Depok's Mall Rongsok turns junk into gold
A young man browsed in a junk store in Beji, Depok, West Java, last week, looking for second hand furniture for the senate room of his university.
Aryo, 20, a student at the National Institute of Science and Technology (ISTN), said the junk store, known locally as Mall Rongsok (Junk Mall), was a well-known place for anyone who was looking for secondhand goods at a reasonable price.
“I hope I can find several chairs and tables that are still in good condition,” he said, while examining a batch of furniture formerly used in a fast food restaurant.
Rizkal, another store customer from Pasar Minggu, South Jakarta, said he regularly visited the store to see if any new used goods had arrived.
“I am a regular here because there are a lot of useful things you can find here at very cheap prices, like the PlayStation controller that I bought for my son today,” he said.
The word “mall” in Mall Rongsok does not represent the store’s physical features, which are unlike any regular shopping mall that Indonesians are familiar with. Mall Rongsok’s floor is covered with used carpets and the shop lighting consists only of a few dim lamps that limit the customers’ view.
However, that does not stop hundreds of people visiting the shop every day either selling or looking for used goods.
Nurcholis, the shop’s owner, said he opened Mall Rongsok in 2010 and it currently had a range of thousands of secondhand goods.
Situated on an 800-square-meter site, the two-story shop currently employees 12 staff and sells a wide variety of goods from magazines and audio players to furniture.
The 45-year-old said that he started his business from a motorcycle workshop in a nearby location, until he saw a better opportunity selling used goods. Now, his gross income amounts to Rp 100 million (US$7,710) per month.
“It is more than enough for my family and my employees,” Nurcholis told The Jakarta Post.
When he opened the junk shop initially he bought a lot of broken electronics and repaired them first before reselling them, however, with the current large amount of incoming stock, he no longer has the time to repair the electronics and now only fixes broken televisions.
“Besides the televisions, I sell the other products as they are and only make a small profit from them,” he continued.
Nurcholis said that originally he had no particular skill in repairing broken electronics. However, he took a chance and bought a number of broken televisions and asked his more knowledgeable friends to teach him how to repair them.
He said that he was grateful that the skill had brought him this far and now he would not hesitate to share with anyone who wanted to learn from him.
“There are some people who come to the store and ask me to teach them how to repair electronics. This place is wide open for that and I will gladly teach them for free,” he said.
He added that with so many people becoming aware of his store’s existence, he hoped that he could send the message to others that even “a piece of junk can be turned into gold” and they could earn a lot of money by becoming a creative entrepreneur instead of working for an employer.
He said he did not mind receiving junk in any condition from anyone because he could resell it to scavengers if it was not sold in his store.
The junk store, however, does not provide a delivery or pick up service for either buyers or sellers and anyone who finds a cabinet, table or other large secondhand item must arrange their own transportation.
“If you need to buy a bed or couch, make sure that you bring your own car,” Nurcholis said.
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