Car boot sale advice - updated 2013

soulandy

did a car boot today (also did one 3 weeks ago) to get rid of unwanted stuff. Not done one for two years and my god they have changed a bit!!! talk about hard work. Try and sell stuff for a couple of quid and they want it for 10 bob. I know no-one buys videos anymore, not even for 20p or even DVD's for 50p/£1 but some decent stuff like collectors plates, new (unwanted gifts) still boxed perfumes, new ben shermans jumpers. yet they rummage through old clothes for 20p a throw!! Books at 50p a throw (good hard backs).
Just been looking on ebay and I wonder if its worth it these days. Who buys videos, dvd's, cd's, software and the like with all the downloading available, HDD's instead of recorders. Well the tip and the charity shops can have it all these next few days. Thats one half of me loft cleared, all as have to do now is try and get shut of all me records now ;-) Went looking at the other stalls and there seems to be more and more traders knocking about. Went to the one at Chelford, just outside knutsford at it was effin' freezing. Still £53 is better than nowt, but for 8 hours!!!!!!!!!!!!

kiwi_fruit

We've done our local one today, very pleased actually. Been lucky with the weather, was trying to rain but only bucketed properly at midday, so had 4 hour selling. Done better than expected, took £68 for stuff that was really useless to us, so everything was a bonus. Got rid of all the bulky stuff, which is great, the only dissapointment was clothing, sold 4 out of about 50:( Most stuff was new with tags and really up-to date(I'm a shopaholic lol), but either it's an unpopular size for a car boot(size 6-8), or I don't know.. Will have to risk ebay or something..
p.s spent money towards Elton John concert tickets that finished on ebay tonight, got them for £70 less than our maximum, first block 10th row, absolutely over the moon, just 2 weeks left!:))

cassey1

soolin wrote: »

I buy books at car boot and 50p -75p a hard back is the going rate at all the local boot sales, anything more and they just don't get an interest. The last batch I bought the seller was desperate as they said they had trawled round every boot sale trying to declutter their home ready to downsize and this was the last one and if they didn't sell their whole stock they were going to dump it at the council dump on the way home. They were doing 3 hard backs for a pound but let me have a large carrier bag full for £2.50. By the end they had virtually cleared their stall, but ended up giving the stuff away free.

I am lucky then,i get 1.00-£2.00 for hard backs,but they are in very good condition and upto date and popular authors. I never have to give anything away. The worst car boot for us was when we made 86.00 for five hours(that was only because we did not have much to sell.) . it makes me realise after reading peoples coments on here,we are very lucky the car boots we sell at.

harryhound

Still £53 is better than nowt, but for 8 hours!
Tax & NI free

I've found different (Inside M25) boot sales definitely have different types of buyer. The buyers seem to have got more "professional". There again talking to part time dealers can be a bit of an eye opener.

For example, I met one guy, a few years ago, who was collecting up old French Francs - even though it was too late to convert them into Euros, they could still be written off as a tax loss in France:D

Collectibles, including books, really need to be checked if they look at all interesting.
An example from clearing my mother's house: We found 3 "Boys Own Papers" that had probably been in the loft for 70 years - they were filthy and dog eared and one had lost its cover. The logical thing to do was chuck them on the fire.
I sold them for a fiver (?!?) but I've often wondered what they were worth to the collector/dealer who bought them.

Harry.

Interesting business news item:
Q. Why do European currencies increase in value in the run up to conversion to the Euro?
A. Because this is an ideal time to launder money / turn money "sheltered" from the tax man into "clean" funds.

Sexy_Em

cassey1 wrote: »

I am lucky then,i get 1.00-£2.00 for hard backs,but they are in very good condition and upto date and popular authors. I never have to give anything away. The worst car boot for us was when we made 86.00 for five hours(that was only because we did not have much to sell.) . it makes me realise after reading peoples coments on here,we are very lucky the car boots we sell at.

OMG I made £33 at my first ever car boot yesterday, and didnt think I'd done too bad!

Blimey!

Contains_Mild_Peril

kiwi_fruit wrote: »

We've done our local one today, very pleased actually. Been lucky with the weather, was trying to rain but only bucketed properly at midday, so had 4 hour selling. Done better than expected, took £68 for stuff that was really useless to us, so everything was a bonus. Got rid of all the bulky stuff, which is great, the only dissapointment was clothing, sold 4 out of about 50:( Most stuff was new with tags and really up-to date(I'm a shopaholic lol), but either it's an unpopular size for a car boot(size 6-8), or I don't know.. Will have to risk ebay or something..
p.s spent money towards Elton John concert tickets that finished on ebay tonight, got them for £70 less than our maximum, first block 10th row, absolutely over the moon, just 2 weeks left!:))

Enjoy the concert! I love Elton John.
I would give the clothes a go on eBay, which tends to be a much better market for the less common sizes which can be hard to shift at boot sales.

cassey1

Sexy_Em wrote: »

OMG I made £33 at my first ever car boot yesterday, and didnt think I'd done too bad!

Blimey!

EM,thats still good,i did not mean to come across big headed.Sorry.

bylromarha

Just been to my first sale as a buyer.

Just some general pleas, if you're going to sell your stuff

1) Give it a clean-I don't want your baby's dried food on a highchair

2) Bargain with me- if you tell me something is £1.50 and I want 2, then give me a discount. Either that or price them at £2 each and prepare to haggle down.

3)Put your stuff on tables-I walk right past if it's on the floor. My loss I know...

4) Don't ignore me-if I ask you a question, twice, loudly, and I have items in my hand, don't carry on drinking your tea

5) Why bother overpricing your stuff? Do you really think I'm going to buy something in the middle of a field that I can get for half that price in Tesco?

butterfly72

Well, I had my first carboot of the summer last week and made a wopping £91. :j I'm well chuffed as it was a Wednesday and we were positioned in the corner of the field!!

The clothing went really well as did my costume jewellery. I put the jewellery in a box with girly stuff like make up, creams and those freebie sachets out of magazines etc. The ladies loved rummaging around in the box and most of it went! Went didn't sell so well was my paperbacks! I was really surprised as in my last sale they were going like hot cakes. Maybe I should have done 3 for a pound? All in all, a very enjoyable day. Good selling tip - say good morning to the passers by.. they are more likely to stop and chat! I managed to clinch a few sales by making buyers slow down by my stall!!!

i'm going to have another in a couple of months when I've gathered some more stock! (had another clear out!!)

ANGSTDATA

keelykat wrote: »

Hi, I wouldn't bother pricing things up. We never do, and i don't see many others doing it either apart from boxes of odd ends for 50p for example. Nobody seems put off by this, it gets people asking how much something is and then haggling.

Maybe this is just the area we carboot in, i don't know.

We take a small bottle of the gel hand wash (that doesnt need water) to clean hands and a loo roll, for the porta loo's!

We take a flask of tea, for when it's nippy first thing, and then a packed lunch to nibble on through out the day/morning.

Because we are a couple, it's easy for one to nip to the loo/have a wonder around/keep an eye out when it gets busy etc. (my dad is usually next to us selling from his car too lol).

Don't under sell youself, but don't put a silly high price on things either.

Most of all-be friendly, don't jump in and scare people off and enjoy the day!

keely.

We never bother to even look at stalls that are not priced up - its like flicking thru an Argos catalogue with no prices in it - pointless !