Had the head fall off my shower today. How useful do you think the internet would be for finding the cost of a replacement? Not very.
I tried looking up prices on Hardware retailers web sites. No prices, not even a catalogue.
Starting with Miter10. I wondered why they web site wasn’t working[1], until I realised that it needed the www on the beginning to work[2] It amazes me how many web sites are setup this way. I don’t ses why they don’t have both resolve, or the non-www version just redirect to the www version. Web hosts should make it easier to find sites. not harder.
Back to the search for a rose.
On Mitre10 site I couldn’t find a catalog, unless you want to live outdoors[3]. But I want to live inside and have a shower, so I moved on to the site’s search facility.
Entering shower rose and clicking GO I got the following error:
CreateRecordset error ‘8004181d’
There is no catalog.
/search/includes/index_server.asp, line 52
So, as you can see, there is no catalogue on the Mitre10 site. They are a series of franchises, so maybe no common catalogue.
My next attempt was with the Bunnings site. Another site that doesn’t work without the www[4,5].
Mouse over OUR RANGE and the only thing in the drop down menu is Gift Cards. Surely they have more then this? They are a harware store not a gift shop.
Clicking OUR RANGE actually gets you a larger list of things to look up. Unfortunately nothing for the bathroom, only Gazebos[6]. Not that that matters really, all the catalogue sub-pages linked to display the following error:
Internal Server Error
We have encountered an internal server error. Please try again in a few minutes.
We apologise for any inconvenience caused.
If this error persists, please report the problem here
Please click to return to the bunnings home page
The Bunnings site’s search doesn’t give me any error messages. But it also doesn’t find any shower roses.
So I’m left with no idea the cost of a replacement shower rose. If only harware stores could get their act together and put up useful website. It seems that they are too dependant on you coming into the store.
References:
- mitre10.com.au
- www.mitre10.com.au
- Let’s live outdoors
- bunnings.com.au
- www.bunnings.com.au
- Something you won’t find in the D&D Monster Manual
- Urban Dictionary – Gazebo