E Bay v Car boot sale

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I'm not sure whether selling on e-bay is worth it. The time, effort, fees etc. I'm struggling to see if everyday items selling for 99p. People like me havent got fab items that I can make a fortune on. Coupled with the fact that these DSRs (feedback problems)causing me stress.

Surely if I group together my friends stuff too its more cost effective.

My mum has picked up some lovely Next clothing from her local carboot - 99p and no postage!

I do buy quite a lot too but all the postage over the year must be adding up.

Any feedback on this please?

eBay used to be great but has become much worse now and it is a lot of time and effort for very low rerun and lot of hassle IMO

this is because they are now orienting at business sellers. Also postage costs have increased massively -I think car boots are more sensible now.

if you have the time and the stuff, carboot sales are much better imo, ebay just seems to have gone down hill

to buy, definitely carboot, if you have the time. You can get some fab things, and can haggle if you think the price is not good. I find good things on ebay go for not an awful lot less than buying new.

But to sell, ebay has been quite good for me. On items that are not expensive to send. I make an point of keeping my postage costs as low as I can, and for items I am selling for more than say a fiver, I reduce them to under everyone else even if i make a loss. I find that way people are prepared to bid higher on the item itself. Or on very large popular items that can be collected.

to buy, i prefer car boot sales. can get some lovely bargains.

i also like to sell at carboot sales to get a lot of stuff gone in one afternoon with no postage hassles.

last year i sold loads of clothes, cd's, dvd's, bikes, highchairs, baby equipment at a 2 carboot sales over one weekend and came home with an almost empty car, and £200 in my pocket.

On average what are the fees to pitch at a carboot?

Yes I wholey agree that e-bay is pitching more towards business sellers.

The original idea for e-bay was to sell your personal stuff to someone who wanted it. Just hijacked now by mass business and alot from china.

I suppose the down side you have to collect as much as possible and find a nice place to store it.

Food for thought.

depending where you go pitches cost between £5-£10.

car boots for me, cant be arsed with ebay (selling that is)

Another possibility is an NCT sale if you have lots of kid's stuff to get rid of. It is much less work than eBay but a bit more than a car boot sale. You have to price everything in advance, but every buyer there is looking for baby/kid's stuff. The NCT usually takes 30% of your profits. I have done around 5 in the past 4 years and they are great for getting rid of stuff. For larger items you have to weigh up the 30% commission against the hassle of eBaying or advertising locally, but I have found them really useful for good condition high street clothing and small books and toys which are a pain to sell elsewhere. Prices for that sort of thing can be better than at car boots.

Depends what the items are, ime. Specialist nice things go for much better prices on Ebay. I've been selling nice quality bicycle bits and some baby items for decent prices on Ebay -- I'd never get close to the same prices at a carboot.

Also, what your travel costs are like -- it costs me £10 just to arrive at a carboot site in fuel and running costs. That's before my pitch fee, and leaves aside the 7 hours or so to pack up/get there/set up/sell/pack up/get home/unpack.

Ooh! I found the info, BIN excluded but can schedule a listing to start that day and get it in for free.

Deffo car boot sale. Less hassle - people see the item, agree a price, pay cash and then, most importantly, go away.