How Technology is Reshaping the Consumer Experience

Time marches on, and the way consumers interact with the goods and services they use on a daily basis continues to evolve. Technological innovations change the world around us constantly: the printing press revolutionized the transmission of knowledge, the internal combustion engine revolutionized transportation, and the telephone revolutionized communication.

Today, even newer and emergent technologies continue to change our world, reshaping it into one that would be barely recognizable to our great-grandparents. The modern consumer experience reflects this, as technology continues to alter how we interact with the products we use and how they influence how we interact with each other. Here’s how technology is reshaping that consumer experience.

Connectivity through the Internet of Things

Technology has advanced so far that, today, you can shop for and purchase home appliances that have been purpose-built to communicate remotely with not just yourself but with each other, forming an interconnected home network. Whether it’s your coffee maker, your refrigerator, your stereo system, or even your garage door opener, these wireless networks form what’s become known as the Internet of Things (IoT), and they’ve revolutionized how consumers interact with their own home.

So, the weather forecast calls for a chilly night? Don’t fret, simply turn your smart thermostat on remotely to warm up your home up before you get back from work. Blisteringly hot? Set your IoT-enabled central air to begin cooling your place off instead. Going away for a few days? Have your smart lights turn on and off remotely to make it look like someone’s still home. There are even smart dog food dispensers for when you’re running late and need to feed Sadie before you get home. The best part? A central hub device like SmartThings from Samsung makes it easy to control all your IoT-enabled devices at once from any place you have a phone signal.

Online Delivery Planning and Routing

With e-commerce having become such a major force to be reckoned with in modern society, there’s a very strong demand for fast delivery of goods ordered over the internet. This means that if an e-commerce company wants to stay relevant and competitive — especially if they’re a company other than Amazon — they need to find methods for delivering those goods as efficiently as possible. This is yet another place where technological developments have changed the game.

Through a combination of GPS mapping and advanced algorithm tracking, companies such as My Route Online provide quick and easy delivery planning management. It’s now easier than ever to plan and organize a route delivery vehicle of any size to ensure the quickest delivery of goods. Easily guaranteeing that consumers don’t have to wait while their packages just sit on a truck somewhere instead of getting delivered to their address. Without these technological advancements, you’d still be waiting patiently for that same package for days.

Digital Goods, Digital Services, Digital Currency

It’s one thing to order goods and services over the internet and have them delivered right to your door — it’s another to purchase digital goods and services. Even more noteworthy is that technology has evolved to the point where it’s completely possible to use cryptocurrencies — digital currencies secured through cryptography — to make these purchases. In other words, digital commerce has changed to the point where you’re purchasing the right to access data in exchange for other, different data.

This is most prevalent in the entertainment media sector. Today, the film and movie industry has positioned itself so securely in the streaming digital video camp that sites like Movies Anywhere are a one-stop shop for films or television shows purchased across a multitude of platforms including Apple iTunes, Amazon Prime Video, Hulu Plus, Google Play, and others. Available on the web, on iOS and Android devices, and on set-top boxes like Roku and Chromecast, Movies Anywhere has all your purchased streaming video in one centralized location.

The Sky’s the Limit

There’s no way of knowing where we’ll end up, but it’s almost certain that new innovations will provide us with better ways to interact with products and services going forward, leading to unique experiences in the future. Instead, we can only wonder what our great-grandkids will experience in their own lifetimes that would boggle our own early 21st century minds!

There doesn’t seem to be any limitations when it comes to how technology continues to develop in regards to changing how consumers interact with the wider world. Whether it’s purchasing a smart hub to control the myriad internet-connected appliances in a modern home, ordering goods from a company that uses advanced online routing to deliver packages quickly and efficiently, or constructing a library of digital entertainment titles accessible from anywhere in the world, technology continues to drive consumer engagement and experience in new and exciting ways.

How Technology is Reshaping the Consumer Experience was originally published in Hacker Noon on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.