A guide on where to go to buy computers, components in Jakarta

By Zatni Arbi

JAKARTA (JP): "Every notebook on these shelves is guaranteed to be secondhand," said Sony Walla, grinning.

He was not kidding. The name of his store said it all: Notebook-Bekas.com. I happened to pass by his store, which was tucked away in the far corner of the third floor of Ambassador Mall, Kuningan, while I was preparing for this article.

It turned out that Sony's store was quite an interesting one. He does not buy secondhand notebooks from customers, he just sells them. He goes to various overseas sources and personally hand picks the notebooks and imports them to Indonesia. "All these secondhand notebooks are Grade A quality," he said.

But what about warranties and after-sales support? These become even more crucial issues when we buy a secondhand computer. "We used to give a 30-day warranty for every notebook we sold, but one or two of our customers abused it. We now sell the notebooks `as is', but our customers can take their time inspecting the one they want to buy and comparing it with other units before they purchase it."

Customers can do close comparisons because normally Sony will have four to five notebooks of the same brand and model in stock. He also promises lifetime tech-support for every notebook bought from him.

Sony has also found that end users in Indonesia prefer Toshibas, so he plans to carry only Toshiba notebooks in the future. While I was in his store, I also saw some ThinkPads. What about components and replacement parts? "We are also planning to make them available here," he promised.

Sony's Notebook-Bekas.com is certainly a unique feature of the computer shopping center. I noticed that other computer stores on the second and third floors of the mall also offered secondhand notebooks, but most tended to be "one-of-a-kind". Still, one of the stores had two iBooks on display.

The stores offer a fairly complete range of basic computer products. If you accidentally pour some Coke on your desktop keyboard, you can rush over to the mall and easily find a replacement. Or, if your CRT monitor suddenly dies and you want to buy a high quality LCD monitor (heck, why not buy it now), you can also find a good selection of TFT display monitors. Both internal and external modems are widely available, so you will not have to travel to the notoriously congested Mangga Dua to buy a new one if yours gets hit by lightning during a storm. Needless to say, consumables like ink cartridges for your inkjet printers are also readily available.

Ambassador Mall is conveniently located in Kuningan, Jakarta. People living in the East Jakarta area and Bekasi can stop by and get whatever basic computing needs they are after. However, if you want the latest and greatest, you should probably go somewhere else.

Another good place to visit if you want to find high-end products -- and you are not willing to brave the traffic to Mangga Dua -- will be the new computer shopping center at Ratu Plaza. Opened recently, the center offers an exhaustive menu. You can find an Acer showroom, complete with its Acer Care Center. If your Acer computer or scanner is giving you a headache, you no longer have to carry it all the way to Gajah Mada Plaza, where the first Acer Center was set up.

Similarly, if your Hewlett-Packard printer has got the flu, you can also take it to the HP Service Center in Ratu Plaza. Metrodata also has its outlet there, so owners of Epson printers can also find help. If, like me, you are a fan of ASUS products, you will be happy to know that ASUS has a showroom there as well.

In short, you can get almost anything you want at Ratu Plaza. "Many of the major players from the former Computer City in Glodok Plaza have opened here or are planning to open their outlets, so we believe this is going to be a very busy place," said K.R. Sudono, the director of Compuland.

He has just opened his store on the fourth floor, and sells a wide range of products from Casio and Philips as well as products for structured cabling. His only complaint was that there was not a good food court where shoppers and store workers can have lunch.

What about the prices? "Prices may be slightly higher here," said Sudono. The stores at Ratu Plaza aim at serving corporate customers and those who have no interest in towing their broken PCs to Glodok for repair.

"We expect that our customers will simply call us if they have any problem with the products they buy from us, and we will go to their office or home to fix it," said Sudono.

There is certainly a price to pay for such a premium service. On the other hand, stores at Mangga Dua Mall, Dusit Mangga Dua and Harco Electronics Mangga Dua are not likely to provide on- site services. You may pay less for the same products in these places, but you have to travel a long way and fight the crowds for any repairs that might be needed.

And what about Glodok Plaza, the famous computer shopping center that was looted and burned during the much-regretted riots of May 1998? "Some of the computer store owners I know have said that they will go back there," Sudono said. "Others have told me that they are too traumatized to reopen their business in the same building."

Sudono said Glodok Plaza would open again early next year, and the management promised they would ensure that the unruly hawkers of pirated VCDs would be gone by then. That seems to be an ambitious commitment.

In the Glodok area, North Jakarta, there used to be three places next to each other where we could buy computer hardware and software. In addition to the extremely popular Computer City in Glodok Plaza, there was the 21 Building next door and the Orion Plaza at the corner of Jl. Pinangsia and Jl. Hayam Wuruk. All of them have been rebuilt, and Sudono said several computer stores in Orion Plaza had begun doing business.

About one year after Glodok Plaza and its neighbors were destroyed in the two-day riots, Gajah Mada Plaza became a bustling place full of computer stores. Unfortunately, parking has increasingly become a problem.

Many stores have also found that shoppers mostly visit the stores in the atrium and therefore, those in the "outer edges" have not been doing well. "Many store owners at Gajah Mada are also moving to Ratu Plaza," said Sudono. He is one of them.

If Glodok Plaza and its neighbors succeed in regaining their past glory, it will be a miracle. If that happens, computer aficionados will have no choice but to fight their way north to get the best selection of computer products at the lowest price. In the meantime, Ratu Plaza may be the champ. (zatni@cbn.net.id)