Chenoy Trade Center, CTC, and Chandralok Complex have been my "stomping grounds" since the late 90s — I spent countless hours there and probably built over a hundred computers with parts purchased from there, back when system building was a profitable hobby.
The ground floor (and some of the first floor) has retail stores, they're marginally more expensive but the shop employees are courteous, apologetic and welcoming. That's where the vast majority of "normies" usually go and they often get a better deal than Amazon or Reliance Digital. Shweta and Vishal are prominently featured.
Upper floors have refurbishers, second hand stores, repair shops. These are the real gems of the place, I remember buying AMD branded 386 motherboards there for a school's computer lab. You'd find really cool stuff in the secondary market.
Cellar has the middle-men, people who procure from the distributor and sell to customers, this is where system builders go. Margin on products is between 50 to 100 so you get the best prices if you're willing to walk around in a smelly, poorly ventilated area. Shweta and others have shops here too, selling the same products but at lower prices.
I have a few happy core memories from these places.
My first high-end build was in 1998 for a classmate with ATI All-in-Wonder Pro we got from Chandralok complex, back in those days all high-end hardware was imported independently by shop owners.
Some years later in the cellar, I saw cool stuff like ATX cases from Singapore that had the optical drive at the bottom of the case for better usability.
These days, it's a former shell of what it once was. All the shops now serve the lowest common denominator, "cheap and best" with X10M or X20M motherboards and mid-range processors. Nobody showcases high-end hardware as they once did.
Boutique shops are completely gone, everyone is selling the same stuff for Rs 50 over or under than the shop next to it.
PC hardware has been completely eclipsed by laptops in the real-world retail market.
I would like to think that maybe I'd open up a casual gaming cafe to showcase hardware in my retirement years and not care about profitability — and inspire the next generation of kids as I was once inspired by those before me.
