Taoyuan Nights

One of the biggest problems I face when shopping in Taiwan, is that prices magically start rising as soon as people see me. Mobile phones, hard disks, you name it - prices often shoot up to 50% higher than what they would otherwise be, particularly for high value items such as electronic goods.

Heck, I’ve even seen people at markets try to charge me the ‘label price’ (anything from 300-2000% of the real price) for delightfully ‘Authentc Italien’ clothes.

This is only the first half of the problem, of course. The second being that no matter what I do, no matter what I say, they will not drop the price. Haggling is right out, apart from a laughable 10 kuai here or there.

Why? My guess is, it’s about losing face. A Taiwanese market trader, being haggled down by a laowei? If there’s anything that would get them laughed at by their fellow traders for the rest of their life, that’s probably it.

Still, no matter how much I grumble ‘tai gui!’ or ‘gui si!’, the price is absolutely not going to be coming down. So off I go, and at the end of the day I don’t have what I want, and they don’t have any of my money. No one wins!

Even on those rare occasions that I do manage to find something resembling what I want, it’s usually a very cheap and nasty alternative rather than the real deal. Why, oh WHY, do Taiwanese computer shops refuse to stock parts from top quality manufacturers? Some of the best electronics in the world is made in Taiwan, but will the manufacturers sell it locally? Hell no! ATP - I’m looking at you, here!

Anyway…I thought I’d look for a mail order online store, so that I could avoid the annoying “Laowei Effect” when I’m shopping. In the UK, we have semi-wonderful stores like Ebuyer,Dabs, Scan, and so on. In Europe, Itbutikken does a great job. And in the US and Canada, BestBuy, NewEgg and others provide the same function.

Where is the Taiwanese equivalent? Amazingly, it seems almost impossible to locate a decent, big online store for mail order shopping here. Fortunately, I recently came across a new site called Q-Bit Online. They have an English language site with a reasonable (though not extensive) choice of parts, and the prices seem pretty good. The customer rep I’ve emailled at the site (Henry) speaks excellent English, replies to emails quickly, and has already gone to a good bit of effort to try to help me find some very specific high-quality parts I’ve been looking for. I thought I’d reward his high level of attention to customers, by linking back to him from this blog. Cheers, Henry!

You can find their website here: http://www.qbitonline.com/. One offer that caught my eye in particular: a 2GB minature USB flash drive @ 410 NTD. Very decent.

For what it’s worth: I have no affiliation to this store. I just like their service.