Savvy marketers get nostalgic (you read it here first)

Twenty years ago today the first online shopping transaction was made. It doesn't seem a long time really, 20 years, and somehow online shopping seems to have become so mainstream I would have expected it to have been even longer ago.

But there's still a huge number of disenfranchised people who don't have access to the internet - particularly among the over 65s. My mother, 82, was one of them until a couple of weeks ago when she decided to take the bull by the horns, book computer lessons with Age UK and get the required broadband. She then bought a tablet and has been making good progress, although she's impatient with how much there is to learn. She thought it would be easier and more intuitive.

As a marketer, I'm always looking ahead to new trends and where we will be going. I predict there'll soon be a general return to nostalgia and may be even "old fashioned" ways of doing business. We're reaching saturation point with email. I've spent the last two weeks in an exercise I call "reclaiming my inbox" where I've been clicking on unsubscribe in all the emails and newsletters I receive. This could be a whole blog post in itself because most of them still email me weeks later, and a lot of them are emailing me in my former name, when I have been using my married name for four years, which begs the question how old is their database?

The Super Boomers already dominate in terms of their spending power and if most of them are anything like me, we're fed up with: a) being patronised by big brands and referred to as "silver surfers" just because we're over 50, when most of it were blogging years ago and using Facebook when it launched;  b) we yearn for simple and uncomplicated. Not in gadgets (we buy all the latest "stuff") but in life itself. There's too much choice. Booking a holiday takes hours now because you have to research every hotel on TripAdvisor. Even knowing what to eat for a healthy diet is hugely complicated. A magazine article recently pitted three experts against each other, and they all disagreed. So what hope is there for the average person? 

I was recently buying a few cards in Clinton's - in itself an outdated pastime when a lot of youngsters prefer to send e greetings - and I proffered the little card they stamp when you make a purchase. "Oh we've got something better now," said the assistant, and slapped down a flyer for me to read. Of course they want my email address and in return they will email me with offers. Apparently I will get a fourth card free when I buy three cards. I'm not sure how that will work because I didn't want to register. I quite enjoyed the harmless pursuit of having them stamp my little card and then give me a free card, no questions asked. So I'll carry on doing this, but in Marks and Spencer where they still run the same promotion with no email addresses needed.

Recently a couple of online retailers have started sending newsletters, nicely produced and luxurious, and it was a pleasure to sit and read them for a few minutes.

I seriously think there could be something in nostalgic marketing. Not only would the Supers love it, but also Gen X and Y because fashion is about nothing more than recycling the past. And the past is new to them.

I'd love to hear your views.

Marks and Spencer: please read

Poor old Marks and Spencer have had some stick this week. Shareholders got very ratty at their AGM. The problem is, most of Marks' customers are aged 45 and over, but most of their clothes are aimed at the yoof generation, who wouldn't be seen dead in there. Same issue at the BBC, where they're all too happy to kill Gardeners' World for a month because of sport, but wouldn't dream of axing any of the dross on BBC3 aimed at teens.

Liz Jones, unusually for once, offered some good advice to M and S in the Mail. They need to go upmarket. Yes yes yes! We support their Plan A, and having clothes made ethically, but they really need to charge more because the quality has become terrible. Cheap clothes that fall apart are literally ten a penny in places like Primark, Tesco and Sainsbury's.

Before my holiday I tried to buy a simple pair of white shorts and white three-quarter length trousers. Simples, as the mir cats would say. But no -- M and S only had really bad quality versions that were clingy and unflattering.Or linen, which no-one in their right mind buys. I couldn't believe it. I already have some white knee-length cotton shorts, purchased from Marks and Spencer four years ago, that I still wear. They still look immaculate.

As Liz said, we want more cashmere, and more scoop neck jumpers please; and fewer lairy colours. Cashmere jumpers in navy, black, cream, red, camel work so well for work. Dresses with sleeves, yes please - and dresses that try to give us a waist, rather than the shapeless sacks M and S favour for workwear. Things that are a bit more edgy, but less embellished. More variety in the cut and shape of jackets: not so many boxy or straight jackets.

