It was the place where hundreds queued at midnight to get their hands on Microsoft’s Windows 95, the landmark operating system that first brought out much of today’s modern features.
It was also where pirated game CDs were sold and sound cards could be bought in anti-static bags, with no warranty or idea where they came from.
Funan DigitaLife Mall, better known to many geeks by its original name, Funan Centre, is closing in the third quarter of next year. In its place, after a renovation, will be an “experiential creative hub”. Whatever that is.
While Singapore’s techies miss a familiar, old haunt, where they first got their hands on a 486 PC or even where they studied in the open tables available, the writing has been on the wall long before today’s news.
The end for Funan, while sad, is inevitable.
Years of quarterly tech bazaars, the most recent one just a couple of weeks ago, have made some buyers delay purchases at retail outlets, which face increasingly high rentals. Some stores simply joined the fray in these shows to offset what sales they would lose during the price-cutting weekends.
The biggest issue for Funan, however, may be e-commerce. Perhaps belatedly for such a well-connected country, Singapore has finally embraced the idea of buying things online, be it a PC or a pack of rice.
Today, the likes of Lazada and Qoo10 make it easy to compare prices. Once, it was fun to walk to each store in Funan to see if you could get S$10 off a mouse or laptop. Today, you just move your mouse on your PC to compare.
The change isn’t unique here. In the United States, for example, big chain stores have suffered too from the move towards online shopping.
And to make things worse for retailers in Funan, Singapore shoppers are also buying from American sites, such as Amazon, which have become far more competitive for many items (see some examples).
I just shipped a couple of Blu-ray discs and a Razer mousepad over from Amazon this month. Okay, I don’t get the instant gratification of walking into a shop to buy them, but the prices are lower over at Amazon.
The last time I bought something from Funan was just weeks ago, when I picked up a Panasonic Lumix camera from a small store. I had to get some hands-on feel of the camera, so I went to Alan Photo, known for its bargains. At least the prices for some cameras are still competitive.
I’ll be honest, though. I haven’t been to Funan much. Part of this is down to the congested parking – it’s not unique to the building to be fair; it’s the same for so many malls in Singapore on weekends. Another is the fact that I can get many commonly used items, such as printer cartridges or keyboards, at many other malls.
That’s the biggest irony, isn’t it? As more people are buying laptops and phones, at a time when IT has become more than a geeky obsession and is a necessity in life, a big IT mall is closing down in Singapore.
The reason is simple – people no longer have to go there to get what they need regularly. The stuff is available in neighbourhood malls. You can buy it at lifestyle shops like Tangs.
As technology has ceased to be some specialised item, so have the shops selling it. You can buy a Mac in so many places today.
The closing of Funan will raise questions for the other IT mall in Singapore. Of late, Sim Lim Square has been receiving bad press for a shop that brazenly cheated customers, even though many there are decent businesses.
Will it also face the pressures that Funan did, that made developer CapitaLand Mall Trust Management Limited pull the plug? Geeks will hope not.
Yet, if they see where they have bought their gadgets recently, they’d realise they have been spending less at their favourite technology malls. That’s why one of them is closing down.
UPDATE 11/12/2015 7.02am: An earlier headline said that Funan “closes” amid an e-commerce boom. This has been changed to better reflect the impending closure.
