How Digital Media Has Changed Retail Shopping

Running head: HOW DIGITAL MEDIA

How Digital Media Has Changed Retail Shopping

Edward Wilder

University of Maryland University College

CMST 301

Effects of Digital Media on Retail Shopping

Shopping over the last 20 years has made a big change from being very frustrating to somewhat appealing for most of us can remember the day before cell phones or the internet. In the 1980’s, shopping at the traditional brick and mortar store was a task that took several hours to have a chance to be successful, but if done right was really rewarding. In the current days with lots of digital media help, shopping has been given changes in a way customers that enjoyed traditional brick and mortar visits are now able to be anywhere and buy almost anything.

It all started with the advent of the computer. This electronic device opened the consumer conduct tasks a little simpler. They were used in place or punch card machines on jobs and many other places that required a lot of counting and calculating. As the world’s computers grew in popularity, their sizes reduced, prices reduced and they became popular into family homes. As this popularity grew, there was introduced a means for these systems to communicate to each other. This means was called the ARPANET which later would later transition into what we know now as the Internet (Computer History Museum, 2006, p. 1). A few years would pass as the Internet and computers became more useful and customers would start to trust the freedoms it would allow the individual to accomplish. This would start a trend of using the internet to buy products giving a challenge to brick and mortar advertisements to streamline and attempt to take advantage of the new market. Companies like Amazon and online auction sites like eBay, Ubid, and Bidz.com would be a large contributor to helping consumers their test online purchasing market. Of course, like most things that are new, consumers would initially...