDK study with more than 2,000 respondents, 53% said they would be willing to wait in the dealership lounge during same-day services. More than 75% stated that a comfortable lounge is critical to overall satisfaction, and around half wanted dedicated work areas. Proper desks, accessible power outlets, strong Wi-Fi, call booths, quality coffee, and quieter environments are no longer perks; they become part of the aftersales value proposition.
Ultimately, Phygital is not about choosing between digital or physical. It is about making the two work together, with each fulfilling its role more effectively. Digital reduces effort, organizes information, and anticipates decisions. The physical environment builds trust, reinforces positioning, and transforms the journey into an experience. For dealerships that want to remain relevant in the coming years, the challenge will not be merely incorporating technology, but redesigning their spaces so they respond to the real behavior of consumers — consumers who are more informed, more demanding, and less tolerant of friction.
In practice, this means thinking of the dealership as both a brand and performance asset: an environment capable of integrating data, service, product, aftersales, and relationship into one coherent experience. It is precisely at this point that architecture, strategy, and operations stop acting separately and begin to build, together, a new role for automotive retail.
This shift — from transaction point to brand experience center — is what dealership design has been quietly moving toward for over a decade. At VC ONE, we've spent nearly two decades designing dealerships around the architecture of experience: layouts that support consultative sales, aftersales areas that respect the customer's time, service touchpoints engineered around the customer journey rather than around the operation. The dealerships that will win the next decade are the ones being designed today around the phygital reality. The strategic choices behind those spaces will separate the brands that lead from the ones that follow.
References: Harvard Business Review, McKinsey, Deloitte, Cox Automotive, J.D. Power, Salesforce, and CDK Global.
