Car boot sales (Shop)

...want to buy another persons car boot?” Obviously lots of people do, cos haven’t they just gone from strength to strength over the years! The first one I ever visited was an eye opener I can tell you, there seemed to be all manner of ‘junk’ on offer. Is it me or is the same ‘junk’ available on more than one stall at a boot sale these days? However it was a fairly productive initiation cos we managed to bag ourselves two decent sized suitcases for ...
...up the van for a car boot sale.

Added to this, my Father is retiring to Spain in the very near future and with the sale of his house imminent we have had lots of clearing out to do there also. This has been made even more difficult in that a lot of the stuff that was stored in his attic was my Mums and she died 8 years ago, seems like only yesterday…..

But as they say, life goes on, and as we all have our memories of ... more

The first ever time I saw one of these advertised in my local newspaper all those years ago I thought, “Why on earth would someone want to buy another persons car boot?” Obviously lots of people do, cos haven’t they just gone from strength to strength over the years! The first one I ever visited was an eye opener I can tell you, there seemed to be all manner of ‘junk’ on offer. Is it me or is the same ‘junk’ available on more than one stall at a boot sale these days? However it was a fairly productive initiation cos we managed to bag ourselves two decent sized suitcases for out approaching holiday.

The first one we ever did ourselves was even more of an eye opener. We made the huge mistake of turning up early; that part wasn’t the huge mistake, arriving in an open topped pick up truck was the HUGE mistake! Barely had the wheels on the truck stopped turning before there were actual punters climbing onto our truck to see what we had got. I was gobsmacked, and terribly naïve at that time, not realising, as I do now, that these were the early bird ‘traders’ and out for the first pickings, catch you off guard, give you daft money for your goods and then sell them at a huge mark up on their own stalls!

We were selling stuff as it came off the truck and practically giving it away. They certainly caught us off guard that time. It wasn’t the most pleasant of experiences and one that I truly did not wish to replicate in a hurry, even though we did make a good £60 that day on what I classed as ‘toot’.

However the experience was to be repeated, but thankfully not for many years. As some of you will know my maternal grandmother has had to go into a nursing home and lots of her stuff has to be sold in order for her nursing home fees to be paid for. She will be 96 this year and having led a very rich and well travelled life she has accumulated many lovely items, some typically tourist souvenirs, other nicer possibly valuable items. We have taken advice on some of the stuff that we think might be valuable and this will be sent for auction, the other stuff that is very obviously souvenirs we piled together in assorted boxes and loaded up the van for a car boot sale.

Added to this, my Father is retiring to Spain in the very near future and with the sale of his house imminent we have had lots of clearing out to do there also. This has been made even more difficult in that a lot of the stuff that was stored in his attic was my Mums and she died 8 years ago, seems like only yesterday…..

But as they say, life goes on, and as we all have our memories of our lovely Mum possessions that meant something to her mean little to us, so in another box they went and Dad told us that anything we could make from selling them we could put towards the new veranda that we are hoping to build between our two beach huts this Summer, a suitable ‘tribute’ to Mum, who used to own the huts, so we can sit there in the Summer and enjoy something more tangent in her memory.

Ok ok less of the reminiscing. So Dad’s van crammed to the brim with assorted bric a brac, old garden tools etc, we met on the outskirts of the designated field at 06:00 am last Sunday morning……yaawwn!! !.

• Now the first bit of advice I am going to offer to you would be ‘booters’ here, is, if you are going to be doing a boot sale at this time of year and at such a stupid hour (and that is really a typical time) wear shoes and more especially socks!! I took a long cardi to wear on top of my jumper, and we had flasks of hot coffee to keep us warm…….and….. I wore open toed sandals!!

A telephone call to my sis-in-law at a little after 06:30 to ask her to bring me a pair of socks followed as soon as we had pitched up!
Now we were among the first to arrive and that ensured that we got the best spot, (if you can call anywhere in the middle of a field a good spot!) not far from the Porta loos and near to the refreshment van!

• Second bit of advice. Take a flask of something hot to drink if you are car booting in the winter and plenty of cool drinks if the weather is warmer. Take snack food if it is going to be an all day affair. Refreshment van food and drink is sometimes not all that palatable, and can often be over inflated price wise, don’t want to be eating away at your profits! Go to the loo before you leave the house, (like your Mum used to tell you before a long car journey!) have you seen the state of some of those Porta loos, especially at the end of the day. Definitely to be used only in a dire emergency!

