Boot Sale

March 20, 2011 by Emma in Selling 1 Comment
March Money Making Marathon: £476.98/£500
So close I can almost taste £500. Which is a good thing as I cannot stop spending money at the moment, all on Florida related items of course.
I come bearing boot sale related news. Packed the car up yesterday (and realistically still had space for around 4 more boxes of stuff), woke up before the birds this morning and set off. We arrived a little later than we’d planned so we got what I deemed to be a horrible space on the soil/sand, not nice concrete. But people were crowding around wanting to look at everything straight away. 10 minutes into unpacking someone made an offer on a Wii game which I declined with a comment in regards to how early it was, and the guy said he was on his way home! The whole boot sale had only been open 25 minutes. It was a mad panic to get 3 tables of items displayed and priced, finishing at around 9am when everything was sorted – with lots of sales in between.
So now that I feel I’m a boot sale expert as I’ve been to one this year, I’ll share my new found advice. 
  1. Arrive early. I don’t think we lost out too badly today, but I ended up snapping at my Dad a lot and feeling generally panicked. If they advertise opening at 7am try to find out when they actually open or if they open earlier for sellers.
  2. You can never overestimate on the change you need to take. Thankfully we never had to turn anyone away for lack of change and it meant making a few extra £££ when someone had £20 for a £2 spend and we could provide change. Later on I went to spend £2 on another stall and the woman didn’t have change – yea sorry, I’m not faffing about for you.
  3. Make friends with your neighbours – they can help out in change crises, loo breaks and generally keeping an eye out for anything falling over. 
  4. Take food and drinks with you. Loads of boot sales these days have catering vans but don’t dip into your profits.
  5. Be nice! If you’ve rolled out of bed early and you turn up with a sad face then get rid of it quickly. Don’t stand there being a grump, but engage with your buyers. If you see them looking at something then pipe up telling them a bit more about it. Don’t go over the top though!
We made a grand total of £82.15 today, which I’ve halved with my Dad for doing all the car packing, driving, unpacking and helping me whilst I went off to look at pretty things at other stalls.
The downside is that I feel horrendous now. I got home, had some lunch and fell asleep, not able to wake myself properly for 3-4 hours. Had a bath and now feel a cold starting, so I’ll be back to bed shortly!