FAQs

Login to your account by clicking 'login' at the bottom of any page.

Click on 'account information' which is at the top of the page. This will bring up the form you filled in when you first registered.

Edit your car (or any other) information.

Click 'save'

Please do this before you book a pitch.

We often get asked this question! We state on our walk-in sellers information that you may bring one large bag or case for £10 but very often people call or email to ask 'how large can the bag be'? The short answer is; we do not measure bags - if you want to bring the largest bag or case you can find - go for it! 

We are trying to get across the point that a walk in pitch is a strictly limited space. Therefore there is no point in turning up with a ton of goods to sell in several boxes, bags or cases as it will not fit on the pitch. Similarly, a walk in pitch is not large enough to be shared between two sellers.

We cannot allow walk in sellers to surround their table with goods on the ground or under the front of their table etc, since this causes a trip hazzard. A walk in pitch is strictly one table sized space - an approximately 6ftx2ft pitch area - OR a rail. We do not have space to allow sellers who generally use huge tarpaulin sheets as their pitch.

Of course, if you do want to bring more goods you are welcome to buy more than one pitch.

You can book multiple pitches though there is a limit of 3 per order. If you require more than three spaces you will need to place two separate orders.

Add the number of pitches you want to your cart and during checkout please use the ''add a note to us'' box to give us your second vehicle details - we require make, model and registration plate for all vehicles. 

Please note that if you and a friend(s) wish to set up pitch next to each other you must book the same time slot and arrive at the gate together. We are unable to wait for friends to arrive later or reserve spaces for people wishing to be together but arriving separately. Please arrange with your friends to meet up offsite and drive in together. Once onsite tell our parking staff that you are together and they will ensure (to the best of their ability and within logisitical possibility) that you are placed together.

The only time this is not possible is when sellers arrive very much later than their time slot or very close to 1pm when we are almost full and sometimes cannot accommodate.

Battersea is floodlit for us during the darker winter months. Huge flood lights come on as it begins to get dark so that sellers can still see to pack up. 

We have never changed our opening times, they remain the same throughout the year.

We do hire out some tables, they are available from the gate and cost £5 each plus a returnable £15 deposit against loss or damage.

We don't pre book tables, they're first come, first served. This means there may not always be enough for everyone who wants them so we'd advise you don't rely on table availability unless you're booked into a premium pitch.

You can buy a folding pasting table in Homebase/B&Q for around £10. 

To book a pitch you will need to register and create an account. This is a simple process which takes a few minutes. We suggest you do this prior to attempting to book a pitch since it can cause a delay in checking out and mean you miss out on the pitch you want.

REGISTERING; Click on register at the bottom of any page and create your account. You will need to fill in name and address, your vehicle details, a contact number and email address (please enter this carefully). You will receive an email containing a link to confirm your account. You will only need to do this once. Next time you come to book a pitch you can simply choose your pitch and checkout - no need to enter all your details again (apart from payment details which we do not handle or save)

BOOKING & PAYING; To book a pitch, you simply choose the time slot you prefer, add it to your cart and click checkout. You pay by Verified by Visa (Barclays 3d secure). This is the most reliable and secure method of payment we can find. We do not handle, receive or store your card details on our site since you are redirected away to a secure gateway to enter your payment details. This means you do need to complete the payment stage (we can't complete it for you) - click 'continue' and 'confirm payment' until you are redirected back to our website.

When you click to checkout, a pending order is generated and you will receive an email. Once payment is received by us you will get a second email confirming your pitch and containing all relevant details. Please check your email and make sure you have received a confirmation. 

Please wait to be directed back to BatterseaBoot.com so you can see your order status in your account. 

PAYMENT PROBLEMS; We do not have any control over the payment gateway. If your payment is declined, we do not receive any more information about it than you do. We cannot take telephone payments since that involves us using the same process as you would online, therefore if a payment declined for you, it will most probably decline for us too.

