Car boot sale advice - updated 2013

kelvinnewell

Hi Mossy,
To find car boot sales local to you visit https://www.carbootjunction.com. It may also be worth contacting your local council as all car boot sales are supposed to be registered with them.
Regards,
kelvinnewell

sarahrjfr

I was thinking of doing a car boot as i`m getting a load of things from Tescos that i`m just buying for the points wine,talc etc. Can you sell alcohol at a car boot and if yes do you ask for i.d?

Contains_Mild_Peril

Technically you're not allowed to sell alcohol unless you have a licence to do so, but I've seen car booters selling the odd bottle here and there. If you have many bottles, you'd probably make more money with a tombola anyway. If someone under 18 wins an alcoholic prize, ask them to get someone over 18 to collect it or offer them a non-alcoholic alternative.

navig8r

mossy wrote: »

I may have missed this advice somewhere else but does anyone know a good way of finding out what boot sales are local to you. The free paper in my area doesn't seem to list them??

Thanks

A bit late in the year for most but : http://www.carbootsrus.com/index.htm

Dave

Fozzy_Bear_Trooper

Was wondering if anyone has any good links to finding out where your local car-boot sales are held (U.K)




*sorry for this post, can't believe i didn't see the post above me D'OH!!!!!*

twinkle162

Ditto that. You will get good money for it on Ebay.

M-People

If its's worth over £30, ebay it, and you'll get at least a fiver more. I bought 2 mini fridged for £10 each. They were identical. I sold one at a car boot for a fiver (Brand new) and the other (also perfect condition) on ebay for £20!

So it could work for you, too

harryhound

I did boot sales 30 years ago (when they were a new idea) to raise funds for a group of parents with disabled children; so when my mother died aged circa 90; my sister and I had to clear the house prior to its sale and booting seemed like the logical way of getting rid of the stuff that was too cheap for Ebay and not suitable for a local auctioneer, who disposed of the better bits of furniture. We also tried a "garage sale" to shift the bigger stuff that the auctioneer did not want. By the time you are 90 all your stuff looks dated and chipped.
Based where the A3 escapes into Surrey from Greater London, this was our experience 3 years ago.
First Sunday, we tried the boot sale that alternates between Walton water meadows and Esher rugby club (in Hersham). We met some interesting people and sold about 85 GBP of stuff.
The next weekend we did not do very well at all, making a profit of about 35 GBP. We realised that the Surrey market wanted better stuff than we could offer.
So as the Monday was a bank holiday we did not bother to unpack the car or unload the roof rack and went to a disused garden centre (Hounslow Heath if I remember correctly) We shifted another 50 GBP, but it was quite a long way to go and the planes, at what felt like head hight, were a nuisance.
The following weekend we tried Wimbledon Dog Track and got shot of nearly everything, taking about 70 GBP. There was a nice if cramped atmosphere and a lot of migrants trying to set up home on a shoe string.

As we cleared more stuff from the loft etc. we did another session at the dog track and finally, nearer where I live at Pedham Place Frm (SE of the M25/M20 junction in Kent).

Well I still have some stuff in the Garage and must get a round tuit and clear my own loft.
What did we learn:
It pays to make a bit of a splash. Make yourself distinctive so people can think about something and get back to you. We found some tatty old flags, so we flew them from bean sticks taped to the car's wing mirrors. (& we sold them ) We made tables out of old doors and trestles (sold cheap by Aldi/Lidl). We had some old rolls of wall paper and used some lengths to give our names and explain what we were doing and advertise some of the big stuff still back at home (had a few people round to look at it later in the afternoon). Bank holiday weekends are good, as you get two bites at the cherry, without having to unload the car (if your drive is reasonably secure). Being distinctive and expanding your pitch as far as possible pays dividends (If there is a chain link fence hang stuff on it). If you can go back to the same location people will get to recognise you. If you are on hard standing, put down cardboard to act as carpet, we are not designed to stand on rock for hours. Keep smiling , take a real interest in your customers and neighbouring stall holders = have fun and live and learn.
It is a much better deal than paying someone to clear the house for you.
Harry.

PS I have a big collection of pre war 78's that I am still intending to catalogue - anyone know how to find out if any have real value, rather than be suitable for heating up and bending into bowls

Suzy_M

http://www.glaspolerecords.com/

http://www.btinternet.com/~bill78/beginer.htm

http://www.jabw.demon.co.uk/

http://www.jabw.demon.co.uk/values.htm

http://www.david.robinson.org/index.html

Good luck

rospax

I sell at a huge boot sale occasionally (maybe twice a year). Trouble is it's full of thieves, many of whom work in pairs - one distracts you while the other nicks your stuff! I've lost RayBan sunglasses (taken from their case), an unopened yale key set, and various other quite valuable things. I have done this boot sale on my own but it's a bit hairy! So, last year I did one with my sister - we both had so much stuff that we took 2 pitches side-by-side. I have a sales background and am quite a confident person, so I did well, selling almost £200 of stuff. However, my sister found the whole thing really traumatic. She hated seeing people pick through her belongings with expressions as if they were rifling through a bag of unwashed socks, and hearing them say detrimental things about her stuff. She ended up having her two most valuable items stolen, didn't have the confidence to charge much for anything so didn't make much money for her efforts, and finally left the place in tears having had a truly horrendous experience (from which there was no escape until the bitter end and the traffic cleared - once you are in you are there for the duration!). Selling at car boot sales is hard work (at the big ones anyway), it certainly isn't for everyone and you have to be quite tough and resilient about how rude people are about your things! Near the end of one car boot sale, one woman even tried to tell me that 5p was too much for something. I refused to sell it to her as a matter of principle!

So, if you are like my sister, take the short cut, box it all up and give it away to charity (like she did in the end). No hassle, no tears, no pain, and OK, no personal financial gain either, although I'm sure it did no harm to her karma! Sometimes being a money saver isn't worth the cost in grief.