Car boot sellers have said “times are tough” for traders, with customers demanding deals as low as 50p on all their items and more and more visiting wholesalers.
Married couple Bryan and Elaine Tiffany go to car boot sales across Leeds and do two or three a week on average. But the cost of living crisis has had a staggering affect on their trade, with stock prices going up and customers unwilling to buy their products .
The East End Park couple, in their 60s with two grown-up children, said that car boots have recently upped plot prices but with fuel prices going up, it’s not cost effective.
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Bryan said: “Times are tough, no one’s spending. You’d think when there’s no money about that they’d come to car boots sales but it works the other way.
“They’re looking but they’re not spending. Normally people come to car boot sales to spend but they’re not spending because I don’t think the money’s there.
“Everything they want for 50p – it isn’t a ‘50p market’ anymore. We can’t even buy stuff for 50p or to sell at 50p. We notice it more than anybody.”
The couple, who were at Wetherby Car Boot Sale when they spoke to LeedsLive, have been trading at car boot sales for about 20 years. The Tiffanys trade as “more of a hobby” these days as they enjoy it and it brings in an extra income.
Bryan is semi-retired and works as a Tesco delivery driver. Elaine worked as a dinner lady before she retired, at Richmond Hill Academy, in East End Park, and then at Victoria Primary Academy in Osmondthorpe.
The couple said that people tend to go to the wholesalers in worrying times. Bryan said: “We do enjoy car boot sales but it’s been tough recently.
"You tend to think if there was no money, it would be the other way around. People tend to go to wholesalers. Before this economic blast that we’ve been through, we tended to do a lot better because there was money about.
“I don’t know if people are scared that there’s no money about or they’re holding on to what they’ve got because they don’t know what the future holds. It is a scary time for people at the moment.”
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