A Time of Magic

The problem with furniture is that it’s big and so the shops just can’t stock a whole lot of it.

This makes it the furniture catalog a standard accessory for any aspiring furniture sales outlet. There’s just no way that they could possibly stock the full range of possibilities for you to look at these days and besides with modern manufacturing much of the furniture is made to order with so many possible options that a whole city full of shops wouldn’t be large enough to stock all of the possibilities.

For me though the biggest plus point of the catalogue approach is that you don’t need to trudge round endless furniture shops looking for that perfect item and, of course, you don’t get the constant hassle from salespeople trying to sell you something when you really haven’t made your mind up about it.

I know I shouldn’t really, but I end up filling at least two plastic bags with various promotional items from every trade show that I go to.

They’re all useful, of course, but I’m always amazed at how few of the things which companies give out are any use in reminding those collecting them about what their company is all about. The very worst of these was one company a couple of years ago which handed out these really cute little pens which just had their company name on them. Now promotional pens are, on the whole, a “good thing” in that people keep them around for ages (if it’s a decent pen) but this company had only put on the company name (not a famous one) and no contact details at all.

Net effect? Well, people were actually going to their stand to get these pens but I’ll bet they got very little return on them: they were just that little bit too cute.

I’m one of those people who always lifts those “free, please take one” brochures outside the phone shops. It’s not that I’m actually going to buy a new phone but that I just like looking through the details about all the different ones.

I’m just as bad taking the brochures from the phone shops although I generally end up buying a phone after a couple of years worth of brochures.

The best buy sites on the Internet are an even worse time hog for me, particularly those with techie stuff which I’m always buying too much of I think. I’m also wondering how come I paid EUR 120 for an external drive that costs under $130.