By Jeff Hasen

Because turnabout is fair play, I figure the consumer electronics shop can sell Aspirin if the drugstore can sell netbooks.

Crazy idea?

Crazier than asking the consumer, or heaven forbid, the stockboy to be informed about products being introduced virtually every hour in the Technology-on-Steroids era?

According to an InformationWeek article, CVS began selling a $99 Sylvania netbook over the Labor Day weekend ? and quickly sold out in many locations.

The 7-inch-display netbook features 128 MB of internal memory and 2 GB of NAND flash. The computer runs Internet Explorer on Windows CE 6.0.

Let us pause here.

Pharmacy shows flash
If you walked down the street, or into your CVS ? otherwise known as your consumer electronics destination of choice ? do you think more than three in 100 could tell you the upside and downside of 128MB of memory and 2GB of NAND Flash?

What the heck is NAND Flash anyway?

Consumers were driven to CVS by Sunday circulars that proclaimed the "New Netbook ... Wow! $99.99".

InformationWeek reported that ?several users said they hoped to find a way to eventually download some Android apps to the netbook.?

Yeah, you get all sorts of flexibility for $99.

Other users said they bought the netbook for their children while others said they would give the machines as holiday presents.

Should this treatment of children not be illegal?

The netbook cannot run Microsoft Office 2007 but gives lucky buyers Wordpad, docviewer, pdfviewer and xlsviewer.

Not to mention the headache that can be treated by that Aspirin.

Which brings us to the consumer electronics stores.

New tablets give headache
Whole new categories and operating systems are ? or soon will be ? for sale.

Tablets are being offered that promise an iPad experience for a fraction of the cost. Smartphones are so plentiful that you have to wonder if every device can be that smart.

The better retail experiences will feature informed, patient salespeople educating the eager and uninformed. They will deliver on the ?Moments of Trust? for the store and manufacturer.

But that will likely be the exception given staffing levels and the near-impossible task of having anyone keep up with all the products and services that the tech world is introducing.

It is fortunate that Aspirin is as mobile as the netbook and smartphone.  

Jeff Hasen is chief marketing officer of Hipcricket, Kirkland, WA. Reach him at .