On 2/8/2011 5:56 AM, Ed Pawlowski wrote:
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"David Nebenzahl" wrote in
Got a note the other day that there was a parcel for me at the P.O.
Went there and discovered that rather than some nifty-type gift, it
was the latest Grainger catalog.

Unbelievable.

As late in the new online, digital, paperless day as it is, here it is
in all its weighty glory. All 4,434 pages of it! About 8 pounds of
dead trees.

I can't believe this thing costs them any less than $10-15 a unit,
considering all that goes into it: design, compilation, product
photography, prepress, printing, bindery, shipping and postage.

Also a little surprised I got one, since I think I *might* have bought
one little thing from them all last year.

Many of them go to the maintenance department where there may not be
computers or internet access. We got the McMaster-Carr catalog last
week. I've not used the paper for years, but our printed book goes to
the shop where it is used frequently.


Sure, but that is getting rarer and rarer. I am in and out of a lot of
facilities and it is pretty rare to see folks without Internet access. I
was working at a place yesterday where the maintenance guy has a
notebook with an aircard and a smartphone. I can't think of a place I
have been in where they don't have a computer available for research and
ordering stuff. Even the remote facility I visit some times that is a 4
mile ride on a dirt road has a satellite dish for Internet.

As for web access, McMaster is far superior than Grainger and gets 99%
of our orders for that reason.

Yes, some companies really don't get it. I buy from one company mainly
because they are the only one who sells certain products and it is
almost impossible to find stuff unless you know an exact part number.

One company where we buy stuff used to produce a thick paper catalog.
They stopped that quite some time ago and started mailing out CDs. They
stopped mailing the CDs some years ago.