This literature wishes to discuss the changes in advertising scopes, spaces of consumption and its activities that have

been adopted by the generic culture with the presence of technology under the context of retail online shopping. The existence of digital science has definitely penetrated the scopes of advertising and the spaces of consumption practices in ways that we as millennial shoppers might or may not be aware of.

The concurrent development of science, media and capital under the aegies of digital technology produces a kind of fast forward effect in which everything appears to take place at an accelerated rate and to produce a dramatic change in a very short time. It began with the dawn of Web 1.0 as an instance to receive information or a read-only web with minimal user interaction and content contribution, according to Berners-Lee, a British inventor of the World Wide Web (Naik & Shivalingaiah, 2008). Based on the statement we can derive an understanding that Web 1.0 leaves no room for online business or user interaction to take place. This definitely leads us to peruse the changes that were brought by the concept of Web 2.0. The freshly introduced ability to contribute content and interact with other users alters the landscape of the web in short time. Web 2.0 does its justice in putting the I in user interface, and the we into web of social participation (Naik et al, 2013). Based from the words of Stephen Fry, he asserts that Web 2.0 is an idea that the interchange between the user and the provider is whats emphasized, in other words, genuine interactivity. Core technologies that secure the presence of Web 2.0 today would be social media networks such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, online file sharing sites such as Dropbox, 4shared, soundcloud, Wikipedia, blogs, podcasts and not to be missed, online shops.

The fast-paced development and pervasiveness of information technology have transformed many business practices, at the same time creating new job chances. With no overhead cost such as rent, bills, distribution cost and merchandising expenses, it is natural that under contemporary media environment, new media expanded the range of available channels for businesses to interact with consumers by reworking media content in powerful and active ways. Taking Amazon, the

worlds largest online as an example shows the shift towards virtual consumption. Jeff Bezos, the founder of said online store realized that with the new media acting as a portal to connect consumers from different walks of life, he used the social element in technology and creates a marketplace for consumers to purchase normal or luxury goods. In Amazon, consumers can purchase, and browse through a plethora of goods with just one click. The website provides search optimization, which will cater the results according to your searches. Once signed up as a user, it allows you to save items that you do not plan on buying yet under a wish list and it is available to be shared on social networking sites or emailed to a specific someone (Stone, 2013). This feature actually allows us to point out a significant effect in consumer culture. Celia Lury (2011) emphasized that consumer culture is concerned with the meanings of consumption practices, and by that we need to understand if gifts, commodities, or just stuff makes the culture. The essential function of consumption is its capacity to make sense, quotes Mary Douglas and Baron Isherwood (1979) which suggest that the utility of goods is barricaded by a cultural context, that even the most mundane and ordinary objects in daily life contains cultural meaning. It acts as a meaningful marker of social relations (Lury, 2011). Hence, the ability to showcase your desired items absent-mindedly provides a substance to fix social relationships in a faster way. Using an anthropological sense provided by McCracken (1988), gift rituals enables the gift-giver to choose a particular gift that affects the receiver in such a way that the substance helps to bond the relationship between each other. Through wish list sharing, it gives an advantage to the giver in order to exert a positive influence towards the receiver, while the individuals who shared his/her wish lists will harbor a healthy expectation towards what has been shared. The turnout will be a cycle for both parties and simplifies the whole gift-giving process, at the same time promotes a much more powerful interpersonal communication for buying the exact thing that the other person wants. This further accentuates the change in consumer culture in consumption that is brought by the advancements of technology. Since the nature of users in web 2.0 to be able to generate and distribute content, Amazon provides the same platform by allowing them to become a seller and a consumer at the same time. Through the years, Amazon has amped its status as a gadget developer and

provides an independent publishing service. This can be related to Henry Jenkins (2006) framework of convergence culture, which can be generally explained as the merge between new media and old media within single piece of media working together of different media products/technology. This concept can also be known as the coming together of different media products with technology. (Baoill, 2008).

Amazon, apart from selling products under its name, provides services as a marketplace for users to sell their items as an individual or professional known as Amazon Marketplace. Aside from operating a store Amazon also acts as a manufacturer and developer of its own e-book reader called Kindle. The birth of Kindle was due to an overwhelming sale in digital versions of the hard copy books that is being sold in Amazon. Kindle was firstly sold online for a few weeks before being sold at offline stores. Apart from products Amazon owns a subsidiary called CreateSpace, which acts as an easy-to-use independent publishing tool for budding writers. It lets consumers to keep control of their own copywright terms, comes out with free tools to publish the work easily and gets work done for distribution with royalty agreement signed under Amazon. Consumers are free to grab a ready-made opportunity and at the same time fulfill its consumption needs. This further puts Amazon as an example of economical convergence from its success in producing, distributing, creating, servicing and providing services under a single media platform. Economical convergence happens when one company combining business of different media platform and operating it under a single type of media (Hay & Couldry, 2011).

