Is Pantip Plaza still an IT centre?

[DONHUAN]

I visited Pantip Plaza (Platunam) a few years ago and recently returned to discover that this IT centre is half empty; most of the well established retail shops have since closed businesses or relocated to some places. I learnt from some retail shop staff that Pantip Plaza is undergoing major renovation into a ‘Life Style’ shopping mall; but PANTIP is too small a Plaza to compete effectively with the likes of Central, Siam Paragon and even Terminal 21. It is better to position itself as a niche market (IT Specialist) to attract local and foreign customers.

[CharlieH]

MOVED to Bangkok forum

[Scouse Twoccer]

As if last Thursday, yes it is. The dodgy vcd/cd vendors cluttering up the ground floor have gone, the rest are still there.

[roamer]

It could have survived, flourished even as an IT mall. However being constantly pestered by porn vendors drove many people away, not just farangs either.

[Inyourendo]

Fortune is better now ....

[kkerry]

Pantip has gone downhill in a big way. It is a shadow of its former self, maybe partly due to the downturn in the desktop and laptop market and the rise of smartphones and tablets. Some shops like Busitek left and relocated down the road to Palladium IT Mall. I checked out Palladium one Saturday late last year and it was dead. There were just a handful of computer shops scattered across the top floors. The restaurants and stalls on the ground floor had some customers but in half an hour wandering long corridors lined with shuttered shops on the higher floors (it's a large place) I only saw about twenty customers. The food court at lunchtime had only five people eating there. Maybe more shops have opened since, but the upper floors wouldn't even be ten percent tenanted. I have some photos and will post them later to show what it was like.

Zeer has also lost a lot of shops on the top levels but some have been relocated to the lower floors and there are more renovations currently in progress. The new section next door, lifestyle, not IT, is quiet with some shops closed already only a few months since opening but overall Zeer is much busier than Pantip. Fortune seem to be doing okay with Central Rama 9 opposite and the new condo block behind it.

[kkerry]

Palladium IT on a Saturday afternoon November 2015

[kkerry]

Zeer Rangsit top floors a few months ago.

Edited April 13, 2016 by kkerry

[kkerry]

Recent expansion of Zeer Rangsit.

[kkerry]

Just one example of shuttered shops at Pantip.

[impulse]

I wonder how much of the decline is because the people buying IT stuff are the ones most likely to embrace online purchasing, and online retailing is starting to come of age in Thailand?

I know I've significantly reduced my own forays to Pantip and even to (my preferred) Fortune Town since I started using Lazada. Saves time and money. I still go there for small parts and eclectic needs, but not so much for the big ticket items any more.

Besides, I've never understood a retail business model where 100 kiosks all carry exactly the same stuff at exactly the same price in exactly the same building.

[Bangkok Barry]

Evidence that perhaps business isn't booming as the authorities would have us believe, but in the pits.

[Patanawet]

the rest are still there.

Not really. Many smaller shops and kiosks have gone.

They are trying to gentrify it.

Goodbye Pantip.

[bkkcanuck8]

Songkran is not a good time to take photos demonstrating which shops are shuttered, since many small shops will close during this time.

[BuaBS]

Nice pics. Is the aircon still on in those semi empty mails ?

[ozyjon]

As impulse puts it,,,,

I've never understood a retail business model where 100 kiosks all carry

exactly the same stuff at exactly the same price in exactly the same building.

I notice on my travels across Thailand most shopping centers, same same.

[HerbalEd]

For several years now Pantip Plaza has been so 20th Century. Good riddance, IMO.

[BangkokKen]

I agree Pantip Plazza has become a ghost town.

3 Years ago all the shops were full, now the 4 th floor is dead at 80%, the 3rd floor 70% and most businesses are on the ground floor which is the only fully functioning floor.

They don't even bother to maintain some of the escalators to reach floor 3 and 4 and you now have to use the dodgy staircases.

My view on it is that Pantip was very much tourists orientated.

The kind of tourists, TAT has so successfully got rid of : The long stayer farang.

Replaced by Chinese who obviously are not going to buy their own export computers.

[JeffreyO]

Fortune City is alright for most of your general needs. i recently found that the basement floor (same floor as Tesco Lotus) of Seacon Square has a decent amount of IT shops that carry everything from video cards, cpu's, memory and hard drives to peripherals such as gaming headsets, mice, keyboards, etc.

[kkerry]

Songkran is not a good time to take photos demonstrating which shops are shuttered, since many small shops will close during this time.

If you're referring to my photos, I'm not foolish enough to take my camera or tablet out with me during Songkran...

Photos were taken late last year as mentioned.

The closed shops were shops no longer trading, not closed for a holiday.

Many more like them as anyone who has been to Pantip lately will know.

I took some visitors there March last year and couldn't believe even then how quiet it had become.

