Wasteful catalogues

some of us can't get broadband!! It save me a lot of time by getting the numbers from the catalogue rather than waiting for pages to download while searching. The Q

You can't beat browsing a catalogue! Especially on the Loo!

I spend hours looking at tool catalogues and Screwfix (sad I know)

You're obviously not a CPC customer....! The catalogue is essential...

Assuming their marketing people are doing their homework you can assume that the return from mailouts is greater than their cost or they wouldn't be sent.

Especially when every order has one enclosed as with Screwfix

Stuart

Shift THELEVER to reply.

You should try eating more fibre ;-)

Henry

Regrettfull example of a hideous online catalog. If you know the exact description of an item, you have a hope. If you're trying to browse an actual category with more than maybe 30 items, then it's hopeless.

One thing I'd quite like to see. Suppliers making (on bittorrent or other p2p networks) complete PDFs of their catalogues available.

Yes, it's 300M, so? Being able to flip pages is sometimes a nice way to browse.

Very few websites are half as good as printed catalogues.

Rick

Hopefully this will change as more and more people convert to broadband.

It needs web designers who have more than the slightest idea of what they are doing; so far there are no signs of such people being anything but very rare.

All a faster connection speed does is to allow prettier sites with fancier effects. The DTI has an excellent set of guidelines for anyone who wants to design a web site, including the facts that most people will give up if pages take more than about 8 seconds to download or if they cannot reach the required product in three mouse clicks or less. Few web designers seem to have read them.

Colin Bignell

The B&Q site is a prime example of that. Search for 'sander' and you will probably get garden swings or something.

Dave

Rapid Electronics provide a .pdf of the catalogue as well as the real thing and the web version. It's split into chapters so you do not have to download the whole thing at once. This can also be a disadvantage but if you have access to the full version of Acrobat you should be abale to stitch it back together into one document.

MBQ

For example, if I'm looking for a relay to switch 250VAC, at a few mA, I might not care about anything else but the price.