In some ways the catalogue shopping experience seemed better than what internet shopping is like today, leafing through the pages or flipping to relevant, organ

In some ways the catalogue shopping experience seemed better than what internet shopping is like today, leafing through the pages or flipping to relevant, organised section of the book to look at the things just felt, I dunno, slower, more pleasurable? The reading and re-reading built the anticipation and made the purchase more satisfying because you invested so much time into thinking about it beforehand. There is also that you could be 100% certain that the product was genuine and from a brand that you had heard of, and Argos sold a full range, if you wanted to buy a product that would last you could. Contrast to the modern Amazon experience where you search, you get hundreds of results of near-identical items from weird-sounding brands you have never heard of, and you pick one at random knowing that it is going to be a piece of junk that won't last but it's so cheap you don't care. There's no pleasure in shopping like that, it is purely utilitarian and transactional.