We built this because Maps kept sending us to closed shops.

The short version: a tap fitting gave out on a Sunday, Maps offered four shops within fifteen minutes, and three of them were shut. The fourth had moved. That is a normal afternoon in Kuala Lumpur, and it is the whole reason this site exists.

We are a small team based in Malaysia. We are not a listings platform with an office in another country and a script pointed at Google. We drive to these shops, stand at the counter, and write down what is actually there.

What is on the site right now

Forty-two shops across three cities — twenty in Kuala Lumpur, twenty in Johor Bahru and two in Bangi. That is it. Bangi has two because two is what we have checked, and we would rather show you a short list that is true than a long one that is not.

• Kuala Lumpur — Sentul, Chow Kit, Pudu, Bangsar, Setapak, Kuchai Lama, and a counter in the middle of Bukit Bintang.
• Johor Bahru — the Johor Jaya and Tampoi shophouses, plus the supply yards out in the Tebrau industrial estates.
• Bangi — two shops, both worth the drive.

Penang, Ipoh and Shah Alam are on the bench. A city goes up only once every shop in it has been checked, which is slower than adding a column to a spreadsheet, and it is the point.

What "checked by hand" actually means

It means a person confirmed the address is where the shop really is, that the phone number rings the shop and not a disconnected line, and that the opening hours match what is painted on the shutter. Where a shop has a real website or a Facebook page it keeps up, we read it and work anything specific into the note on its page.

Where a shop has nothing beyond a name, an address and a handful of reviews, the note stays short and says so. You will find listings on this site whose note is one honest line about what we do not know. That is deliberate. The full process is written up onhow we check every listing.

What we are not

• We do not sell anything to you. No cart, no checkout, no affiliate link on a drill bit. We point at real shops and the transaction happens at their counter.
• We are not a review site. The ratings you see are Google's, shown as we found them, with the review count next to them so you can judge how much weight they carry. Thirteen reviews and a 4.9 is not the same as four hundred reviews and a 4.5, and we say which is which.
• We are not comprehensive yet, and we will not pretend to be. Forty-two shops is a start, not a national index.

Tell us when we are wrong

Shops move, close, change hands and change hours. When one of ours does and we have not caught it, we want to hear about it — emailhello@seekhardware.net and we will go and look. Store owners who want a listing corrected or added should see contact, and anyone wondering how we pay for this can read how we make money.