Used goods could be the new thing in Asia

Japan's Bookoff tempts consumers with cleaned-up cast-offs

On the second floor of a 24,000-square-foot, used goods superstore in the suburbs of Kuala Lumpur, Koji Onazawa 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 secondhand 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 secondhand goods.”

He’s not being melodramatic. According to data supplied by the Japan Re-use Business Journal, more than