Having parked up we made a really daft mistake, seeing as had both been caught out like this before, we started to unload right away, open a jar of honey and round they all swarm!! Even though we could only see a dozen or so vans in the near vicinity it seemed as though each van had at least four occupants judging by the amount of people buzzing around the van. We politely asked them to wait until we had got the tables out.

They hovered, the chatted, they passed the time of day with us, they were extremely pleasant but they wouldn’t leave us till we had got more stuff out of the van. We looked at each other in exasperation; no one else had started to pitch up so therefore they had only our stuff to look at! We slowed down the unloading of the van as far as humanely possible but we had been caught out again and ended up selling stuff we hadn’t had the chance to agree prices on.

My brother had some of his own stuff to sell too and although we had agreed to share all the profits for the beach hut fund I had no idea what prices he wanted for some of his stuff, I wasn’t about to give away his travel cot away for silly money. We were ‘rescued’ only by other ‘booters’ arriving. We shut the doors of the van promptly and sat in it with cups of tea!!

• If selling at a boot sale, get there early, but do not set up your stall right away!! Once you have secured your spot, sit in your van for a little while, how long really depends on what else is occurring on the field, we could have got away with sitting in the van for half an hour before making a start on setting up, when there were other sellers arriving to minimise the aforementioned ‘invasion’. If you do get caught out do be polite, these are your potential customers, but don’t take any crap! Tell them that you are not selling anything until it is all out of your van and could they please come back later, not always effective but it helps, be firm but fair.

Once we had the trestle tables and the two camping tables set up with all our stuff we put the kettle on again, (my brother had actually bought his camping stove with him, he likes a fresh brew!) and spent a good half an hour chilling our bits off but watching the sunrise over the trees, a bitter sweet experience! A few early birds (non traders) arrived and browsed our wares, chatting pleasantly to us and showing some early interest in some items, but not buying much.

Around 08:00am it became much busier as the second lot of Sunday booters arrived, those that plan to catch a boot sale in the morning, go for a Sunday drive after, have Sunday lunch in a pub and then spend the rest of the day quietly relaxing in their homes! We sold quite a few of our china items before 09:30 to this influx. China seems to be a big seller, we did notice that, without exception, everyone looking at the china turned it upside down first, hard luck you lot, we had already done that and taken out anything that had Wedgwood, Wade or Dresden written on it! Flog it, Antiques Roadshow and programmes in the same genre have a lot to answer for, but at least they have made us more aware of potential treasures.

Actually we hadn’t got anything with those names on, however we had come across one or two of Nan’s items that made us think twice and they have been safely stored for the auctioneers to look at, along with the Sylvac bunnies that we are still considering whether to sell or not, big memories you see! Things slowed down late morning but we were doing pretty well and had a fair bit of jangling change in our bum bags.

• Bum bags, horrible things, are really the way to go when selling in these places. Keep your cash close to you, you don’t want to be fumbling around in biscuit tins on your stalls (someone might go and buy the tin!) for change and its best not to turn your back to get change out of your car, sad but true. Ian wore the bum bag and my niece and I just handed the money we took to him as we went along. Take a reasonable ‘float’ with you too. We took around £30 in loose change, don’t forget to take the tenner or so that your pitch will cost you!

The afternoon saw the arrival of the ‘after dinner booters’. Much more relaxed bunch this lot are, spend more time browsing in a relaxed and leisurely manner, must be the roast beef and Yorkshire puds! By now we had decided to drop our prices a bit, we didn’t really want to be taking very much home with us, but at the same time we were aware of one of the reason we were selling this stuff (Nan’s care) so we weren’t about to give it away. Up till now we hadn’t actually priced anything up; I’m not sure which is the best way to go about this? Some punters are more than happy to ask the price of things, others are more reticent and will walk away having not plucked up the nerve to ask the price.

We had done pretty well during the morning with nothing priced but we decided to try a change of tactic in the afternoon. We moved things about on our three tables and put a large label on each with different prices on; we had a 50 pence table, a £1 table and a £2 table. We moved things from table to table depending on what we thought we could get for them anything else we wanted more for we had laid under the tables or propped up against the van. This seemed to spark some renewed enthusiasm and we did a roaring trade for over an hour. It was at this time that we got my Mums collection of cat ornaments to the front of the tables and several small children came along with their parents to spend their pocket money.