Please get rid of Per Una altogether. I can't understand who would wear those ghastly voluminous crinkly skirts and flouncy tops. Everything is far too overdone with sequins, lace, buttons. Some simple maritime themed basics would be great: it is impossible to find a good quality scoop neck with short or three-quarter length sleeves t-shirt in M and S.

My mum is 80, and she and her friends are shopaholics. They're forever buying clothes! But even she thinks the Classic Collection is too old fashioned. She wants bright colours, but things like the 2-piece camisole sets that M and S used to sell - flattering for older ladies - and more of the Manifesto trousers that manage to be stylish while having an elasicated waist.

Some good news: I read that M&S are trialling a high-end cosmetic zone. Great idea! Apparently it will sell cult brands, the sort you can get in Space NK.I love the stuff sold in Space NK, but sometimes when I look into a store, it's empty and that puts me off because I'm afraid of being sold to. I like the way you can browse high end cosmetics in Boots without being hassled, but they don't sell very many trendy brands, so M&S could be onto a winner.

M and S, please let the teens shop in Topshop, Primark, etc. Concentrate on the older demographic, but think more elegance; more flattering and better quality. And improve the store layout and the changing rooms (that horrific lighting!). You can get rid of most of the famous models in your ads (but bring back Dervla in the food ads). And things will improve. Simples!

103/365: Tonight's dinner

I called in at Simply M&S on the way home. The great thing about a stir fry is that not only is it nutritious but you get a lot for the calories!

92/365: Out of bed, the wrong side

It's been one of Those Days. You know, when you feel irrationally irritable and grumpy. It started when I woke later than normal, which started to put me under the pressure of a self-induced timeline: have I got time to go to the gym, Marks & Spencer's and Sainsbury's and back in time for the wretched test drive J has organised for 4pm? Plus I had some urgent mafia business to attend to after finding that while I was sleeping, someone had attacked me in Mafia Wars and I'd lost.

As I drove to M&S, I rang my mum and ended up getting GBH of the ear,  so I was on a low simmer when I went up to the Exchanges & Refunds. I recently bought J a trendy looking shirt but he instantly rejected it and somehow I lost the receipt, which is unusual for me. Anway, their new policy in M&S is to treat you like a criminal if you've lost your receipt and ask for a credit note. The woman glared and said I would only now get £12 (the shirt was £29 three weeks ago) and asked for my name and post code, writing them on some list as if it would be used for future evidence.

This took the shine off my M&S session and I left having purchased only an Oakham chicken.

I then went to Sainsbury's, cursing the way they have redesigned the now smaller car park at Low Hall, so that it really has become every man for himself. Why do people have to have these ridiculous people carriers and Range Rovers in London suburbs?

Inside, every pushchair and every trolley seemed to be hurtling themselves towards me.

There were no raspberries left.

As I drove home, irrationally furious, I was cursing J for his test drive, although actually it's for the car that I want. He wants another car which I'm convinced I wouldn't want to be seen dead in (no, not a hearse.)

He had made his own lunch, hooray for that, but as usual had not emptied the dishwasher. This I did, loudly and silently, if that isn't mixing my metaphors.

Now I remembered what my mum used to wail when I was a kid, "I haven't sat down for the day", and we would accuse her of being a martyr because she didn't ask for any help ("I shouldn't have to!") and would persist in doing unnecessary things like washing the skirting boards.

After putting away the shopping, tight-lipped, and sat down to have my lunch, J looked over and gave me a smile  (having not previously engaged in conversation as he could See The Signs). "Now you can have a nice sit down," he said. "But don't forget we're going out for that test drive".

As recompense for the test drive, I'll see if I can encourage him into Waitrose which is on the way, after all, to get some raspberries and the creme fraiche I forgot to get.

