Horse sales - is there any polite/effective way to ward off tire kickers?

[Scribbler]

I’ve never sold a horse but I have sold household goods on local forums and more recently giveaways on a Buy Nothing FB. Of course much less pressure and $$.

But I’d agree that I don’t give an address and I don’t think about the appointment until the buyer has said a date and time. Then I message the morning of to say “see you at xx pm! Let me know if you’re delayed!”

If the person was more than 15 minutes late I’d message to ask if they were having problems finding the house, etc.

From a shopper’s perspective it’s very easy to get quickly overwhelmed with options for anything, and to get confused over what phone number goes with what price and what item. For any purchase. As a shopper I do like to message following the CL format of “I’m inquiring about Thing X Descriptor at $xxx.” Your 2014 white long box crew cab F150 for sale in Surrey for $10,000. That puts the item and price at the top of the message interaction, and lets the seller correct any errors. Also helps if seller has more than one thing for sale concurrently.

[beowulf]

Jumping on the gripe wagon for a second to make a general comment about the theme of sellers complaining about buyers on social media:

If you (a seller) are finding people routinely pass on your horse, take a very close look at your product. Is it really what you are advertising it as?

I see grievances about buyers posted on the regular, especially from one well known reseller. The first few times, out of curiosity, I read the (very long winded rant) post in full and then looked at the video of the acclaimed maligned horse. The seller used language like the horse being sound sound sound, amateur friendly, honest, and that buyers are sleeping on him and she is so tired of buyers only wanting the flashy big ones, and that this horse can go and do the job they want the next day, etc…

But it only took me watching the video for 10s to see an unsound, barely restarted horse who was bracing heavily against the hands of a rider who is very good at disguising a lack of training, for me to understand why so many buyers had ‘wasted’ this seller’s time.

Personally I get more aggravated with the sellers than buyers. They use language that is borderline deceitful and the horse is rarely – if ever – 100% as advertised.

[endlessclimb]

I wish I could like this post again and again. “Sound” means drastically different things to a seller, and a buyer… so it seems.

[Impractical_Horsewoman]

I just hate it when people refuse to email or text, because I want something to refer to if they don’t show up (and also to confirm for my own records). I have one handyman whom I like who just uses a flip phone, and though I use him because he’s a lovely man and does excellent work at a very reasonable price, there’s always an element of “what time did we agree to” because lots of people are very vague over the phone. Giving good phone messages is a skill, and few people have it anymore. I’ve worked as a receptionist, pre-smartphones, so I know!

[Spudsmyguy]

What I’ve found, when people are unwilling to pick up a phone and call, they’ll text one question, it get’s answered, then they text one other question, it gets answered. Instead of calling and having all their questions answered at once, they’ll do this piecemeal thing and it gets really annoying, really fast. The art of actually talking to someone on the phone seems to have gone the way of the dodo bird.

I went to look at a early teenage TB mare that was a solid citizen and the picture showed her cantering around 3’ jumps. What I found was an underweight, out of condition, lame, with horrendous feet mare that may or may not have been pregnant. Same with another horse, picture showed a beautiful chestnut mare with shiny coat, dapples, doing trails. In reality a severely malnourished horse that was questionable about soundness. I came close to calling the Humane Society on this owner, all the horses were underfed and came to the fence looking for food when we arrived.

[MadTrotter]

Just for perspective, as you’ve @‘d me as evidence of some defense of wasting sellers’ time…I’ve spent more time reading this thread than I ever have communicating with sellers of horses I didn’t end up buying /shrug

On edit: the #1 reason I message sellers is because there is no price. Not even a “low-mid “ Maybe I would buy this horse at $15 but not at $25k. It’s a sales tactic, it’s been over a year since anyone ever had a horse sales ad taken down from Facebook. If you don’t post the price, and you keep asking for people to PM you, don’t complain about having to, yanno, answer the PMs.

[Paint_Party]

@beowulf

If you (a seller) are finding people routinely pass on your horse, take a very close look at your product. Is it really what you are advertising it as?

Ooh boy, this could be its own entire thread topic.

I know of two horses right now that are attractive, sound, sane and have quite a bit of professional training on them but neither are selling. Both sellers have sent out multiple videos, but ultimately no one ends up committing to see the horse or have it vetted. To me, it’s obvious why: the descriptions in the ads are, shall we say, a bit misleading. It’s like I read the ads and wonder, “What horse is this supposed to be?”

Anyone with knowledge and a keen eye above novice level can watch the videos and determine that the horse they’re watching is not embodying the glorious traits described.

[luckycricket123]

Can I just say that as someone who is selling horses on Facebook right this second, many groups still have rules in place that block you from using any sort of sales language. And for people like me who are copy/pasting the same ad between group, leaving the pricing language vague is the only way to do it.

That said, as I said above I linked to an external site with the price and still had half a dozen people pm me asking for price

[luckycricket123]

But also to be clear, I don’t mind people commenting or PMing for price. It literally takes 2 seconds and 0 brainpower to respond.

That said, I do think it’s rude to ask for new videos, vet history or more background than was included in my detailed ad if you have no intention of buying the horse.

