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

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)