An interesting problem has recently been passed to me by two clients. I built the web sites for both clients & we do the marketing, which is going very well & getting great traffic *wipes sweat from brow*
Both clients have very informative sites which do show a large collection of the various ranges they offer, the problem they have is people requesting brochures, even though the pictures/information is on the site and it's costing them quite a lot to send packs of brochures around the uk.
What options are there?
I've thought of maybe PDF files giving people the chance to download the brochure (although I'm not sure how it is done!!)and view it offline, but would people do this? Has anyone used adobe for this purpose?
There is of course the option of using external links to the manufacturers sites but I don't like doing that, as you may loose the visitor (even if you have them opening in another window) direct to the manufacturer.
Has anyone had a similar experience and if so how did you overcome visitors completing forms just requesting brochures.
I think the problem is, most people other than us internet junkies like to pick something up & read it or see just how the kitchen/bathroom will look in that room and most don't have pc's in the kitchen/bedroom/bathroom!
Any ideas will be greatfully received 
Julia - if life was meant to be easy Michael Angelo would have painted the floor....
mjames posted this at 21:13 — 25th April 2001.
They have: 2,064 posts
Joined: Dec 1999
I don't know if it's just me or not, but I wouldn't mind viewing it by something like a .pdf file, what about everyone else?
Marc James - marc@sports-central.org
Sports Central - Beyond the Scores
Sports Boards | Sports Newsletter | Spy Cam
Grandmaster posted this at 00:03 — 26th April 2001.
They have: 677 posts
Joined: Mar 1999
Yeah, I would have to agree on PDF being the best choice to show the brocures.
Jo Tomlinson posted this at 16:28 — 26th April 2001.
They have: 34 posts
Joined: Jan 2001
PDF is probably the easiest route aswell.
You will be able to covert it straight from the original brochure (if there is an original). Just get the printers to send a quark document to you or ask them to export the quark doc to PDF and you can put it straight up there. It is very very quick for you.
And for the end user it is pretty simple. I use them quite a lot. And even thought they do have a few bad points, on the whole they are very good. You just need to put a link to Adobe saying that they can download free Acrobat Reader if they don't have it already to view the file.
Be careful og file size though. Depending on your end user and the size of the doc, they can take a little while to download...and you know attention spans!
The Webmistress posted this at 16:48 — 26th April 2001.
She has: 5,587 posts
Joined: Feb 2001
Thanks, I'll get the clients to contact their suppliers to see what can be done, at least that way people can download them if they want to but I don't think they'll ever get away from having to send out brochures as people like to hold a glossy brochure!!
Julia - if life was meant to be easy Michael Angelo would have painted the floor....