Car boot sales, bit of a rant

[misdee]

sold some stuff a car boot sale today. did quite well, but am a bit peed off as well. someone stole a PS2 game within 5minutes of us arriving. some bloke kept telling me i wouldnt sell a car stereo for £2.50 and that i would be taking it home with me, i ended up selling it anyway. some bloke told me that a good solid cot wasnt worth a tenner as it didnt have a mattress (the matress alone cost me over £50, which i have kept as it fits the other cot), but sold it for £7. some people kept moaning that the cd albums i had on the stall were too pricey at £2. someone even threw some videos down in disgust when i said they were £1 each. i know that people expect bargains at car boot sales, but surely these prices werent high?

on a plus side, i made over £100 and sold 2 buggies, the old 3 wheeler didnt even get the wheels put on before someone snapped it up. she got a bargain at a tenner.

Misdee wouldnt worry about it, weve done boot sales and someones said how much is this book, weve said 10p and theyve chucked it back down...like ???????? what did you expect?! The good thing is youve cleared some junk and made some money.
To give you a laugh i thought someone had nicked a plate of my mums stall and I said Oi have you just stuck a plate up your jumper, and he said Yeah, I said well put it back them...he showed me it it wasnt my mums! Lol

I think you just found some mean people, a cot for a tenner is a steal and mattreses are never included as you are supposed to buy a new one for each baby. I think your prices were not only fair but very very unexpensive (or maybe even car boots are very expensive in my city, or maybe I never arrive early enough to get the bargains, and only have access to the overpriced stuff...)

loads of people got bargain baby clothes, sold each item for 50p, most of them were next and hardly worn.

last year, just before dd2 birthday, we were a bit short on cash so cleared out loads of their old toys. there was abunch of rattles going which we priced at 50p, so women tried to give us 5p for them, tell her to go jump. some bloke told me there was recession on and i should drop the price of a hat/coat stand to 50p (it was only £2), i said i know theres a recession on thats why i'm doing a car boot!! stoopid man.

Glad you had a successful day
I was thinking about doing a carboot to get rid of our baby stuff etc before we move, but reading this I don't think I woud be suitable to deal with the general public of the penny pinching kind, I'm a bit abrasive with the public at the best of times, let a lone at 7.30 on a Sunday morning when they are quibbling about the price of a baby gro.

Well i got a few booty bargains today, Barbie inline skates for 2.50, a sega mastersystem and about 25 games 20quid and a burberry t-shirt 20p.
Your baby clothes buyers will be well chuffed so be pleased youve made a few folk happy!

i love car boots but at the risk of sounding like an old f*rt 'there not like they used to be'! someone once managed to buy a one year old pliko argento travel system off me for £37 because they took advantage of my unawake state(was 7am!).

my sister bought ds a very battered bus off a car boot for £2.50 when the newsagent was selling them brand new for £1.99!! she wasn't a mum at the time and just didn't know what things cost. i saw the same stall selling a bloke 2 tiny motorbikes for £6!!

fortunatly the one here is the afternoon, so i have a chance to get my caffine intake in b4 we go over. i forgot to take the box of kids toys with me, but will probably take them over for another one in a few weeks.

was in 2 minds over the baby clothes, sorting thro them the other night made me more broody than i already am (and we are ttc) but we have loads of neutral stuff still, plus have kept a few special items aside just in case we have another dd. i dont know how we manage to get some much stuff to get rid of, it just builds up slowly doesnt it?

What we have found here, is the car boots seem to have a lots of aslym seekers, and they are the ones that steal things, and really try and knock your prices down, I was supposed to do the car boot with Misdee today but I went to hospital this morning, but I did one last week and we were told we were greedy because we were selling a brand new dress from Essense at Evan for £2. We had some Guess trainers that cost well over £100, we were asking £20, some bloke offered us 50p!!!!!!! We sold them for £10 in the end. Anyone know of a nicer car boot in herts??

nice bit of stereotyping there.....

