PALM SPRINGS, Calif. (Catalog Age) – Never gonna give you up; Never gonna let you down;
Never gonna run around and desert you;
Never gonna make you cry; Never gonna say goodbye;
Never gonna tell a lie and hurt you…
Okay, I apologize for the RickRoll. But OI was on Twitter this morning and went back in time with the hashtag #IfThe80sNeverStopped.
And since I’m in Palm Springs for eTail West 2015, I figured it would be fun to look at what this show – and the industry in general – might be like if we were stuck in the 1980s.
[Editor’s note: I AM stuck in the 80s. And the problem with that: I was stuck in the 70s as a New Canaan High School student back in the 80s. That’s what happens when you want to be just like an older brother who was 14 years older than you.] Anyway, let’s start simple…
I’d be covering eTail West for Catalog Age
![](http://www.dminsights.com/images/award.jpg)
And my iPad would be a NotePad
![](http://scene7.targetimg1.com/is/image/Target/16294244?)
And savvy consumers would shop from these things
![](http://www.pc-history.org/TRS80mod3.gif)
But we’d still have a hard time selling to mobile shoppers
![](http://toybox.ca/~thooper/uploads/Motorola850.jpg)
Service Merchandise CEO Raymond Zimmerman would be today’s eTail West keynote
![](http://servicemerchandise.com/images/raymond200.png)
And he’d get us all on board with an omnichannel plan
![](https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/b8/71/df/b871df6bdd2b9f8a770b0e2176dff719.jpg)
RadioShack? It would still be stuck in the 80s…
![](http://www.eonline.com/eol_images/Entire_Site/201412/rs_560x415-140202163915-1024.ALF_Chucky_Radio_shack-jmd-020214_copy.jpg)
But that would be cool…
![](http://www.nerdist.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/radioshack.jpg)
Because the catalog would still rule…
![](http://www.radioshackcatalogs.com/images/home/many_catalogs_pages.gif)
And we’d go all high-tech to place an order (like you didn’t see a Zack Morris cell phone pic coming)
![](http://techgage.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/Zach-Morris-80s-Phone.jpg)
But not me… this is how I’d still buy music
![](https://bestofthe80s.files.wordpress.com/2012/04/columbia811024a2.jpg)
But back to eTail West, Silver Star Brands would steal the show because…
![silver-star-brands-catalogs](https://multichannelmerchant.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/silver-star-brands-catalogs.jpg)
Because they found they can sell “Fifty Shades of Grey” themed “aids” via ecommerce… which had made its customers happy…
![](http://e-forwards.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/old-couple-funny-happy-study.jpeg)
And that means Ian MacDonald will have won the Internet!
![ian-won-the-internet](https://multichannelmerchant.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/ian-won-the-internet.jpg)