Another consequential framework that must be discussed under convergence culture would be the participatory culture. Applying this under the context of online shopping, another example is chosen, which is eBay. Famous for being the largest online auction and shopping website, eBay includes a highly social element that grants users to generate, distribute, edit, add contents, often with freedom to share and provide extensive reviews. The change from traditional media to social media shifts the power of institutional control to consumer control. Established as a multinational consumer-to-consumer corporation, eBay only moderates and

facilitates the process of interaction between consumers to consumers. Each consumer is allowed to sell anything they want, set their own amount of bid, and they are encouraged to leave feedbacks and detailed reviews towards an item or a service provided by the other seller-consumer. Each review is essential for every user as it helps to build rapport and credibility to be trusted by other users. Contrary to the interaction between consumers and sellers in pop-up markets, flea markets and brick and mortar shops, most consumers would be engaged and focusing on the product whilst seller will only provide further guidance when the consumer plans to buy it. Whereas in an online shopping medium, customer service must be played out at the highest scale. Narrowing the scope, businesses in an online shopping medium such as eBay are considered as users as well and they must be obliging to the rules and standard requirements. This further highlights the importance of good customer service in the world of capitalist consumption, where users are not just users but prosumers, just as how Bruns (2008) have the coined the term. He argues that prosumer is the final result of a strategy that has been concurrently used that promotes feedback between producers and consumers (prosumers). The allowance for more consumer influence over the production of good expects a continual exchange, rather than just a one-off transaction. This pattern has amplified the demands and shopping activity in the online sphere due to its exclusivity in accepting feedbacks. For instance, a feedback given to a physical store cannot be seen nor shared as an example, but a comment or rating contributed online are subject to overt evaluations for others to contemplate on. Furthermore, in regards to traditional advertisement, consumers regard user generated reviews as more trustworthy and convincing rather than be seller-provided advertising information (Huang, Chou, Lan, 2007).

With the user-friendly Web 2.0 websites, it is expected to ease online businesses in such tremendous ways that would benefit the consumers and producers themselves. The online megastore holds a vast amount of goods that range from clothing to home living items to second hand goods. Taking eBay as an example proves that everything can be a commodity in this era. The idea of being able to literally buy and sell anything even a broken and defected items renders that technology has made it

possible in adding value to any products produce. Sometimes, a buyer decides to buy a junk sold online just because it is available for him to be purchased. Also, it might be the location of product that is being sold and the price it offers provide unique selling proposition with the idea of obtaining something different on a different platform creates a sense of excitement in consumers. This then directs to Karl Marxs theory of commodity fetishism, where values are imparted on consumer goods that have minimal significance with then nuts and bolts of an object. For this particular context, his asserts somewhere in the line that the value relation between the existence of commodity and the labour product has no connection with their physical properties and with the material relations arising thereform. Hence, the assumption that consumers have in their eyes is a social relation between the things and them. For a better reference, say there is a winter coat made out of cashmere wool from Morocco that is being put up on eBay with a starting bid of 12. It might have defects, or the fitting is too large and at the same time the season now is spring. Even so, the idea of obtaining a rare item in such a convenient way overpowers the insignificance of the product towards the consumer. Lury (1996) adds her insight that fetishism of the commodity in modern society is ignorantly manipulated in the practices of packaging, promotion and advertising. Applying it in our example, packaging comes in the form of the space of consumption itself, which is in online medium, whereas the promotion is under the price and advertising would mean the unique selling proposition made by the seller. Adorno (1974), asserts that once the dominance of exchange-value has managed to eradicate the memory of the original use-value of the product, the commodity becomes available to play a secondary or ersatz use-value.

However so, Internet shopping does not render consumers to spend conspicuously even with the providence of primary shopping motivation such as convenience, information, customization and interaction (Ghosh, 1998). Keeney (1999) summarizes a list of Internet shopping values he obtained via interviews and discussions and it mostly reverberates on utilitarian values except for enhancing the shopping pleasure. Blake et al (2005) indicated that most features aforementioned are utilitarian related. He notes that previous researchers believe that people are

