The cars are lined up side by side, their boots yawning wide for all to see. Inside them are stacks of old books, old clothes and even old golf clubs for sale. Those with more items have them spill out onto mats.
Welcome to the SG Car Boot Sale.
For a weekend once every three weeks, up to 60 cars are parked at an open space in Playground@BigSplash, an entertainment complex in East Coast Park.
Between 10am and 10pm, the cars are transformed into makeshift stalls selling an array of mainly second-hand merchandise.
Car boot sales, a fad that started in Britain and the United States in the 1980s, has found its way here.
Playground@BigSplash started organising this bazaar in April and has received such encouraging response from sellers and buyers that it plans to hold it more often.
Sellers pay $50 to set up a stall for two days over the weekend, which includes parking charges for the entire day. This is comparable to the sporadic Sunday flea markets at Zouk and the bi-monthly Saturday bazaars at Tanglin Mall, which charge $20 and $50 respectively for a space.
Playground organiser Wan Jia Wei said the event allows families to 'have a fun day of buying, selling and haggling' together.
Apart from the usual second-hand books and clothes, there are electronic accessories such as PlayStationPortable covers, golf clubs and even $500 rose quartz stools.
When LifeStyle checked it out last weekend, intermittent showers over both days put a dampener on sales.
Businessman Nick Chong, 41, and his wife, Jenny Low, 34, managed to make $340 from the sale of their second-hand fengshui ornaments, golf clubs and discounted nail spa vouchers despite the rain.
But business was poor for operations manager Eric Ko, 27, who sold only $100 worth of his second-hand home ornaments.
Still, bargain hunters turned up despite the wet weather. Scientist Lilian Low made a trip down with her mother when she read an online forum post by a car boot seller advertising his goods.
Ms Low, who is in her early 30s, did not buy anything but her mother bought up to $30 worth of fashion accessories.
But there was one buyer who was not happy with the quality of goods sold there.
'Most of the things are second-hand. Most Singaporeans won't want to buy them,' said sales executive Mei Chow, 40, who bought two brand new woven bags.
Indeed, car boot sales have proven to be a risky business, given the different turnouts at such events in the past.
MediaCorp 958FM and Singapore Petroleum Company are co-organising an annual car boot sale at Downtown East carpark next month to raise funds for charity. Response has been good, said MediaCorp organiser Rebecca Yap.
But over at Kampong Glam, a monthly car boot sale was scrapped three years ago after it was held for just one year due to poor response.
'The open carpark in Aliwal Street was too far away from the main flow of human traffic,' explained Mr Ameen Talib, chairman of the Kampong Glam Business Association which organised it to liven up the area.
Still, sellers like Brett Pover, 36, a bag and handicraft wholesaler who set up a stall at SG Car Boot Sale last weekend, are willing to take some chances. 'It's a good opportunity to sell our products,' he said.
'We can not only test the market demand but also explore new ways of selling them.'
The next SG Car Boot Sale is on Sept 20 -21 between 10am and 10pm. Call 6345-6762 or log on to www.sgcarbootsale.com for more details.
This article was first published in The Straits Times on September 7, 2008.
