In defence of Sim Lim Square

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Geek Cen­tral isn’t so bad, at least not when I was there last week to get some stuff for my brother in law in China (because it’s worse over there — you can hardly get any non-pirated stuff for a rea­son­able retail price, apparently).

At sev­eral shops on the fourth and fifth floors, I found sales staff to be polite and help­ful to the point where, when they saw me to be on the verge of over­spend­ing on a par­tic­u­lar prod­uct, asked what my (or my brother-in-law’s) pur­pose for the prod­uct was, and then rec­om­mended a cheaper alter­na­tive because what we intended to get was, in their opin­ion, a bit of an overkill.

Of course, cus­tomers unac­cus­tomed to Sim Lim Square Saless­peak might find the way they help you rude or intru­sive, because the con­ver­sa­tion went some­thing like:

Sales­man: So you want to buy the Sea­gate Bar­racuda 1TB?

Me: Yes. And an exter­nal combo cas­ing — with firewire and USB.

Sales­man: Firewire and USB, can. Wait. You want to take this HD (bran­dishes HD) and put it in an exter­nal case?

Me: Um.. yah.

Sales­man: Har? What for?

Me: To use as exter­nal drive lah.

Sales­man: Har? But this HD is server grade one leh.

Me: Yah, I know.

Sales­man: Also can lah, up to you lah, but if me hor, I won’t use so high end HD.

Me: Then what would you use?

Sales­man: Cheaper drive lah. Also will last quite long. How many peo­ple in your house? 2, 3? Good enough lah.

Me: OK, if you say so.

Sales­man: Yah. I get for you the lower end one. Eh? Wait wait wait. You want to use for exter­nal drive is it?

Me: Yah.

Sales­man: Haiyah, then get the all-in-one lah. Max­tor or Sea­gate also have. Good enough for your use. Cheaper also.

Me: Issit?

Sales­man: Yah. But up to you lah.

Me: You say what is what lor. OK, Max­tor one how much?

I dunno. I didn’t find it pushy. Plus, I got fur­ther dis­counts when I paid by NETS at sev­eral shops.

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