Despite the dominance of the internet and the widespread use of smartphones, builders and builders’ merchants still get most of their new product information from trade magazines.

A study recently carried out for Norbord by Circle Research found that around 42% of tradespeople use business-to-business publications to learn about new products, and 24% consider these publications to be the most important source of such information.

In the merchant sector, 46% of respondents use trade magazines to get information about new products. Surprisingly, 24% also said that these magazines are one of their primary sources of product information – second only to sales representatives.