Selling saddles on eBay...

T_K

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I've just had 2 auctions finish for saddles I need to sell.

The first is worth about £45 but as £50 is the lowest reserve you can put on I thought I could offer it to anyone who got close after the auction....it finished at £7.50.

The second was for a saddle worth £250-£300, I put a reserve of £200, the finish price was £33.50!

The question is, is it worth relisting? I really need the money but I'm not going to sell them that cheap!

Or, does anyone know of anywhere that will buy older second hand saddles from me? They are in good condition I just have no idea of the age. Even if I get half of what they are worth it would be better than them sat on my bedroom floor!
 
What type of saddles are they? you can advertise on H & H online free for tack under £500 is that worth a try? Also might be worth sending saddles Direct the pictures they may buy from you.

good luck
 
Selling saddles is a nightmare!!- I've sold a few of my old ones on Ebay- don't forget that Ebay take their "percentage" as well (can never remember what it is) - could you relist, but not have a reserve price, just the starting price, so people can't place bids lower than the starting price that you would wish to achieve.

Hope you get it sorted, and they sell!
 
Thanks for your suggestions. I've already advertised in H&H, got no replies. Saddles Direct said they can't take them as they/ I can't tell how old they are.

I've already spent £6 listing these on eBay, if I relist and they don't sell I'll have to pay even more - which is pointless when I'm desperate for the money!
 
I've put a couple of Saddles on Ebay and didn't get a sniff at them ! Horsequest is quite good for saddles! You could maybe take it into your local saddle fitter and ask him or her to keep it with them so they can take it out on saddle fittings until someone buys it, thats what I did :)

xx
 
Do you have any horse sales near you that have a tack section? I've used my local one before to sell saddles and other tack. You still have to pay commission obviously (probably no more than ebay though!) but generally nearly everything sells.

You can normally put a reserve on too, if you want.
 
I think my nearest sales are at Penrith, don't know if they do tack. I can take it to a local tack shop and she will keep it until it sells but I need the money ASAP really. Might be my only option though.
 
Thanks for your suggestions. I've already advertised in H&H, got no replies. Saddles Direct said they can't take them as they/ I can't tell how old they are.

I've already spent £6 listing these on eBay, if I relist and they don't sell I'll have to pay even more - which is pointless when I'm desperate for the money!

I'm not impressed with saddles direct....they wouldn't take my collegiate mentor dressage saddle either...even though its virtually brand new.

got to say, I spent a fortune on fee's trying to sell a brand new equetech hacking jacket worth £130 for £50 (relisted it about 8 times)!!! finding ebay terrible at the moment.

What about asking a saddler/saddle fitter if they can buy them off you?
 
how about countrywide? The ones around here have second hand tack in. Would any of your local tack shops sell them on your behalf or buy them from you? Or you could put up an ad in those places too?
 
Saddles can sell really well on ebay but they need to be a desirable brand and the advertising needs to be good. Well worded, excellent pictures, telling the buyer everything they want to know, Good P&P price etc.

I've sold an Ideal Jessica for £600, a WOW for £750, a Heather Moffat Barry Swain for £650, a Wintec for £250, a couple of Saddle Company saddles for £250-400 and a black country for £350. So it's doable BUT they are all well known brands. Which is the reason I buy them in the first place - most have come from ebay, been used on intermittant horses for a while then resold later for ususually more than I paid.
 
Ive got about 4 saddls to sell at the moment and was going to put them on ebay over the weekend but i doubt they'll sell even though they are all in excellent condition.
Ones a sue carson and i was told they are quite popular but we'l see.
Best of luck in selling yours. :-)
 
Something like sue carson will sell but you need GOOD pictures. Noone ever buys without pictures.

however you won't get anything near what you paid for it (if it was new, or even from s saddler). People buy from ebay because it's a bargin and if it doesn't fit they can resell without loosing too much money. So set a reaslistic price.
 
i have only had one experience of ebay-friend did it for me on her account which ussually sells baby stuff-
it was a high withered synthetic 16.5 saddle-sold for £150 (asking price) it was immaculate, and sold within 2 days- i was gobsmacked x
 
Something like sue carson will sell but you need GOOD pictures. Noone ever buys without pictures.

however you won't get anything near what you paid for it (if it was new, or even from s saddler). People buy from ebay because it's a bargin and if it doesn't fit they can resell without loosing too much money. So set a reaslistic price.


