The Consumer and Technology
|
Technologies present a variety of paradoxes for consumers. They can foster feelings of competence but also produce feelings of bewilderment and confusion; they can facilitate active involvement but also foster disengagement with other individuals. In the popular media, consumers are sometimes humorously portrayed as victims of a depersonalized shopping experience where face-to-face transactions are replaced by automated systems and robotic customer service representatives. The humor of these representations may derive from their unrealistic exaggeration, but it is also rooted in its representation of viewers’ commonly shared experiences. Such imagery may evoke feelings of nostalgia, or memories of a less technologically advanced time, before business transactions were conducted via computers and perhaps even before the advent of mass production in the early twentieth century. Ironically, people can sometimes be nostalgic for a ‘past’ they have not experienced first-hand. The rise of e-commerce—in forms as diverse as e-shops, e-auctions, e-malls, third-party marketplaces, and virtual communities—has led to qualitative shifts in the ways in which buyers and sellers communicate: multiple buyers have access to multiple sellers, and product information is easily disseminated by sellers and obtained by buyers. As nanotechnological developments make the Internet increasingly central to our everyday lives and as entirely new forms of transaction emerge, the experience of buying and selling will continue to change profoundly. In the case of the Internet, consumers gain access to products—and product knowledge—that may have been formerly inaccessible. The Internet’s interactive aspect allows businesses to offer services that print media could not provide, its speed can save consumers time, and its ability to store and process information can create a more personal shopping experience as businesses provide personalized services that cater to customer needs. However, one aspect of the shopping experience that e-commerce cannot - is the physical experience of touching, smelling, and tasting products before purchase. At the present time, the availability of both traditional and e-commerce markets allow customers to try a product at a traditional dealer before purchasing the same model online. What happens, however, when such traditional modes of purchase become obsolete? Nanotechnological developments in computers may provide virtual experiences that approach the experience of ‘being there’, but whether consumers will be willing to forego the physical experience of shopping altogether remains to be seen. |
|
Further Reading:
|