DELAYS; We can only allow a limited amount of time for a customer to checkout with a pitch. Pitches at Battersea are in very high demand, and on Monday morning we have hundreds of people trying to get booked in. If a payment does not arrive within a few minutes, we generally find there has been a problem. We can only allow a limited time for payment to arrive before the order is cancelled allowing the pitch to become available for someone else to buy. We try to watch the availability closely and will allow as much time as possible before cancelling an order as a last resort. If your order is cancelled you will receive an email from us and can try again.

PENDING ORDERS Each attempt to book a pitch generates an order number and a 'pending' email. This basically means that the pitch is being provisionally held for you whilst we wait for you to complete the payment process. Please do not be concerned if you have several attempts at booking and receive more than one 'pending' email. A confirmation email is sent when payment is received. Payments cannot be 'taken' by us, only you can pay for a pitch. We do nothing with pending orders apart from cancelling them if payment does not arrive. We do not have access to your payment details and do not/cannot attempt to 'take' the payment for them. We tend not to bother notifying customers of cancelled pending orders as we find it creates confusion. We only notify if the customer has not gone on to complete a successful order.

Our most popular pitches are 12.30pm @£20 and 11am @£30, we have the highest numbers of these available each week in line with demand. In fact almost half of our available pitches are £20 ones. However many we have, they are always the first to sell out. Because we operate on a time allocated system, we cannot change the availability of pitch times and prices, there are fixed numbers of each time and price available each week. If, for example, we have a 10.30am £35 pitch left but someone prefers to arrive later and pay less, we cannot swap the pitch as that would have an impact on our 'no queue' approach. The number of pitches available within each time slot is carefully managed in order to ensure there are no queues to get onsite. If we changed those numbers, entry queues would form.

We strongly advise against booking a higher priced pitch simply because that's all that is left. We have many, many premium pitch requests later in the week and £35 pitches always sell out to people who actually want them and have appropriate goods to sell to justify the high fee.

Please do not book a pitch at a price higher than you're comfortable with. This is not good for anyone. Our £35 premium pitch holders generally sell higher priced goods which justify the high pitch price. We do not want unhappy customers who feel their takings have been eaten into too much by their pitch fee. Please wait and try earlier next week to get a £20 pitch if that is what you're looking for.

We don't have many official rules at Battersea, we tend to rely upon common sense and hope our customers will too. If you're unsure about anything please feel free to send us an email or text or give us a call and we'll happily clarify anything for you. Most questions are covered in our FAQ's.

We operate a friendly, safe boot sale which has an excellent reputation. We have managed this by applying the very few rules below. These rules will not be relevent to the vast majority of 'normal' people and are published here for the sake of the occassional trouble maker who will insist ''it didn't say that on your website''!

We reserve the right to refuse a pitch to any seller behaving in a threatening or aggressive manner towards our staff or customers. They will not be refunded and will be removed from the site. We have a close relationship with the local beat police and encourage their attendance at the boot sale.

Battersea has a good reputation, we do not tolerate trouble or illegal sales. We have a zero tolerance policy of anyone caught stealing and the police will always be called.

We reserve the right to refuse entry to a buying customer for any reason which we do not have to give. This is generally reserved for buyers holding up the queue by arguing with gate staff about paying in ʻcopperʼ - a tedious time waster for all concerned. We do not accept payment in copper coinage mostly due to the delay it causes to other queueing customers whilst we count and check it. We will happily change a note, even a large one. We accept £1 coins, silver coins and notes but do not accept any copper coins as payment.

Obviously, when we answer any question in our FAQ section, we do so based on ʻaverageʼ or ʻusualʼ outcomes. We canʼt be held responsible for unseen or one off events.

Before you book a pitch you are asked to read our terms, we strongly advise you do so since this reduces the risk of misunderstandings and disputes. We try to operate in a very fair and open, honest way but we cannot do anymore than ASK that you read our terms - we can't FORCE you to do so. Before you checkout you will be asked to tick a box stating that you have read and agree to our terms. Please do not ask us to make exceptions to our transfers policy because you didn't read our terms. 

We offer one free transfer of a pitch despite the admin costs and losses we incur in doing this. Because of the losses we incur in accepting transfers we absolutely cannot accept a transfer after midday on Thursday. Please do not ask as refusal often offends and leads to claims of ''but I didn't read the terms'' as above! We cannot allow a pitch to be transfered more than once regardless of the reason for wishing to do so.

