September 2009 - our busiest sale ever!
Frequently Asked Questions
If you book in advance it is £8, or £10 on the day if spaces are available. Payment isn't due until the day of the sale. You can make a booking by e-mailing carboots@nestontennis.co.uk, with your name, contact details and how you heard about us. In 2009 our sales were fully booked at least 10 days beforehand. Buyers pay just 20p and we don't charge for parking.
You can arrive any time after 7.15am and buyers are welcome after 8.00am. We have to finish the sale by 11am.
Subject to having sufficient volunteers to serve them, we normally sell teas, coffees, hot sausage/bacon batches and soft drinks. There are toilets available.
Now that the sales take place on hard standing, we will go ahead whatever the weather! A gazebo might come in handy!
Definitely. Pasting tables are great because they are light and don't take up much space in your car, but heavier items like books may need something a bit more substantial. Remember the easier it is for buyers to find things, the more you will sell. If you have a lot of clothes, for instance, a hanging rail is a good idea.
A 'float' of change is useful until you have sold your first few items. Keep it in a money belt or similar so that it's safe but handy. Plastic bags to give your buyers are always welcome.
As Neston is a market town, we are unable to allow professional sellers, but apart from that almost anything goes. Common sense applies; if it's not legal, you shouldn't sell it! We would not expect to see sellers offering multiple copies of CD's and DVD's; following a recent court ruling, we would have to make further enquiries as to the origin of the copies. We also do not take bookings from catering stalls.
Apparantly the most successful booters are in London, who make £83 on average per sale, followed by Wales with £80 on average (thanks to www.carbootsrus.com for this information), so don't expect to get rich quick!
We can have a maximum of 50 pitches and usually get 400 to 500 buyers; the better the weather, the busier we get! Even on quieter days, there are usually plenty of serious buyers. The pitches are arranged in a circuit, so there are no 'bad' pitches.
We are registered with all the car boot directories on the internet I can find, plus various local 'What's on?' guides and schools. An advert goes in the Wirral News group of papers, so is seen across the Wirral. Our main source of interest is the big sign that goes up on the Chester High Road, plus a flood of smaller posters around town. We get a lot of booters re-booking too.
No! Please take all your unsold goods away with you. Neston Tip is open at the weekend, for Cheshire residents, or consider joining freecycle (www.freecycle.org) whose aim is to keep re-usable stuff out of landfill by offering it to other people for free.
We aim to provide all our juniors with a free tennis fun session on a Friday and to encourage children to take up tennis, non-members are welcome to try it too. See our 'free tennis' page for more details. We also want to rennovate our pretty, wooden tennis pavilion which is in need of some serious attention and our floodlights need replacing too!
June 2008
The sun didn't shine as promised so we didn't have quite as many buyers as we hoped, but nearly 50 booters selling made for a busy morning.
You 'booters' are tough, even in the snow! The sun shone and, although numbers were down, I know quite a few of you had a successful morning
September 2007 - A busy car boot sale!