Spam to be extinct by 2035

Archived article dated Thursday September 4th 2008

Nobody needs telling that these are tough times for retailers. A number of well known names have recently knocked on the administrators' doors and some of these will ultimately become nothing more than memories.

By Glynn Davis

A forthcoming book 'Future Files' by Richard Watson (Nicholas Brealey Publishing) who advises on trends won't exactly cheer retailers up with some of his predictions for the future on what he calls an 'extinction timeline' but it also suggests that it is not all black.

On the negative side he predicts that by 2013 video rental stores will be no more, all butchers shops will be gone by 2019, by 2018 all village shops will have disappeared, and by 2040 bank notes will have finally died a death.

On a slightly more positive note for retailers are his forecasts that people will have completely stopped mending things by next year, that advertising regulation will be gone by 2010, work-free weekends will be a thing of the past by 2023, and for food retailers it will probably be good to know that waistlines will have gone by 2024.

Retail aside, of much more concern are some of his other forecasts that reckon real handkerchiefs will be done for by 2017, lunch will not even be around for wimps by 2017, and 2035 will be a particularly momentous year because not only will oil run out but that delicacy Spam will be no more.

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