I sold my Sue Carson on ebay about 6 months ago. 18 months old, jumping saddle. Only used for jumping, as new condition. Dad is a pro photographer so I put up 6 pictures, all from different angles etc. Good description, linking to the Sue Carson website. I had 1 bid at the reserve price, so it ended up selling for £550. It had cost £1800 18 months before!!!!! I wasn't happy, but at least I got rid of that blooming awful saddle!!!!!!

Now just the Wow to get rid of.............................!!!!!
 
I recently sold a jeffries saddle on there................luckily i got £310 for it....however ebay took £30 final value and paypal took £12 in fees!!!!

Id try local adds or saddles direct costs less lol!
 
i agree with the others- only named brands will sell well on eBay.

i have just sold 3 saddles and they all made £600+ each; i had detailed descriptions, lots of photos and posted 2 of them abroad which adds a whole new load of bidders (only cost £20 to ship to Germany and about £25 to Denmark).

i have also thrown out a few really old saddles as they just aren't worth the hassle- probably worth £50-60 each but no-one was going to bid so i put them in the bin.
 
I sold a Thorowgood on Ebay for around £150 which i was quite happy with. Think it is important to have a photo of the girth straps and to state how long you have used the saddle, how frequently and reason for sale. Mine was a genuine sale as the saddle was in excellent condition but i no longer have the horse it fits, the person that bought it was delighted and i was pleased to get rid of a saddle that was just cluttering me up.
Could also put on preloved?
 
I've tried selling saddles through my local paper, and via tack shops (who invariably take 20-30% of the sale price) and still, the saddles haven't sold.

I've bought and sold several saddles off eBay when looking for ones for my youngster. They've mostly been unbranded, or not well known makes and I've managed to resell them for the same or more than I bought them for.

Maybe it's just the economy, the reason for them not selling?

Not what you want to hear I know, but I still think eBay is the best and cheapest for shifting unwanted stuff.
 
I sold my Sue Carson on ebay about 6 months ago. 18 months old, jumping saddle. Only used for jumping, as new condition. Dad is a pro photographer so I put up 6 pictures, all from different angles etc. Good description, linking to the Sue Carson website. I had 1 bid at the reserve price, so it ended up selling for £550. It had cost £1800 18 months before!!!!! I wasn't happy, but at least I got rid of that blooming awful saddle!!!!!!

£550 is an ok price for a second hand saddle. You will never sell it for even near what you paid for it new from a saddler, over the internet - the depreciation on saddles is even more than cars! Especially as no saddle is worth £1800, even new :eek: Don't care what brand it is - no saddle is worth that kind of money. They don't cost even a fraction of that to make so it's all abouth the brand name.
 
you could try preloved. my friend has some tack up for sale on there. its free or you can pay £5 for a year if you want extra membership options. on there you can set the price you want and keep updating your ad so it goes to the top.
 
I've bought a few saddles from Ebay. Obviously the size is all important, generally MW or Wide saddles are well sought after and not many people have narrow horses. There are hundreds of mediums on there, so your competition is greater. I buy named saddles and I don't consider anything with a starting price over £200 unless it's an Albion SLK 18" wide for under £500! Anyone? ;)

Another thing I've never got my head round is the D to D measurement. D rings are set all over the place on different makes so how can you know that it'd fit? But most people want it so they must know more than me...
 
to be honest, as a regular buyer & seller on ebay ( have bought 2 saddles, one very recently - an unknown brand of saddle, real leather, quite worn but no matter as it was for my youngster and he'll probably grow out of it anyway for £45 and a very good condition wintec with cair for £72...i only managed to get it so cheap as it ended at 3am and the woman would only accept cheques). i think the reason your saddles are not selling is because you are putting a reserve price on them. items with reserve prices, i've noticed, don't get half as much attention as other items that don't have reserves. that's simply because buyers don't know what the reserve is - i know that i think, there's no point in bidding on that if it has a reserve, what if the starting price is 99p, but the seller could have put reserve on at £200?
plus, people don't want to spend money these days. but i think the problem here is to do with the reserve price. i think it's unfair to say that saddles without a make are worthless, yes they're worth less than something like a jeffries, wintec, thoroughgood etc, but not entirely - for people like me, who have 6 horses therefore need to kit them all out...i don't care what the saddle's make is, as long as it fits fine, looks okay and is comfortable then i'm happy.
 
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