For 24 years, antique shoppers have been walking into stores with copies of Cochran's Collector's Guide in their hands. But today, as shoppers evolve into the Digital Age, a customer could be carrying an iPhone or other mobile device with the store's location, map and information on the screen. And she may be coming in for a specific type of item the store specializes in, thanks to Cochran's new search capabilities.
Cochran's has always been on the leading edge; we launched our website containing the entire Guide in 1996. As antique shoppers have begun adopting mobile technology, we saw the need to make a Guide downloadable to aid in their pursuit. Whatever application you have to view and read Adobe Acrobat™ files, simply use the "Find" function to locate the store, or item that interests you.
We crunched the latest numbers and found that nearly 42,000 people have downloaded the digital version of the 2012 Cochran's Collector's Guide on their computers, laptops, iPads, iPhones and other tablets and smartphones (just in the last 12 months). In August alone, 9,681 downloads were recorded. Add to that the 100,000 who carry and refer to the hardcopy Guide and you get an idea how many people are referring to the Guide.
The digital Guide is searchable, so you can look up whatever specific items you are seeking, and find a list of stores carrying that item, i.e. Victorian furniture or vintage fashions. Below is what the screen looks like when you use Acrobat's search function to look up "dolls."
Remember that the key word here is "download," on your iPad, iPhone or other such device. We're still researching ways to make the undownloaded online version efficiently searchable, but for now, the process would be much too onerously slow for the average user.
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