Buying a computer, or any IT hardware - in Dalian, in China

I recently bought a new computer from one of the stalls at Olympic Square. To buy something there is a sometimes tedious and sometimes joyful, depending on how amenable to bargaining they are.

Before starting the process I did a few things which may be useful to share:

• A clear idea of the specification of the equipment I wanted to buy,
• Check prices for similar equipment in online stores in the US. The US, despite the recently depreciated US Dollar, still remains the cheapest place to buy most common computer hardware. It’s not going to be as cheap in Dalian or anywhere in China, perhaps add as much as 15% even for a good deal,
• Take an initial reconnaissance of stores in Olympic to see what they’re offering for what sort of price. Don’t spend too long as I don’t want to get into a bargaining conversation at this point only for them to recognize me when I return,
• Visit TaoBao.com. TaoBao is China’s eBay with a lot of first-hand equipment. I much prefer to have a physical shop in Dalian with a license and the ability to call 12315 on them should they turn out to be rip-off merchants,
• Revisit Olympic Square with a good idea of what to pay. Listed prices are certainly quite a bit higher than what would be on TaoBao,
• Bargain. They should come down around 1000 kuai for a 6000 kuai (ish) computer. Keep pushing. Ask for an extra GB of RAM is they don’t come down that extra 100 kuai more,
• It helps if you speak Chinese,
• Then ask to see the blue book (or green, depending on the store). This book contains the minimum prices staff are allowed to sell for. Sometimes the prices may be tiered (for bulk purchase, but the tiers are usually slim). Not all stores are keen to show away their blue book, some are, around 50% on my visit – it’s usually a soft plastic folder discarded on one of the shop’s tables. All credit to Rick for discovering this tidbit, it saved me a further 300 kuai,
• A canny store assistant did point out the possibility of fake blue books but given how few people seem to know about this trick that may be a while until that starts to materialize.

Despite the blue book price it’s still possible to get a nice bag and perhaps a stick of RAM thrown in for free too.

Shops in Olympic new tend to sell new PCs with Vista Home Basic (genuine copy and proper license number). The trouble with Home Basic is that it’s slow and, well, Basic.

The shop is likely to have spare staff which can install Linux or WinXP together with all of the software drivers (sound, webcam, security device, etc) needed for your computer. If you’re concerned about getting an infected version of Windows ask for a copy of all drivers on a CD/USB stick, it is often difficult or impossible to locate drivers for unusual or non-standard pieces of hardware.