A quintessentially English experience

Last night we went to a Picnic in the Park at Kenwood House in leafy Hampstead.

It was an experience as English as you can possibly get: hundreds of people shaking out their picnic rugs and unloading luscious picnics, mainly from M&S and Waitrose (I was picnic spotting). No youths bearing knives, except possibly plastic ones. Recession what recession - I saw numerous bottles of champagne and other fine wines. No bottles of Mateus Rose in Hampstead, that's for sure.

We collected our picnic having ordered it in advance from Carluccio's. Last time we went to Kenwood for a Picnic in the Park (two years ago) the hamper supplier was Marks & Spencer. I have to say that the Carluccio's hamper, at £45, was not good value. It was not very carefully packed and one of the bottles of water had leaked so the two paper plates were sodden. The contents were a bit hit and miss too. Too much rocket for my liking and everything seemed to be swimming in a patina of olive oil.

I've resolved to take my own picnic next year so we can have our favourite yummies. For me, quiche, kettle chips, Scotch egg and an egg custard tart. J is a man of simple tastes and would probably be satisfied with a ham and coleslaw roll and maybe a chicken breast to gnaw on (he is not a leg man).

Anyway the concert was superb - Summer Proms with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. Lots of favourites: Sousa's Semperfidelis (the theme tune for Plymouth Argyle FC), Elgar's Nimrod (which always chokes me up, as it reminds me of my dad) and finally the 1812 Overture, regrettably without fireworks. A very enjoyable evening. I am trying to persuade J that we should go to Last Night of the Proms at Kenwood on August 23, but I fear that the deckchair and the cold has put him off until next year.

Trinny and Susannah got it wrong

I'm normally a big fan of Trinny and Susannah and their brisk advice. But this week, when they bullied some mature ladies into going into stores like New Look and TopShop, and insisted they encase themselves in tailoring, I felt they'd got it wrong.

They'd assembled a great bunch of women in their 60s and above: feisty, independent, enjoying life. And T&S seemed to assume that because they'd given up on the high street, they'd given up on life.

What they didn't seem to get was that older women, quite often widowed or single, no longer feel the need to compete with each other in the way younger women do, or that they had to win the attention of men. It must be incredibly liberating, I think, to wear what you want, even if it's just something comfortable, and have great companionship with other women. Sheesh, when I'm that age I don't want to have to keep dieting and exercising and forcing myself into tailored clothes!

My mum is a great case in point. She wears very bright colours so could never be accused of fading into the background. But she gets most of her clothes in M&S and wouldn't be seen dead in New Look or Top Shop, Nor would I, frankly. Who wants to be looked at as if you're a mutant by teenagers wearing all the stuff you wore years ago? (Nothing is ever new these days my darlings).

If you want to play the mutton game, and turn back time, you end up being ridiculed like Faye Dunaway in today's Daily Mail. On the one hand they praise her flawless skin, her perfect veneered teeth, her tumbling hair...but then they spitefully show a close-up of her hands. In true Daily Mail style, they aim to humiliate and ridicule an older woman - when most of their readers are women. I just don't get it.

It would have been far more realistic to my mind if Trinny & Susannah had persuaded the ladies to shop around in M&S and not just in the Classics dept. They could pick up some tailoring or smart shoes and dresses in Autograph, Per Una or the other department whose name escapes me, and not feel out of place.

Nothing to wear!

Male readers suppress that wry smile. It's true, I have nothing to wear! You see, I indulged in a Trinny and Susannah style raid on my wardrobe, having brought down the summer clothes from the loft. Garment after garment was thrown into a black bin liner. "Too old," "too middle-aged," "never wear it."

The outcome was that there's a lot more room in the wardrobe, but finding an outfit for the office yesterday was quite a trial. The fluctuations of the English weather don't help. Normally, for my one or two days in the office, I wear dark trousers or a skirt and a jumper (short sleeved for summer). Before you visualise reindeers on the jumper or cute embroidery, they are very plain cashmere jumpers from M&S. And I usually wear some large-ish beads in dark colours.

