Used goods may soon be the new flavour in South-east Asia

Kuala Lumpur

ON THE second floor of a 24,000-square-foot, used-goods superstore in the suburbs of Kuala Lumpur, Koji Onozawa pauses beside some old Japanese surfboards. He's spent nearly two decades at Bookoff Corp - a corporate legend in Japan that's barely known outside it, with 832 second-hand shops across the country.

Now he's running Jalan Jalan Japan, the company's first true foray into selling more than just used books abroad. "We're not a representative of Bookoff here," he says. "We're a representative of Japanese second-hand goods."