Maybe there are some new shops opening, but reading the OP it doesn't sound like it yet.

First time someone told me there were now lots of closed shops I thought they were exaggerating but there really are.

Some shops moving down the road to Palladium have only made it worse, so you now have two IT malls with lots of shuttered shops.

[fatdog 702 inches]

was in pantip about a month ago, wasnt hassled by any porn sellers didnt see anyone else hassled.

yes there were closed shops but nothing too extreme

laksi IT near train station same side of rangsit road. on the way to chaengwattana emmigration, is where i have bought my last two netbooks

Map to Laksi IT

Edited April 14, 2016 by fatdog 702 inches

[kkerry]

Laksi is a pretty good general purpose mall with a number of IT shops, but unfortunately it doesn't have the specialist shops like you find in Pantip, Fortune and Zeer.

[fatdog 702 inches]

Laksi is a pretty good general purpose mall with a number of IT shops, but unfortunately it doesn't have the specialist shops like you find in Pantip, Fortune and Zeer.

who would have thought that of a place with the name "IT Square"

low end entry level netbook without windows to run my linux OS is what i look for and they have them when i go. so people could call that specialist as you cant get same in many countries. or very hard to find.

under 10000 baht, netbooks last 2 to three years at least. yeah i use them for hours virtually ever day

Edited April 14, 2016 by fatdog 702 inches

[DONHUAN]

Pantip has gone downhill in a big way. It is a shadow of its former self, maybe partly due to the downturn in the desktop and laptop market and the rise of smartphones and tablets. Some shops like Busitek left and relocated down the road to Palladium IT Mall. I checked out Palladium one Saturday late last year and it was dead. There were just a handful of computer shops scattered across the top floors. The restaurants and stalls on the ground floor had some customers but in half an hour wandering long corridors lined with shuttered shops on the higher floors (it's a large place) I only saw about twenty customers. The food court at lunchtime had only five people eating there. Maybe more shops have opened since, but the upper floors wouldn't even be ten percent tenanted. I have some photos and will post them later to show what it was like.

Zeer has also lost a lot of shops on the top levels but some have been relocated to the lower floors and there are more renovations currently in progress. The new section next door, lifestyle, not IT, is quiet with some shops closed already only a few months since opening but overall Zeer is much busier than Pantip. Fortune seem to be doing okay with Central Rama 9 opposite and the new condo block behind it.

Based on my recent visit before Songkran, the tenant situation at Palladium is vastly different from December of last year (2015); it is now 80% rented and many business owners operating at Palladium are optimistic that this newly furnished shopping mall will soon replace Pantip Plaza as the one-stop computer centre in central Bangkok. Costs factor is one of the reasons why many small/medium computer owners are moving out of Pantip Plaza’s prohibitive rental to a much cheaper Palladium Mall in order to remain competitive.

Edited April 14, 2016 by DONHUAN

[Thian]

Well the smartphones and tabsshops have the biggest retailspace in the malls. They have huge shops only to sell small cellphones.

For electronics the Thai want new stuff with brandnames from recommended official dealers, Phantip didn't have that. It was more for cheap parts and dvd's.

They can call Yodobashi Japan to make it one big electronicshop like in Tokyo . They will take the whole building and make it one huge shop for ALL consumer electronics.

[Mudcrab]

hopefully then I can get my iphone fixed.....too much songkran this year

[Mudcrab]

drowned

[DrTuner]

I gave up on all IT malls and went online. Service in the malls went down and prices up, not even worth visiting.

[Scouse Twoccer]

I agree Pantip Plazza has become a ghost town.

3 Years ago all the shops were full, now the 4 th floor is dead at 80%, the 3rd floor 70% and most businesses are on the ground floor which is the only fully functioning floor.

They don't even bother to maintain some of the escalators to reach floor 3 and 4 and you now have to use the dodgy staircases.

My view on it is that Pantip was very much tourists orientated.

The kind of tourists, TAT has so successfully got rid of : The long stayer farang.

Replaced by Chinese who obviously are not going to buy their own export computers.

There are renovations taking place in Pantip at the moment so there is bound to be a little disruption.

"...now the 4 th floor is dead at 80%, the 3rd floor 70% and most businesses are on the ground floor which is the only fully functioning floor."

Nonsense.

"They don't even bother to maintain some of the escalators to reach floor 3 and 4 and you now have to use the dodgy staircases.

More nonsense, I was in there the week before last getting a computer repair and the escalators are working up to the 4th floor. If you want the fifth floor, use the lift.

[Thian]

I gave up on all IT malls and went online. Service in the malls went down and prices up, not even worth visiting.

The Thai IT-salesmen are totally useless i agree, they even can't spea inlit.

But shops like Yodobashi are great they really have everything and good staff as well. They also sell online but i like to see the product first.

Yodobashi in Phantip would be awesome, then we have an IT mall who has it all and for good prices.