Battersea Boot Sale is a private business.

Battersea Park School receives payment from us for use of the grounds, but we are not a charity event.

We average 2000 buyers a week at Battersea. This figure is an average taken over the course of the year. Some weeks we get 2500 buyers, some weeks 1500.
Many factors affect how many buyers turn up on any given day; from the weather being too hot or too cold, to a big football match being shown on TV! We cannot guarantee how many buyers will turn up, we can only estimate based on our average. Battersea is never a 'ghost town' even in heavy rain, we'll till see 1000+ buyers turn up.

We have never exaggerated our figures (donʼt see the point) Feedback we receive from first time sellers usually consists of ʻʻYou told me it would be busy, but not THAT busy!ʼʼ 

Despite our success we still advertise constantly to keep buyers coming, and unlike many boot sales in London, we keep our public entry price reasonable (50p) so as not to discourage buyers. You may have noticed that very little of our publicity contains sellers information - this is because it is aimed at buyers, not sellers. Weʼre already massively oversubscribed and have hundreds more sellers trying to get a pitch each week than we can accommodate! We never advertise for sellers, word of mouth does that for us!

This happens a lot, but unfortunately you canʼt ʻʻhave your cake and eat itʼʼ Pitches at Battersea are in high demand. If you change your mind and transfer your payment, the chances are your pitch will be resold straight away. Unless we have space available, we cannot re-allocate a space back to you. 

There is a certain amount of risk factor to booking a pitch if the weather cannot be relied upon. If you book, it might rain, if you donʼt book we will be sold out by the time you make a decision since there are plenty of people prepared to take that chance. Itʼs your call.

If something crops up, do let us know. We will always do our best to re-sell your pitch for you so that your payment can be transfered. This is NOT a guarantee, we will always try to help, but canʼt perform miracles at the very last minute.

On a good weather week we generally have 100+ sellers waiting for a pitch. Text or email us with your order number and we will try to sell your pitch (subject to staff availability and demand) If we can sell your space we will release your payment for use on another week.

When the weather forecast is bad, we take a hit. We allow transfers (up until Thurday 12noon) whether we can re-sell them or not. Please don't expect us to allow late transfers if weather forecasts are not good.

We have a transfer policy. You can transfer your pitch (one time only) to an alternative date if you notify us by noon on Thursday. Pitches booked on or after Thursday are non transferable.

Refunds are only offered in the unlikely event of the boot sale being cancelled by us.

The decision to turn up or not is yours, we cannot make you do a boot sale in the rain. However, we do not offer refunds since the boot sale is open, therefore the service you purchased is provided.
We would much rather you use the space you have paid for and not lose your money so we advise you to look at the weather forecast on Thursday morning and make a final decision then. If you want to transfer your pitch please notify us via email and/or text to 07941 383 588 and we will re allocate it to someone else, thereby freeing up your payment to be used on another week.

We open rain or shine and always have done. Buyers still come from all around since the vast majority of boot sales cancel in bad weather. We are not going to pretend the boot sale is just as busy as a dry sunny day, BUT neither is it a ghost town as you might expect at other boot sales. We have been established as a rain or shine boot sale for many years now. This means the majority of buyers will come no matter what, often buyers who donʼt usually attend Battersea will come on a rainy day since thereʼs no where else open. Buyers might not stay onsite for as long as usual but our footfall numbers do not change that much on showery days.

Occasionally, a seller might book a space and then transfer it to another week. In this case it will be re added to the available spaces on the website. If you have been unlucky and your preferred price was sold out do look again later in the week. We accept transfers of pitches up until Thursday midday so after this time additional spaces may be added back into the system. It is worth remembering that if you do book a space on or after Thursday midday it will be non refundable and non transferable.

If we receive any cancellations we add them back in as close to 1pm as possible on Thursday, Friday and Saturday.

The boot sale is held in school grounds, which are obviously a no smoking area. We appreciate that some sellers who smoke will find it difficult not to, so we ask, if you cannot leave your pitch to smoke outside, please contain your cigarette ends in a bag and dispose of them in a bin, or take them home for disposal.

