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
And my iPad would be a NotePad
And savvy consumers would shop from these things
But we’d still have a hard time selling to mobile shoppers
Service Merchandise CEO Raymond Zimmerman would be today’s eTail West keynote
And he’d get us all on board with an omnichannel plan
RadioShack? It would still be stuck in the 80s…
But that would be cool…
Because the catalog would still rule…
And we’d go all high-tech to place an order (like you didn’t see a Zack Morris cell phone pic coming)
But not me… this is how I’d still buy music
But back to eTail West, Silver Star Brands would steal the show because…
Because they found they can sell “Fifty Shades of Grey” themed “aids” via ecommerce… which had made its customers happy…
And that means Ian MacDonald will have won the Internet!