• I can’t really advise you as to whether to price things up or not, it’s down to you, or you could do what we did, try both ways. It worked for us. Before we set prices we had an idea in our heads an average price we wanted for each item, mentally added a bit, and then accepted what we were offered thus getting what we wanted in the first place! Never be afraid to haggle, it sounds like a daunting task to those not used to it, and admittedly it does take some getting used to, but car booters expect it! Some people though will try to get something for nothing, stick to your guns if you really don’t want to sell at their offer, there’s always another day.

A few people took an interest in a particular vase we had, it does have some marking on the bottom but cos no one recognised it they weren’t buying. One bloke kept picking it up, umming and ahhing about it, offering us a couple of quid, we were asking a fiver and it was very early in the day to start dropping prices. I took it off the stall cos I had a gut feeling about it. I’ve since seen them for auction on Ebay for several more pounds that what we wanted for it! There will be people who want something for nothing but for everyone of those there will be someone who will get what they want at a price you both agree on, both parties then happy, it actually ends up being quite enjoyable.

Around 14:00 we noticed that some people had started to pack up their stalls so we said we’d give it another half and hour ourselves and if trade had almost stopped then we would make a move too. It did trail off so we started to pack things away, besides my feet were starting to get bloody cold again!!

• Pack all the stuff that you are taking to sell, in good strong boxes, the old supermarket style ones are the best, then when you come to pack away that which you didn’t sell you can just store it away again ready for the next time. Dump your rubbish in the skip provided, if there is one, if not, take it home with you, remember the countryside rules!!

We were home by mid afternoon, the stuff we hadn’t sold tucked safely away ready for another field, another day. We put the kettle on, made a brew and counted out our takings…….for little work, bloody cold feet and actually a great deal of fun we had made over £100, not bad for a mornings work! I’ll now end this review by giving you a few more pointers if you are planning a boot sale in the near future.

But…………before I do…..here are some more hints and tips…gosh I could almost write a book!

 Books sell reasonably well, but people wont give you much for them

 China is always a good seller, but do check what you are selling before you leave home! If in doubt, leave it at home and go check it up on Ebay next time you are online!

 Clothes don’t really sell that well , unless you are offering designer stuff. If you are going to sell clothes make sure they are properly laundered and ironed and display them neatly. People are far more likely to give them more than a cursory glance if they are for example hung up, rather than on a bundle on the floor.

 Old garden implements and tools sell well, yet again it is a good idea to make them clean and decent looking if you want to get a good price on them.

 Children’s toys seem to go like hot cakes. It goes without saying that they ought to be safe to sell on.

 We had some electrical equipment for sale but no one showed the slightest bit of interest in it, I have to say I am not all that surprised, I would be very wary about buying such things from a boot sale

 Pictures go well too, of course if you think you might have a undiscovered masterpiece best not to take it along with you, (chance would be a fine thing!) people tend to buy these for the frames only.

 Records etc evidently go well too. We didn’t take any of these along but we are reliably informed that punters do look out for these

Ok…here they are then a brief summary of Kazzie’s hints and tips for a successful ‘bootie’!!

• Take chairs to sit on during the quieter selling periods, it can be tiring being on your feet all day, fold away ones are best.

• Take some old carrier bags, people invariably visit boot sales without them

• Also, old newspaper is ideal for wrapping up china and the like, We had quite a lot of this and several people asked us if we could wrap stuff for them, I am just relieved no one asked for ribbons and gift tags to be added, I was right out of them!!!

• I’d recommend going along with someone, you never know when you just might HAVE to visit one of those Porta loos. Asides from that it’s nice sometimes to have a wander around the other stalls yourself and to have someone to chat to during the day. I for one know that I would not go to sell at a boot fair on my own.

• Take warm drinks and or cold drinks

• Don’t use the Porta loos!

• Take snack food to nibble throughout the day too

• Wear warm clothes if it’s cold, and socks!

• Take lots of small change

• Arrange things in a pleasing order on your stall and shuffle it about from time to time to generate interest.

• I know I’ve already told you some of these things, just reiterating the important bits!

• Take your rubbish home with you

• ….and above all…………Have fun!!!

I hope some of this has proved helpful to you if you are thinking about doing one for yourself. Go on what are you waiting for, and if you’re at the one In Ardleigh over the next few Sundays and you come across a woman selling lots of china, some silver, but definitely no vases, take a second to peer down at her toes and if they are blue (not the toe nails!) well………..that’ll be me!!

Happy Booting!!

Kazzie
 

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