Internet Auctions Bring a Big Shift To Once-Quirky Flea Markets

Joe Bumb, 50, George Bumb's nephew, was one of the lucky entrepreneurs who got a boost from the flea market. His store has a revenue of about $100,000 each month, although in recent years business has become more difficult. He sells mostly jewelry these days, but finds that people don't believe they're getting a bargain unless they check it out on the Internet.

"Eventually I won't need a store or rather the store won't help much anymore," Bumb said. "I will be doing this from my garage with a computer."

The Internet side of his business is thriving, with revenue of $20,000 a month and growing. Neil Lopez, 40, the online sales manager, now a variety of items, from Barbies and Nintendo systems to rare coins. "Customers that we had coming through our doors, say, seven to 10 years ago, they just don't come in anymore. They are online," he said.

The customers who do show up are far more sophisticated than in years past, said Julie Campbell, 46, manager of the Bellwood Flea Market in Richmond, Va.

"The ones that come into flea markets, if there's something in particular they like -- let's say Spiderman lunch boxes -- they look it up in books and eBay before coming so they know the prices," Campbell said. Same for the vendors selling them. While it's possible to occasionally find a bargain, she added, it's less likely nowadays that someone will find a 50-cent gold necklace or a first-edition Beatles record for $5, as some of her acquaintances reported they did in the past.

In the Washington area, a number of flea markets are held, including in Georgetown, Eastern Market, Bethesda, Columbia and Arlington.

The Internet has made it possible for a new generation of entrepreneurs to thrive in the great Silicon Valley tradition. They buy new items wholesale and sell them at a profit at the flea market. With rents starting at only a few hundred dollars a month, the risk is minimal.

Vincente Velazquez and his wife, Esther, buy new women's dresses wholesale for $22 and sell them at the San Jose Flea Market for $45. Mercedes Lara, 32, who runs a baptism and communion store that sells children's clothing, said part of the appeal of the flea market is the diversity of merchandise.

"At some retail stores the same stuff is there for months," said Lara, who works with her mother, daughter and two sisters-in-law. "Everybody brings in new stuff all the time here. It changes daily."

Campbell said that while the number of vendors selling new items has grown to more than half of her Richmond market over the past few years, she tries to keep encouraging people to bring in stuff from their attics or garages.

"To me that's what a flea market is -- secondhand items, recycling them to a new family," she said.

Shahrabani is also among those trying to hold the line. About five years ago, he started a new market near the Court House Metro station in Arlington that only accepts vendors selling original or secondhand wares -- "stuff you wouldn't find at a shopping center," he said. One vendor sells old advertisements, another vintage books. There are a few landscape photographers and a woman who makes her own purses.

Shahrabani said that a few days ago a vendor showed up with 200 copies of the new Harry Potter book and wanted to sell them at the market. Although the market was only 60 percent full, he turned her away.

"I said, 'That's not the kind of item we want to have here,' " Shahrabani remembered telling her. "The flea market is not just about how much rent we can get but it's about creating an event, an atmosphere."

It's an emotional reaction that Alvari, from the San Jose Flea Market, shares, although he is resigned to the new reality.

"Part of us are a little disappointed in what's happened" to flea markets, Alvari said. But, change "is the nature of everything. It's the nature of progress."