Secondhand clothes find big market in Pontianak

By Yetie G. Tamen

PONTIANAK, West Kalimantan (JP): Secondhand clothes? Why not? That is perhaps the motto of customers at Lelong market in the heart of Pontianak, the principal town of West Kalimantan.

Lelong in the local language means used clothes, and indeed the Lelong market trades in secondhand clothes. Most of the clothes are still intact but their colors have faded. Loose buttons are found on some clothes, while on others the stitching has begun to undo. But all the clothes on offer are still good and wearable.

The used clothes on sale are far from ordinary. They are imported from Korea, Singapore, Brunei and Malaysia. Pontianak inhabitants refer to the used clothes from Malaysia as roma, an acronym of rombengan Malaysia (secondhand goods from Malaysia).

Lelong market, which is open from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m., has some 200 kiosks each measuring 3 by 3 meters. Sellers and buyers jostle each other in the narrow booths.

The assistants at the kiosks say that during school holidays the market has a greater number of visitors, which makes for higher incomes too. Visitors come not only from Pontianak but also from nearby towns. Some even travel from outside the regency.

A variety of people are interested in the secondhand clothes at Lelong market, including students and upper middle-class housewives.

"I am still in school. I cannot afford to buy branded clothes at department stores," says Siti, a seventh semester student at Tanjungpura's School of Political Science, when asked why she chooses to buy used clothes.

Teten, a final year student at a private university in Pontianak, tells a different story. "You find many branded clothes here. The price is four times lower than that of new ones," she says, "Lea jeans at department stores cost at least Rp 150,000. You can have get them here for Rp 25,000 to Rp 50,000." Triumph bras sell for Rp 15,000 here. New ones cost more than Rp 50,000. Rodeo, Hammer or Osella T-shirts cost less than Rp 20,000.

Tri Wahyu, an NGO activist who shops nearly every week at the market, says "I like to shop here. The clothes bear brand names. When I tire of them I can pass them on to others."

Yuliana, whose husband is taking a master's degree at Padjadjaran University in Bandung, says she prefers buying clothes for her four children at the market to save money for her husband's studies.

There are also others who buy used clothes at the market and then resell them in other areas.

Some people may feel uncomfortable or even disgusted wearing used clothes, especially those previously belonging to strangers. What about the customers at Lelong market?

One of them, who didn't give his name, says he just washes jackets. "But underwear is first soaked in hot water, then in a solution of Dettol before it is washed with ordinary detergent," he says. He trusts that in this way any bacteria hiding in the clothes meet a certain death.

The secondhand clothes are usually transported by cargo ships from Oevaang Oeray port, Pontianak. They are packed in bales wrapped in tarpaulin. One bale usually contains two or three gunny sacks of clothing and costs between Rp 1.2 and Rp 1.6 million. The minimum amount of bales sold is 10. This means a boss like H. Suhaemi must spend at least Rp 15 million in one transaction.

Profits are uncertain, because none of the traders know exactly what the articles are and what their quality is.

"Basically it is like buying a cat in a sack (buying a pig in a poke). Our target is a net profit of over Rp 500,000 for each bale," says Suhaemi.

In one month he can sell between seven and 10 bales. "The profit is thus between Rp 3.5 to Rp 5 million after deducting the salary of seven employees," he says.

Although kiosk owners say they have been doing business at Lelong market for many years, none of them -- even those born in Pontianak -- knows exactly when the market was established.