Cigarette ends being found on the school grounds is a very serious issue for us which could compromise our lease. We have no desire to enforce a total no smoking ban so please be responsible if smoking onsite.

All unwanted goods must be taken with you at the end of the day. We would suggest you take them to a charity shop rather than a landfill. The boot sale is held on school grounds and the council will not allow the school to dispose of boot sale rubbish (even if we pay them for it) All rubbish must be taken with you when you leave, this includes boxes.

No, a car is not essential. At Battersea we have ʻwalk-inʼ pitches. Please have a look at our sellers info page for Walk-in information.

We work closely with trading standards and reserve the right to confiscate illegal ʻfakeʼ goods for sale and hand them over to trading standards for disposal. If illegal goods are seen, you will be given only one opportunity to remove them from sale before they are confiscated.

Unfortunately not. Due to the layout of the boot sale, once a car is parked it needs to stay where it is. If you have more goods than will fit in your car we would suggest booking and bringing more than one car or doing the boot sale several times.

Our parking stewards have been assisting sellers (including new drivers, nervous drivers, bad drivers, you name it!) to park for many years. They will explain clearly where they want you to park and will guide you into the space. In some cases, reversing into position is required, our stewards will guide you if you canʼt see clearly. In extreme examples, we even park cars for customers if they feel they canʼt do it themselves.

We never ask for ID. Anyone may come in to buy at any of our times subject to paying the entry fee. We do not restrict to trade only. In fact, many of our 12pm £3 buyers are simply people who want to avoid the crowds and have first look. 

Yes, it is. The site is hard standing tarmac surface and level throughout. There are no specific disabled toilet facilities within the school but the toilets are on the ground floor of the building.

There are toilets available within the main school building. Gate staff will direct you. To get to the toilets requires going out of the main gate and getting a hand stamp to gain entry again.

Battersea is an incredibly busy boot sale and cars are parked close together. Leaving early is really not an option in most cases. As a general rule of thumb, if youʼre last in, you are better positioned to be first out. If you have a special reason that you will want to leave early please mention it to the parking staff on arrival. Depending what time you arrive, they will do their best to position you in a place where it may be easier to leave early but we cannot by any means guarantee this will be possible and would advise you are prepared to be onsite until 5pm just in case.

Battersea officially closes at 5pm. Buyers are not encouraged to enter after 4.30pm. We generally make our way around with a call for sellers to start to pack up from about 4pm. A few people find this objectionable, but most sellers are so carried away with the busyness of the day that they need a gentle reminder to make a start packing up or we would never get the site cleared by our exit time of 5pm.

You choose your preferred arrival slot and pay for it. A pitch is then reserved for you and guaranteed to be available. You will be sent an email containing your booking reference details. You will need this to gain access to the site on Sunday. The email will also contain our terms and conditions, please take the time to read this carefully. 

All you need to do, is turn up at or after (but not before) your allocated time, quote your booking reference and you will be onsite straight away. Our stewards will direct you to a space and you can start setting up straight away.

We do not offer refunds but a booking may be transfered to an alternative week. To do this, we must be notified by email or text message before midday on Thursday so we can make the pitch available for someone else to book. We donʼt want you to lose your money so please donʼt book until youʼre organised and certain you can attend. Equally, we donʼt want empty spaces at the boot sale when so many people are desperately trying to get pitches, so please let us know asap if you do wish to re allocate your pitch so that someone else can have it.

We strongly advise you bring a ʻbumbagʼ or something similar to keep your takings on your body. Battersea is incredibly busy and it is easy to be distracted and put money down on a table only to turn around and it is gone! Bring some old carrier bags, and a float of some £1 coins and £5 notes, maybe some small change if you think you have things to sell under £1. Change is available from the gate after 1.30pm if you need it. We donʼt want to turn into the dreaded ʻhealth n safetyʼ but we have many people collapse with sunstroke every year at Battersea. The site is a sun trap, please consider bringing a hat or umbrella, water and sunblock during the summer months.