But now that we're on the cusp of spring and summer, my two grey skirts were ruled out because opaque tights don't seem right, but nor will I be seen dead in sheer tights. And it's too early for bare legs, so that ruled out last year's pair of navy city shorts too, and a cream skirt that I love but have only worn once.

So that left me with trousers: black or brown, two pairs, or new, cream flannel (but I have the sneaking feeling they make me look fat). There are three other pairs but they've all mysteriously gone half-mast. Perhaps I'm confounding science by continuing to grow? The only way I can wear those trousers again is by buying ballet pumps, but as they're the most uncomfortable footwear known to woman, and old hat now to boot, I won't be doing that.

Eventually I put on what I call my David Bowie Oxford bags: fairly wide dark brown trousers that come up to the waist, Simon Cowell style. (But that's trendy now, right?). But what a time it took. I thought I looked a bit wintery at the time I left home when it was sunny, but by the time I got to Swindon it was pouring with rain and I was lamenting the fact I hadn't brought a coat.

Ideally, I should seek out some beautifully cut Joseph trousers, uplevel my cashmere to Brora and source some spectacular beads. I need more shoes too. And I used to have several simple shift dresses in plain colours, but they seem very old-fashioned now with all these ghastly smock and empire line frocks around.

Clothes shopping has become a bit of a bete-noire. I just don't like doing it. When I go into most women's shops, there's a niggly voice inside my head that ruins the experience. It's constantly saying "your arms are too big for sleeveless," "you can't wear empire line," "your thighs are too big for those." And with shops like Zara, where the clothes are mysteriously sized, there's the stress of wondering what size you're going to have to have to buy. I am a fairly normal size 12 to 14, I would add (US eight to 10).

So I always scuttle back into the relatively stress-free environment of M&S in Marble Arch where the inner voice is largely silenced, and some of the Autograph and Limited collections are very good.

But it's not always a happy experience. There are always depessing racks of clothes that refuse to sell: the jumpers in hideous colours, ghastly cheap looking peasant style flouncy skirts in Per Uno and acres of Footglove shoes built for comfort. Coupled with hideous changing rooms with mirrors that act like searchlights, this is often not a pleasant experience and probably why so many of us buy clothes there without trying them on and then have to bring them back.

Mail order is not the answer either. I get some wonderful tops in flattering colours from Kettlewell Colours which don't need to be sent back, but when I bought clothes from Boden they always seem to be disappointing in fit and quality, but too much of a faff to send back, so they're kept but seldom worn. Life is too short to have to wait in for couriers all day, or have to go to the post office and queue for 20 minutes. So what's a girl to do? Answers on a postcard.

Those M&S changing room mirrors

I'm glad to see that former (and still aspiring) politician Robert Kilroy-Silk is keeping his finger on the pulse of the big issues of the day. He's apparently written to Stuart Rose at Marks & Spencer claiming that the women's changing room mirrors give an unfairly flattering aspect (yes flattering).

I was pretty gobsmacked at this because I distinctly recall an incident involving myself, an M&S changing room, two pairs of trousers and a mirror, just before Christmas. Suffice to say, they must be skimping on fabric these days and the trousers went unbought.

I was going to write to Mr Rose myself (I think we could enjoy a flourishing correspondence) to urge him to improve the changing rooms: to provide more flattering mirrors and less harsh lighting.

Mr Kilroy-Silk's data seems to be anecdotal, and therefore not robust: his wife and "some of our friends" claims the mirrors are flattering. So what? They buy the clothes and find they hate them when they get home? Big deal - take them back.

I'd suggest to Mr Kilroy-Silk that he takes up some more important issues. How about today's report that the UK is at the bottom of a Unicef league table showing that our kids have the worst life in Europe (and even the US), and that our poverty levels are worse than countries we often look down on - Greece, Czech Republic, Poland. That's a far more substantial issue.