Geek heaven
Marketplace wins HardwareZone's Best Sim Lim Square Shop award

By Andrew Chin

projecteyeball - March 20, 2001 - FOR computer newbies, Sim Lim Square is scary - filled with geeks buying computer parts, speaking a strange lingo to no-nonsense shopkeepers.

So for a shop to win the Best Sim Lim Square Shop award in a contest run by a popular local PC hobbyist website, it must truly be a no-go zone for greenhorns.

The Marketplace PC shop at #04-72 seems to fit the bill - it has the intimidating pricelist posters, packed shelves and geek-speak.

Its staff were amiable when Eyeball checked them out, even when asked dumb questions.

However, one shopper, Tan Soon Poh, 32, a salesman, told Eyeball that Monday is an off-peak period and it's probably easier to get better service then.

''Try Saturday, then you'll know,'' he quipped.

Runners-up for the Best Sim Lim Square Shop award were Cybermind Computer House, Superpet.com and Fuwell International.

The HardwareZone Awards 2000, the first annual event by a local portal to recognise the best in IT hardware, was held last Friday.

David Teo, business development manager of Marketplace, said his philosophy is to offer customers what they want, instead of what he wants to sell.

''Asking my people to be reasonable gives us the edge,'' he said.

Sim Lim shops look identical to outsiders, but there are subtle differences. For instance, Marketplace does not carry Asustek motherboards due to warranty issues, Teo said. He felt his wide product range and competitive pricing gave him an edge.

''We want to set a benchmark for a lot of prices,'' he said.

Dr Jimmy Tang, chief content officer at HardwareZone, agreed that Marketplace has fair prices.

He said: ''What people want are price, service and reliability. Marketplace stands out because of price and service.''

A comparison of prices bears this out.

Intel's Pentium III 866 MHz processor, for example, goes for $337 there. It goes for $340 at other shops.

Other products such as the Kingston 256 MB memory chip and the 3D Prophet GeForce II Ultra graphics card cost as much as $16 lower than they do in competing shops.

HardwareZone invited registered members to nominate their favourite stores earlier this year.

The top four vendors garnered about 70 per cent of the more than 1,000 votes cast by the 40,000-strong membership of the popular portal. ''The outcome was very close,'' said Tang.