Did a bootsale today it was horrendous

[Woodward23]

Did a bootsale today we've been saving up for a few years for it. It absolutely peed it down everything got wet we made pitch back and £30 takings. Really gutted by it and now I've got stuff all over the house that I don't know what to do with tempted to just take all to the charity!

I've never made a profit at boot sale & don't know any ordinary sellers who did, either.

I stopped doing them when I was barely covering my pitch fee . I also got fed up with people trying to get in my car boot when I was unpacking asking if my car jack was for sale; DS spending our takings on more crap or burgers from the van. The only one I had that was really successful was when I only sold Thomas the Tank Engine stuff.

I guess boot sales are not for the current economic situation. We’re packing to move and after a couple of months of proper in-depth decluttering have ordered a skip and tossed things that in our opinion are just no use to anyone - 10 year old appliances with broken cords and European power plugs, old mouldy suitcases, broken sun lounger, the crap from the far corner of the garage sort of thing. Nearly everything is GONE in about 3 hours.

It seems the best strategy at a boot sale is to group items into price groups. 50p, £1, £2 or whatever and then make the price clear on a sign.

'50p The price is the price. No offers!'

'£1 The price is the price. No offers!' and so on

Then have a fuck off big pointy stick for those that try and engage in negotiation.

There's no point in expecting to get a good price at a car boot sale.

People go looking for bargains, and they won't be interested in paying a lot of money for things unless it is something like silver, watches, good quality vintage costume jewellery, old clocks & antiques, collectable Lego, original Star Wars toys, stuff like that. You will get dealers coming round pestering you for that sort of thing whilst you are still unpacking the car.

Anything else, just be prepared to sell it for what people are prepared to pay you for it. Which isn't a lot. Do your research and go to boot sales beforehand, find out what people are buying stuff for, and base your prices on that.

I think the problem with holding on to kids clothes and toys for years is that fashions change. People generally don’t want dated styles for children’s clothes. We see it quite a lot at the children’s clothing exchange I help run. The dated styles are there month after month, even free people don’t take it!

Some people don't understand it because their reading comprehension is poor and than blame the OP for their own incompetence.

Others just skim through it in a hurry and answer based on what they think should have been the topic, not what the topic actually is.

Neither are useful in a thread like this.

People dont understand because you havent explained it well plus you were going about the bootsale in a way people usually arent.

I made this mistake, too. Loads of stuff got nicked - as a beginner (and ender!) I had no clue about organised groups distracting the seller while they pinch valuable items. I also sold some items - jewellery, mostly - far too cheap because the very chatty buyers seemed nice. Come closing time I was nearly crying, and gave my leftovers away to another trader just to get away and sob into a bottle of wine.

I never even go to car-boot sales to look nowadays; I just see it as a den of criminals!!

How much is it to rent a pitch nowadays?

Yeah a couple of my friends had a craze on doing them like 15 years ago and I’d help out, we’d have people sniffing round before we’d even unpacked trying to buy the ice cream tub we had to put money in, or the calculator I used to work out how much i was charging - dunno why that was necessary given we weren’t exactly working with big numbers but I still would have thought it was obvious it wasn’t for sale!

I don’t understand. What does ‘ther’ mean? I’m so confused!

I’d really have to be either very stupid or very rude, to pretend to find it so difficult to understand a post that contains an error.

The op might not have English as their first language or could have dyslexia. Or might just not have a first from Oxbridge like half of mumsnet seem to have!!

This is why I just couldn't be bothered in the first place. I also can't imagine holding onto unwanted items for years - I usually just want it gone. Getting up early isn't something I enjoy and it's never going to yield a fortune for the time spent. I'm also antisocial and a people pleaser so would find any and all bartering awkward.

Anything of a reasonable value that's worth the effort of listing and posting (eg £10 or more) goes on Ebay, the rest goes to charity or is given away/recycled or elements of it recycled if that's at all possible and taken to the tip if avenues are exhausted.

Our local charities will collect most things if you've got enough of it or have bulkier furniture items.

Don’t sell - give it away using Freecycle.

bin what you think wont sell at a charity shop

What you mean it is gone because people are skip diving?

English isn't my first language. All OP's posts were clear enough.

There are so many flavours of English, so many common mistakes, so many common online/Mumsnet shortcuts and alternative constructions ("of" instead of "have"), plus mobile phones and their autocorrects stepping in. In the real world, effective online communication starts with actually reading the posts and being flexible.
Expecting everyone else to express themselves in the one single way you approve off is rather limiting and can kill the communication altogether.

I don’t understand. What does ‘ther’ mean? I’m so confused

🤣

"Both of OP's posts so far contain spelling mistakes, grammatical errors and poor sentence construction. Ther ability to be able to write clearly is a pre-requisite for effective online communication"

Not for you obviously

I made about £50 doing one last summer, had a laugh with my friend and her dd. Everything we thought we wouldn't sell online went to charity donation centre on the way home!

@pimplesquisher You really shouldn't be correcting anyone's spelling when you appear unable to spell correctly yourself.

So ther!

Op. It sounds like the weather didn't help matters. Do you have anywhere like a garage or a shed where you can store it, then maybe try again when the weather is nicer?

I think a lot depends on where the car boot sale is, I made £40 once at a certain site and over £240 the next week at a different site with similar stuff. The last time though I made around £50 and I stopped at the charity shop on the way back and decided never again. It’s not worth the hassle.

Better to sell decent stuff on Facebook/gumtree/eBay and charity shop the rest.. it will take longer but with Royal Mail coming to your door to collect your stuff now with a preprinted label it’s not a massive effort to just bag stuff as it sells and send it out

I'm currently doing a lot better than I'd imagined with Vinted. I had a big wardrobe clear out and just about everything went to the clothing bank - they decide what is worth putting in charity shops and what is sent for ragging and recycling.

But I kept back about 25 items that were still tagged and I've already sold 7 of them for about £50 in total and that's money I keep, postage and fees are between the buyer and Vinted.

Listing is much easier than ebay and I set prices at or even above the range suggested by Vinted. It's been a couple of weeks and it's gone a bit quiet so I'm going to knock a little bit off all the prices soon in a hope of generating a few more sales- most of the items have been 'favourited' by potential buyers and give it a couple more weeks before probably dropping off the remainder at the next convenient charity shop.