HyunChun Kim
Translated by SeungYoun Woo


Recently, Boston online flea market hits a boom while global recession is not recovering. Now is the perfect time for used furniture and household items put up as moving sale by international students and people who completed their abroad work.

Most of the buyers of the online flea market are living in Boston and they are international students those waiting for fall term or short-term residents those have not yet bought household items. This happens every summer and is becoming a custom in Boston since short-term residents are buying inexpensive needed household items and sell them again when they leave.

After mid-July, many goods and items are on Cragslist, Amazon.com, the buy and sell section of Bostonkorea.com and many other online markets.

In the case of Bostonkorea.com, beginning from the end of July, more than hundreds of goods have been put up and deal is actively carried out.

Most household goods from furniture such as a bed, drawer, and desk to kitchen goods such as a toaster can be purchased in one place.

Especially, seasonal materials such as air conditioners and fans are sold out at the moment they are posted. Cuckoo rice cookers are also very popular.

So-yi Jang, who lives in Boston, said “The regular price of a Cuckoo rice cooker is quite expensive and I was keep procrastinating to buy one because of its cost. When I saw the post of the rice cooker, I contacted the seller immediately but I was very sad to hear that the rice cooker was sold already.”

Junho Lee, an international students, who has been living in Cambridge, said, "I've been looking for an air conditioner for months, but there is barely any thing left. Posts selling an air conditioner come up rarely and most items are already sold at the time I contacted."

For this situation, Miyoung Kim, who is also an international student in Brookline since July 2010, has been waiting for posts selling air conditioners; however, she could not buy any. Eventually, she ended up buying a new one. She says "New ones usually cost twice as that of used ones."

Youngmin Park, who immigrated to Boston 3 years ago, is one of the people who buy household items from the flea market section on BostonKorea.com. Accordingly, seasonal electrics require an immediate contact, otherwise the rest of the season would be torturing or people would have to buy new ones.

In addition, Mr. Park said, "It’s summer right now but we also need to get a heater for the upcoming winter time." He also recommended that it would be wise to search and buy winter seasonal products earlier.

Online flea market is becoming the place at which people can trade even cars as well. Those are used to belong to families of international student couples or researchers who are going back to their home country.

People who are willing to buy used cars often expect to buy ones at lower price than from the usual used car dealers; however, they might not get what they want unless they have sufficient information and knowledge.

One of the flea market users on BostonKorea.com recommended Kbb.com, pointing out the present condition of used car sales in Boston in which used car prices are not firmly and fairly established. In Kbb.com, people can find out the present trade in value, private sale value and fair market value, once they put in the details of a car such as the year, or conditions of a car.

Sellers will post products with private trade in value yet buyers would like to buy ones at trade in value, they can have fair trades, reaching consensus.

An international student, Sung-Jun Lee visits online flea market often. He commented, “In the case of Amazon.com, it has its own product evaluation policy and it only accepts debit or credit card payment method, which makes safe and higher quality guarantee but materials are not really practical to Koreans in Boston.” Mostly, materials in Amazon.com are from California, New York, and New Jersey; thus, it makes buyers hard to see what they want in their own eyes.

Ok-Hee Lee, a student, said she was considering about buying a TV from either Bostonkorea.com or Amazon.com. She finally completed buying a TV from Bostonkorea.com. She said, “Although the price was reasonable in both websites, I chose Bostonkorea.com because of a shorter distance and easier communication.”

ⓒ 보스톤코리아(http://www.bostonkorea.com), 무단전재 및 재배포 금지