Just packed up the car ready for first ever car boot.......

Agutka

I meant to do the selling thing, but the weather reports put me off, so I went buying instead. It is heartbreaking to see all that unwanted stuff. It seems carboot items have become much higher quality recently and yet there are no takers. The other thing that I hate to see is stall holders with a little table laden with a few videos. That's it - how on Earth do they imagine even making their pitch fee back?
On the other hand you get the extortionate priced stalls. Although I see where people are coming from - it's really hard to forget what you paid for items in the first place.

If any OldStylers are reading I came across my dream item today - an old Kenwood Chef - with all the attachments. Would have been tempted, except the lady wanted £50. A little steep since you can't know if the item works... *sigh*


As for taking unsold items to the charity shop - the ones around here have multiple signs along the line of 'we're not a rubbish tip' or 'if you can't sell it at a carboot, what makes you think we can?'.

Contains_Mild_Peril

nutmegman wrote:

Car booting is a mugs game, nobody really wants to buy anything.

Evidently they do if you made £124! I take your point though, its a lot of hard work, and people do want things ridiculously cheap (and I include myself when I'm buying at car boot sales). So you maybe finish up with about minimum wage if you divide your profit by the hours you put in, but if it's stuff you'd otherwise throw out and, unlike wages, it's not subject to tax, then that seems fair enough to me.

As for taking unsold items to the charity shop - the ones around here have multiple signs along the line of 'we're not a rubbish tip' or 'if you can't sell it at a carboot, what makes you think we can?'.

What makes me think they may well be able to is that most have changing rooms so clothes can be tried on, and those which take electrical appliances have them tested and guaranteed to be working and safe to use, and they will offer goods for sale for probably over 40 times as long as a car boot sale stall! I wouldn't dream of using a charity shop to offload anything I consider to be rubbish, but just because something is left at the end of one car boot sale doesn't necessarily mean it won't sell at the next, or elsewhere (e.g. a charity shop). I would take a charity shop sign like that to mean things that a car booter had been unable to sell after several attempts, not just one. And then I'd still probably take my stuff to a different charity shop which was less snobby and/or had less surplus stock.