We do not provide tables at Battersea. The vast majority of people bring a ʻpastingʼ or decorating table. You can buy these in B&Q/Homebase etc for around £8. Rails can be bought cheaply in Ikea or Argos, though we wouldnʼt advise going to this extra expense for a one off boot sale. Many sellers put a sheet on the ground or put their items on upturned boxes. Of course, it IS better to have a table but they are by no means essential.

We canʼt offer individual advice on pricing. Our general rule of thumb is try to decide on a price before you arrive (at least have a rough idea) Try it out, if several people walk away, maybe youʼre a little high. Try to be realistic, you generally will not get half the retail price for something secondhand, but you donʼt need to sell everything for 50p or £1 either. You know the value of your items, what would you pay? Donʼt sell something precious or valuable at a price you will regret. Equally, donʼt turn down an offer and then end up taking something home that you really donʼt want and will end up throwing in the bin! There are thousands of buyers at Battersea, you donʼt need to ʻpanic sellʼ If an early buyer is really interested, they will come back. If they donʼt, there are plenty more buyers to come. Just keep at the front of your mind that the whole point is to get rid of unwanted stuff and take some money home instead ... not the other way around!

Everything can sell. The price dictates if it does or doesnʼt sell for you. Our rule of thumb? If you can fit it in the car, bring it. Donʼt bin anything that is still usable. Thereʼs not much point in bringing broken items or torn or dirty clothing, but well used, or worn items are fine and someone will find a use for them at the right price. For example, no one is so poor that they will pay you for a chipped cup or plate, but a well worn, even torn pair of Leviʼs will sell. Higher quality used goods sell better than something from Primark for example. Maybe surprisingly, unused or half used bottles of perfume sell very well, as do unwanted beauty/bathroom products (even part used ones) Household equipment, bedding, books and CDʼs or DVDʼs, childrenʼs toys, clothes, bikes etc all sell well too. Try not to see things as what you do or donʼt like. There is a buyer for everything. As the saying goes ʻʻone mans junk is another mans treasureʼʼ This is never truer than at a boot sale. What have you got to lose by throwing it in the car?

You can, but you will have to pay the appropriate buyers entry fee to come in and look around before your allocated time slot. We would much rather you didnʼt enter the area with your vehicle before your allocated time as this is deemed by the council to be “sellers queueing to get in” which we are not permitted to allow. Charging entry deters most sellers from doing this. Of course you are free to look around and buy once your car is onsite, but not until after 11.30am.

No! The whole point of Battersea and what makes us different is that you really do not need to arrive any earlier than your allocated time slot. We do not have queues for spaces! You do not need to queue for a space, you have already reserved and paid for it, and we guarantee itʼs availability for you. It is really a totally pointless idea to arrive early, it wastes your time, it wastes our time, it causes traffic issues because there is nowhere to park and most importantly, you have nothing to gain by doing so.

No one is let onsite before their allocated time. You choose your time to arrive and you pay accordingly, therefore we do not allow anyone onsite early, not even a few minutes early. It would be unfair on those who pay a premium for early entry pitches if we did so. 

If you are unfamiliar with the area and arrive early by mistake, we would ask you to park away from the immediate area, perhaps go for a coffee and return at or after your allocated time slot. There is little very parking availability in the immediate vicinity which is what originally drove us to a introduce booking system. The council do not look favourably on sellers parked in the area ʻwaitingʼ for their time slot to come around. This is deemed ʻqueueingʼ and has a negative impact us.

We cannot accept bookings further in advance than one week for many reasons. Perhaps a friend could place your booking for you if youʼre away.

Battersea is in very high demand, we have requests asking to pre book from regular customers, old customers, people who are going on holiday, can't get online, are at work etc etc. We can't make exceptions, if we did, we would be booked up months in advance and it would be very unfair on everyone trying to get a space on Monday morning. Sorry.

Unfortunately not. One car pitch is exactly that, designed for one car loaded with goods. Additional goods cannot be brought from outside and added to a pitch. Anyone arriving at the gate with goods to sell is automatically charged as a ʻwalk-inʼ  seller at £10 per bag and not allowed entry until 1pm.

