New take on things (re selling horses)

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Equi

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Just occurred to me after seeing yet another post "her horse 4 sale. £500 have black and white on it." This horse will probably sell in a week.

Yet a horse whose owner takes the time to write out a good advert about its abilities, take nice groomed/riding photos, same price - doesn't sell.

Is it maybe because the people buying are somewhat intimidated by the latter? Do they get nervous and think "they seem to know their stuff, they will never let me buy that horse" or "i won't be able to haggle with them to get a cheaper price they know what the horse is worth"

Have things got so bad that the bad adverts are selling and the good are not because horses are cheaper thus more people (who may not have had a lot of horse experience in horse care/riding because of financial reasons) are buying them? I know a lot of people who are not horsey are buying ponies cause it is actually cheaper in the long run than lessons (so they think)

Musings?
 
equi said:
Just occurred to me after seeing yet another post "her horse 4 sale. £500 have black and white on it." This horse will probably sell in a week.

Yet a horse whose owner takes the time to write out a good advert about its abilities, take nice groomed/riding photos, same price - doesn't sell.

Is it maybe because the people buying are somewhat intimidated by the latter? Do they get nervous and think "they seem to know their stuff, they will never let me buy that horse" or "i won't be able to haggle with them to get a cheaper price they know what the horse is worth"

Have things got so bad that the bad adverts are selling and the good are not because horses are cheaper thus more people (who may not have had a lot of horse experience in horse care/riding because of financial reasons) are buying them? I know a lot of people who are not horsey are buying ponies cause it is actually cheaper in the long run than lessons (so they think)

Musings?
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The well written ones are more than 500 quid - simple.
 
I think it depends hugely on the type of horse/ intended audience.
There are ads on dragon driving that could be paired with a picture of an event prospect and not be inaccurate (if that makes sense) but wouldn't encourage me to view.

I suppose my point is, if I am buying it for a specific purpose and the sellers assessment might reveal their understanding of or work heading in that direction then yes it would matter. TBH when you look at lower end ads/ rough ads where you have little faith in the seller or projects with a low start point.... I'd rather take my chances at the auction.

However when I've been buying heavy horses in the past the adverts have been very no frills: "bay mare 17.2 , 4 whites, 2004, good mother". And you'd call up and find she'd been reserve at the royal welsh or something!

Adverts that have any form of text abbreviation/ numeric substitution are a no though for me. I'm a snob.
 
The more wordy the advert, the less likely I am to respond to it. I don't care about the spelling or how beautiful the photos are. Just one photo and some plain facts will do. The rest can be discussed on the phone.
 
equi said:
Yep, they are the ones who say "sold" and i ask now and then cause i don't want clutter.
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Then a better OP might have been, 'A week ago my sale site received this ad ................ and now the pony is sold!'
I must admit that I really hate posts where the poster guesses what will happen next, rather than using actual evidence.
I'm another who has bought more than one horse based on a single line advert.
 
I'm surprised by this. The badly worded/spelt adverts usually have very few actual facts about the horse in question so I would be unlikely to pursue it. I like a well written advert that gives as much info as possible.
 
Tern said:
The well written ones are more than 500 quid - simple.
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Not necessarily - I bought a nice pony with a very well written advert for £400 not long ago. Just before I bought her I came across a local young cob with a very vague, not so well written advert but found out she had been sold within a couple of days of advertising for the same price as my pony. Obviously I don't know the reasons why this pony had sold so quickly where as the one I bought had been for sale for a while (both advertised on the same website) but I wonder if it is more to do with the type of pony that usually has the sort of badly written adverts that the OP refers to, rather than the advert itself?
 
Darkwater said:
Not necessarily - I bought a nice pony with a very well written advert for £400 not long ago. Just before I bought her I came across a local young cob with a very vague, not so well written advert but found out she had been sold within a couple of days of advertising for the same price as my pony. Obviously I don't know the reasons why this pony had sold so quickly where as the one I bought had been for sale for a while (both advertised on the same website) but I wonder if it is more to do with the type of pony that usually has the sort of badly written adverts that the OP refers to, rather than the advert itself?
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possibly. I think a lot of people still see a black and white cobby type and think thats better than the finer types which can be true sometimes
 
equi said:
Just occurred to me after seeing yet another post "her horse 4 sale. £500 have black and white on it." This horse will probably sell in a week.

Yet a horse whose owner takes the time to write out a good advert about its abilities, take nice groomed/riding photos, same price - doesn't sell.

Is it maybe because the people buying are somewhat intimidated by the latter? Do they get nervous and think "they seem to know their stuff, they will never let me buy that horse" or "i won't be able to haggle with them to get a cheaper price they know what the horse is worth"

Have things got so bad that the bad adverts are selling and the good are not because horses are cheaper thus more people (who may not have had a lot of horse experience in horse care/riding because of financial reasons) are buying them? I know a lot of people who are not horsey are buying ponies cause it is actually cheaper in the long run than lessons (so they think)

Musings?
Click to expand...


The well written adverts may be the same price but sometimes they're over priced for what they are. Grooming and smart photos doesn't add value but some sellers think it does. That's not to say the bad ads are *all* good horses, but some may be. There is an element to having had a hard life, where as long as the horse hasn't been badly neglected or abused, you know they're tough because they're not dead/ridiculously skinny/ill. The well groomed well handled broken in horse for 500 pounds - why? Is it lame, often sickly, a nightmare to handle or ride? I'd still go and look at it though. Untouched from the field but basically ok can be a better option for taking a chance sometimes.

The bit about owning being cheaper than lessons, those people don't just think it is, its true, just as long as they don't hit a major vet bill. If you want to ride eg 4 x per week, in a riding school that's 80 pounds minimum. It doesn't cost that to keep a good do-er , unshod pony on DIY livery even accounting for hay, straw, basic hard feed, hoof trims and wormers. Second hand tack (of a not too bad fit) can be bought on eBay for about 100 and the rider can have a lot more freedom than in a riding school. I can see why people do it.
 
I remember when I was trying to find my mum a suitable novicey type, I came across an ad which only said "15.1hh mare cob for sale"

Went down to see her and bought her on the same day, worth her weight in gold

So I never rule out basic ads now :)
 
southerncomfort said:
I'm surprised by this. The badly worded/spelt adverts usually have very few actual facts about the horse in question so I would be unlikely to pursue it. I like a well written advert that gives as much info as possible.
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What do people want to know though? When I look for a horse I want to know: age, sex, height, broken to ride or drive or neither, location, price, plus a side on pic with no tack or rugs. That's all I need to know if its what I'm looking for or not. I'd discuss further on phone and during visit.
 
Sugar_and_Spice said:
What do people want to know though? When I look for a horse I want to know: age, sex, height, broken to ride or drive or neither, location, price, plus a side on pic with no tack or rugs. That's all I need to know if its what I'm looking for or not. I'd discuss further on phone and during visit.
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A lot of people need to know if it is novice/nervous suitable.
 
depends what you want it for though. some experienced people can look at a photo, especially a coloured cob, and get a very good impression of what the horse is like and take a punt on it. They also know they can a network to sell it on easily if it's not what they want.

To play devils advocate on the side of over produced ads, it's very easy to mislead people in a professional ad - by editing videos etc. Also some people cannot be objective when they are writing their ads, it drives me mad when people write that the horse has 'potential', I have the potential to win a marathon, but it's never going to happen!
 
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