driven with utilitarian values to shop online. One frequent consumer behaviour that is being investigated by managers and scholars that has become a pressing managerial and multi-channel concern is the online shopping cart abandonment. (Kukar-Kinney and Close, 2010) The authors defnite electronic shopping cart use acts as an online habit in which consumer places items into the cart with the fullest intention to purchase anything. As opposed to traditional on-ground carts, they exist for utilitarian purposes, facilitating customers to gather and store items for immediate purchase. E-carts on the other hand, are virtual spaces that exist on online websites and due to the intangibility that act, consumers at the end of shopping session can abandon it completely without purchasing it. Kukar-Kinney and Close (2010) profess that consumers may use their virtual carts as an online browsing or window shopping toll rather than an online purchase tool. They added that there exist other values that are hedonic values rather than utilitarian values for online cart use. In terms of hedonic motivation, the nature of online space itself gives consumers a chance to produce, edit and explore in their own terms thus providing a sensual stimulation and the freedom to search unlike in a typical physical store setting (Falk, 1997). The reasons behind their intent are to be believed that acquiring desired items virtually is said to include an entertainment value for consumers, using the cart to get more information on an item, saving the targeted items for later purchase or taking advantage of a price promotion such as free shipping. Hence, most sites will automatically empty carts when the consumer closes the browser to prevent inaccuracy in stock variation. Alternatively, UK-based online site ASOS and Topshop.com provide Saved Items and Save for Later option respectively so users can keep track of their items when they do not intend to purchase it at the immediate moment. This allows customers to keep track of the availability of their items and grab the chance if there is any promotional discount on the saved items. At the same time, this feature can act as a method of advertising for the website as it is portrayed as a Wantlist folder that can be viewed publicly by the signed users of the website. NastyGal.com, the American version of the online-only ASOS, provides a Wantlist option for customers to drop their desired items and this feature allows users to exchange their Wantlist for others to have a looksee. It permits more option for customers as they can find out what others have been

eyeing on and this creates a great interaction between consumers in the space of consumption while it simultaneously act as a boost in sales for the company.

Aurand, Gorchels, and Bishop (2005) denote that consumers perception of a brand is imperative to its success. While the majority of retailers have extended to eCommerce, the need to broaden brand presence, provide more choices and create a rich consumer experience is critical. Ten percent of the population uses shopping apps on their mobile devices, whether for discounts, find stores or compare prices. Now, with the increase of smart phone usage, many brands have successfully picked up their own online application on mobile to engage users with the brand wherever they go. This online integration on mobile is considered as one of the best advertisement method as it allows mass personalization to take place. One highly notable attempt in personalizing owns brand in mobile application would be IKEAs effort. The worlds largest furniture retailer creates a handy application using augmented reality that allows customers to visualize 3D versions of IKEAs furniture in their homes. Instead of going to the physical store with the need to measure, imagine and jot down notes on the arrangement of furniture and the size of your house, the sofas, tables, desks and chairs can be virtually placed into a room, ultimately hastening the planning process which greater accuracy. With 3D

specialists nailing the texture of organic textiles to the app, customers will only need to place the physical catalog in the spot where they visualize the arrangement of their new furniture. The devices camera will use the book as both an anchor and a way to gauge the correct scale for the products shown on screen. This is just an addition to its brand equity while decrease chances of exchange and returns to happen. IKEA has tied their catalogue to a mobile app since 2011 with hopes to make shopping process much more easier and fun. Hence, comparing current application with the now-ready mobile catalogue app presents the movement from mass customization to mass personalization. Kevin Fasusi (2011) explains that mass customization as the delivering of low cost, high-volume individualized product to each consumer instantaneously and affordably as a decision of integrating flexible and quick processes efficiently. Mass personalization on the other hand seeks to achieve product differentiation at individual customer level while serving a

market-of-one under mass production economies of scale. Generally, the distinction between both is that it is targeted for a single customer focus and the infinite specification of the product or service. The distinguishing factor between both is defined by mass personalization as a limiting case of mass customization by aiming at a market segment of one, while staying in line with traditional consumer expectations. In order to conclude this essay, we take a postmodernist perspective into the account to further shape the phenomenon that is under influence of technology. The main causes of postmodern change would be social and technological. This definitely fits into the concept of online shopping for consumers as according to Toffler (1970), demassification, fragmentation, individualization and an increasing speed of change make the characteristic of postmodern wave (van Raaij, ). Outlining technological change for our context, the concept of hyper reality comes to exist. Hyper reality, as coined by Jean Baudrillard (1970) corresponds in that the division of reality and imaginary disappears. For example with mobile devise that changes consumer experiences in many shopping venues, some will able multitask by working and buying things at the same time. This complicates the reality as in its natural state, only one thing can be done at one time in one place. Fragmentation of products happens when there is a blur between the line of different type of goods. Traditionally, in order to obtain either one, consumers must go to different places and wear a different faade to assimilate with the products value. Now, with the presence of online shopping, any kind of goods is available to be bought in online. Thus all this explains why consumers are becoming increasingly comfortable with using digital technology in the retail environment and this creates a challenge for retail companies on how well they can adapt, budget their expenditures on new technology while keeping their greatest asset, the consumer satisfied and happy.