What a post Mieow "What we have found here, is the car boots seem to have a lots of aslym seekers, and they are the ones that steal things, and really try and knock your prices down, "

...so sad you have to sell your old leftovers to these people.

agree its unfair to stereotype like that - but have experienced similar from lots of people, from all origins! Very off to categorise as asylum seekers. Also remember that if they are actually asylum seekers they will have very little money and may be much more used to a haggling culture.

I think the important thing to remember is that there are lots of buyers (especially early on) who are only there to buy for resale - and whatever they say to you ultimately they are only interested in a bargain (however they get it).

Don't be afraid to say no when someone offers a daft low price.

Sorry if I offenced anyone, I am not racist at all, but it is true, come to it and see. I have no problem with them buying my stuff but there is no need for them to be rude and look at us in digust if something isn't cheap enough for them. We actually do take many of their offers and the man that brought the trainers wasn't english but really liked the trainers so we took his offer of £10.
And I said its "seems" to be full, not IS! And we have had the same problem with white british men and woman!

There is also a problem with gypies stealing things, but then I will prolly get told off for that

We have a good, big carboot sale in St Albans at the station car park, every week. I went a few times last year when I was clearing out my loft. Just can't remember whether it was Sat or Sun, Sun I think...and started about 12 noon if I remember rightly.

I know what you mean about unrealistic punters. I had a couple of old radio cassette recorders and as I wasn't sure whether or not they worked, when someone asked me about them I told them they could have them for nothing. They still threw them down in disgust - I just don't understand!

mieow, what your meant to say is the car boot sale is in hatfield and its full of scummy people (like ourselves,) who are on benefits, deal in drugs, and live in the tower blocks

(btw i'm joking)

janster, i take it you mean the main station. last year i was going to milton keynes and its easier to go from st albans. i didnt realise there are 2 stations in st albans, was at the main one, and was told i was meant to be at the other one across town. when i got there i thought they were joking. just one line, no ticket machine and no-one else waiting there. if it had been anywhere else i would've belived i was in a small village somewhere and not st albans.

I cant face it. I'm going to save up 3 yrs worth of things, then have the biggest NCT stall in living history.People dont moan quite so much there. BTW, I went off to a car boot yesterday...and couldn't find it!!

Yes, the main station. Not the multistorey car park but the other one opposite on the other side of Victoria Street.

That little station is St Albans Abbey Station and is a little line called the Abbey Flyer, just one train goes from St Albans to Watford & back, right through my village!

off the track a little, but may make you laugh. We did car boot sale last yr, to get rid of all the junk out of spare room, so that we could make a little nursery for our baby. I was 38 weeks pg.
And...you guessed it, my waters broke at the car boot!!
One woman asked me if she could come back to pick up an item she'd just bought, to which the reply was NO!
baby came 4 days later, however, so didn't have to fend off various people hoping to buy him at the sale!

turnupthebasss is dead right about people going to car boots to buy items for resale. I used to run a retro clothing stall and every sunday would go to a big car boot at 7.00 am to look for stock. So did lots of others - we formed a regular group.

I had a clear idea of how much I could spend on each sort of item - as I got my stock from lots of different souces, I did not need to buy more highly priced stuff. So if I asked the price of an item, I would offer a price within my range (I usually did this by offering to buy a few things together for a discount). If bargaining was impossible, I would walk away. It was no reflection on the goods, it was based on what I could afford. And if I seemed brisk this was because I was rushing round to look at each stall before some other buyer snapped things up.

Slight self-serving hi-jack coming up -

Does anyone know if you have to be an NCT member to sell stuff at the NCT sales that Ixel mentioned?

Suzywong - no you don't have to be an NCT member, but you need to get in there quite early as they only have limited "spaces" for non-members. If you ring up the number of your local NCT they'll send you a sellers pack.

thanks very much