Yes, that is no problem as long as it is the same size as the car you booked (registered with). Please text or email us with your name, booking reference and new vehicle details.

Often customers book a small car and then decide to borrow a friend's estate car so they get more space. Changing a vehicle in this way is not always possible. It is clearly stated in our terms that you have paid for the registered vehicle to enter the site on Sunday. We have to monitor very carefully the sizes of vehicles being booked in and adjust availability accordingly to ensure we can guarantee everyone gets a space. Therefore, once we have sold out, we cannot accomodate larger vehicles than those we have allowed for.

If you need to change your registered vehicle please do so before you book.

Anyone can come with you as long as they are in the vehicle with you when you arrive.
Everyone arriving on foot is charged to enter the boot sale, either as a buyer or a seller.
Unfortunately, we cannot allow anyone free entry to meet a seller onsite.

We strongly advise you bring a ʻbumbagʼ or something similar to keep your takings on your body. Battersea is incredibly busy and it is easy to be distracted and put money down on a table only to turn around and it is gone! Bring some old carrier bags, and a float of some £1 coins and £5 notes, maybe some small change if you think you have things to sell under £1. Change is available from the gate after 1.30pm if you need it. We donʼt want to turn into the dreaded ʻhealth n safetyʼ but we have many people collapse with sunstroke every year at Battersea. The site is a sun trap, please consider bringing a hat or umbrella, water and sunblock during the summer months.

We work closely with trading standards and revenue and customs officials. No sale of alcohol is permitted with the exception of genuine unwanted personal goods ie; a small amount of left overs from a party for example. This is strictly monitored by our staff and any seller attempting this type of sale on more than one occasion will be reported to R&C.

We have a variety of regular professional food traders at Battersea and do not allow anyone else to sell food or drinks. Anyone reported to be selling food or drinks onsite will be asked to remove such items from sale and/or asked leave and will not be offered a refund. This includes homemade cakes. Foodstuffs to be taken away for consumption such as jars of jam or chutney, and tinned food products ARE acceptable.

No form of drink sale is allowed, cans, bottles large or small, freshly made, frozen, alcoholic or otherwise.

Dogs are welcome but must be on a lead at ALL times. Owners are expected to behave responsibly and take the dog offsite for its toilet requirements! Please beware, cars get hot even when the windows and doors are open so please donʼt plan to keep your dog in the car all the time you are at the boot sale. Bring a suitable lead or short rope to attach it to your car.

No, it is not. If you book a car pitch and turn up in a van you will not be given entry to the site at your booked time. We will have to ask you to wait until 1pm and we will try to fit it onsite, but this cannot be guaranteed. You will also be required to pay the price difference since vans cost a minimum of £35.

Yes. If you wait until Saturday to book it is doubtful there will still be space available. Just fill in the booking form with the type of car you plan to hire ie; VW Golf. When you get your car, text us 07941 383 588 with the full details and your booking reference number and they will be added to the booking for you.

Please note that if a customer books an unknown hire car we allow enough space for a Golf/Fiesta or similar standard small car. If you plan to hire a larger car we need to know before we sell out so we can ensure we allocate enough space for it.

It is advisable to ensure you will definitely be able to get hire a car since pitches are non refundable.

Not exactly. We always try to accommodate requests for specific areas. However, to run as smoothly as we do and fit sellers onsite requires precision parking by our stewards. If you are booked on a premium pitch and would like to choose which playground you park in, that is fine. You will not be able to choose a specific pitch as this would obviously cause chaos!

At Battersea we guarantee to hold a space for you even if youʼre running late. If a seller hasnʼt arrived by 1pm we tend to assume theyʼre not coming. Our walk-in sellers come in at 1pm and after that time we cannot physically allow cars to drive onsite.

Everyone is charged entry to Battersea, either as a seller or a buyer. If you need people to come and help and they cannot get in the car with you, we would advise they come after 1.30pm when it costs only 50p to get in. Please be advised there is a long queue for entry at this time. The earliest anyone (not in a car) can enter the site is 11.30am when entry costs £5.