[SusanO]

I have a question about sending out videos - Why don’t you just put them on you-tube? Then provide a link. The prospective buyer can look at them at any time. Short ones, long ones, riding, free movement. Or is it too hard or expensive? It seems like that would free up a lot of your time to deal with actual prospective buyers.

[trubandloki]

@SusanO, I think what people are commenting on are not that sending a video or pointing out an existing video is hard, but responding to people who ask for a specific video (all while not really horse shopping, they just want pretty horsey videos). So the seller might have several perfectly fine videos available but the buyer wants to see a video of Dobbin being caught in the field, led into the barn and groomed, including hoof picking.

[beowulf]

My IMMEDIATE assumption in this day and age where anyone can take a video on their phone is that if a sales post does not have a video included, the horse is not sound or as advertised (usually not as nice a mover as language suggests).

[endlessclimb]

General pondering - when a sales agent/reseller says a horse is sound when they are not - can they see it, or are they being dishonest and hoping the person to buy the horse isn’t experienced enough to see it?

I think it can be either, but most likely the latter.

[beowulf]

For the most part, I think sellers believe themselves when they say the horse is sound. There is also what you said above - their definition of sound is totally different than others.

Everyone has a different metric for soundness and what threshold they will tolerate for unsoundness. Detecting lameness is a genuine skill that can take years to develop because it is, IMO, an experience-based skill with a side of analyst. It is about so much more than just the way the legs behave. Watching every piece of the horse in motion and critically analyzing the range of motion and how it compares to complementary parts of the body is difficult - and it also requires, to a certain extent, a natural “eye” that is very similar to that elusive “feel” under saddle. Some of us are born having it. Others have to chip away every day to be able to confidently see or feel it. Not only “seeing”, you need to know what that thing you saw means. A horse that does not have full range of motion in its knee is not always hurting in the knee. Sometimes they’re protecting sore heels, sometimes they are protecting their elbow, sometimes it is the result of an old DFFT injury and loss of elasticity in the limb. The place of unsoundness is not always the source of unsoundness, to the frustration of many vets and horsepeople everywhere.

Look for the lack of harmony in the body - it is sometimes the easiest way to detect a subtle lameness.

There are amateurs out there who have amazing feel and trainers who couldn’t feel their way out of a burlap sack - and it’s the same for the eye for soundness. There are horse people who have a natural eye for unsoundness and vets who need the horse to be a 3/5 before they can detect the lameness. The older I get the more I realize there are more vets out there who do not have a natural eye than vets that possess it. It’s the same for every day horse owners and trainers too.

I have been accused on this BB of thinking “every horse is unsound”. While the remark was meant to antagonize me, the poster wasn’t wrong. Most horses I see are not 100% comfortable in their own bodies, therefore, are not 100% sound - including my own. There is a grey area there, a swath of “servicably sound” horses. That horse with KS that is ridable is servicaby sound. The horse with navicular that needs coffin injections yearly is servicably sound. Etc, etc.Sellers should use this language instead, my honest opinion.

[Ghazzu]

@endlessclimb

General pondering - when a sales agent/reseller says a horse is sound when they are not - can they see it, or are they being dishonest and hoping the person to buy the horse isn’t experienced enough to see it?

I think it can be either, but most likely the latter.

I suspect you’re right.
More than once I’ve commented to somebody w/ a lame horse, only to be told, “He always moves like that.”
They’re usually surprised when my response is “Then he’s always lame.”

[Ghazzu]

@beowulf

Detecting lameness is a genuine skill that can take years to develop because it is, IMO, an experience-based skill with a side of analyst.

I emphatically agree.
I consider myself merely average in the area of lameness evaluations.
OTOH, I have a friend who is an experienced horsewoman and large animal tech who is amazingly good at seeing subtle lamnesses.

[Pico_Banana]

I haven’t read through all of the responses, but I have seen one seller expressly state “Please call at xxx-xxx-xxxx if you are interested. PMs and texts will not be responded to.” I think that’s a good approach. In this day and age, picking up the phone is a big deal and shows a level of seriousness well beyond text or pm.

[anon40672407]

@luckycricket123

Of course most of those people never end up coming, so maybe I should just do my business and if they want to come when I’m busy, then just push them back or up an hour or two?

Yep. Go on with your life.

You might make the initial scheduling sound trickier than it is. “I can show him on Saturday between 11 and 11:30, if you can make it then.” That might subconsciously raise the bar for some people. I don’t know.

Or just put in your ad: “Available for viewing Tuesday 1pm, Thursday 6 pm” and be done with it.

[anon40672407]

@endlessclimb

General pondering - when a sales agent/reseller says a horse is sound when they are not - can they see it, or are they being dishonest and hoping the person to buy the horse isn’t experienced enough to see it?

I’ve been astonished by the # of “professional” horse people who apparently can’t see it/hear it/feel it. And I am NOT a particularly “feeling” rider. It may be that some have to work with a string of school ponies come hell or high water, so “sound” to them means “sound enough”. I’m not sure.

[Spudsmyguy]

I have to admit that I’m pretty good at detecting lameness; once I saw a lameness that the vet didn’t see at first until I pointed it out and which foot it was on when he tried to block the wrong foot for analysis.