Best online computer shops in South Africa

South Africa has a vast selection of online shops that offer all manner of computing hardware, peripherals, and other accessories.

However, buying PCs and accompanying equipment online can be risky, even if you can avoid dealing with scammers taking online shoppers’ money without delivering any goods.

PC components are generally expensive and require careful packaging and handling during the shipping process to prevent potentially irreparable damage.

They can also be susceptible to manufacturer-based hardware defects, which means a trustworthy store must provide good after-sales service, returns policies, and warranties.

MyBroadband wanted to find out which online computer shops were the best in South Africa, with a particular focus on customer service levels.

We used three popular online business reviewing websites — Google, Facebook, and Hellopeter — to determine who led the pack.

To be considered, the store needed at least 100 reviews on Hellopeter, the site more likely to feature complaints than compliments.

Because of the high number of competitors, it also had to have a rating of at least 4/5 on all three websites.

We excluded general retailers like Takealot, Game, Makro, Incredible Connection, and Loot.

While they also offer a wide range of computing equipment, they don’t always have highly-specialised technical staff for support.

They also didn’t meet our broader ratings criteria.

Five players stake their claim

Five specialist online computing shops met our criteria — Dreamware Tech, FirstShop, Progenix, Rebel Tech, and Wootware.

In the table below, we summarised how they compared in terms of online ratings on Google, Facebook, and Hellopeter.

All review scores are out of five, while the number of reviews on each site is shown in brackets.

To be clear, a store’s mere inclusion in the table above means it has already built up an impeccable reputation among shoppers.

But two shops stood out from the rest of the pack — Dreamware Tech and Progenix.

In addition to five out of five average ratings on all three platforms, these two stores ranked 1st and 2nd best in Hellopeter’s IT category.

Dreamware Tech’s performance was particularly impressive, considering that its ratings came from over 1,172 reviews, compared to Progenix’s more modest 190.

Initially, we found it suspicious that there was no single negative review on the platforms we looked at.

But after perusing many of the reviews, we could not identify any clear indication of fake or bot-generated ratings.

We also spoke to several Dreamware Tech customers with first-hand experience, and they had only good things to say about the store.

One regular customer said the company always went “above and beyond” to provide excellent service.

As an example, he said an employee once drove from the store’s warehouse in Durban to deliver a motherboard to a customer in Polokwane, some 880km away, due to a courier problem.

On top of that, the company did not charge a cent for the delivery.

The customer also said it did not give incentives — like credit or free gifts — for leaving good reviews.

However, it does like to”sneak in an extra chocolate or two” as part of orders for regulars, as stated on its website by its founders, husband and wife Brent and Jess Raftopoulus.

The duo said Dreamware Tech was founded on the principle of “doing tech differently”.

“In an industry that can oftentimes feel cold and impersonal, we made it our mission to create a memorable experience for our customers.”

The Evephant in the room

Some of the other relatively reputable stores that did not make the cut due to having too low of a rating on one of the three platforms were ComX Computers, Titan Ice, and PC International.

While their Google and Facebook ratings were adequate, they did not perform as well as the other contenders on Hellopeter.

Regardless, they are fine stores and deserve and honourable mention.

Some readers might be quick to notice that we have excluded one prominent online computing retailer from this list — Evetech.

Our comparisons often show Evetech as one of the cheapest options on the market, particularly when it comes to gaming laptops.

But across 692 reviews, it had a Hellopeter rating of 2.3/5, indicating that many customers have had bad experiences with the store.

It also had worse Google and Facebook review averages than all the stores we’ve included in the comparison.

While the store is legitimate and delivers its items, many people have complained about its poor customer support and after-sales service.

There have also been several allegations of warranty claims not being honoured and sensitive components being shipped without the proper protective packaging.

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