What have you found to be the best online sales site to start locating show hunters to buy?
Facebook has been much more fruitful for me this go-round than any one site. For higher end horses, BigEq and The Exchange
Following this thread… I’ve found that a lot of sellers have decided to use Facebook rather than pay for ads on traditional sales sites. While I love browsing through sales ads on my feed on any random day, FB obviously has its limitations; I would much rather be able to go to a traditional site for a number of reasons: 1) search parameters, 2) organized listings where I can scroll through and know I’m not missing something or have a thread from 3 years ago pop up, 3) having all horses in one spot.
I miss the days of Equine.com!
I’ve found that people still use DreamHorse.com , BigEq.com (higher price points), Warmblood-Sales.com (pretty popular in my neck of the woods) and some use EquineNow.com
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Allusion is not wrong about how much FB sucks for this… but it does seem to be where more of the promising leads pop up
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Got my star through Facebook. I know it can be tedious (or worse) at times but there are some nice horses on there. And of course Big Eq and Exchange Hunter Jumper are loaded with horses if you can’t find the right one on Fb.
Em
I found FB is the most useful if you’re having trouble finding what you’re after on sites like BigEq and The Exchange for making ISO adds. When I was horse shopping in May I made an ISO add on a facebook group called Hunter Jumper Horses for Sale which is large and super active with a lot of high quality animals. If you write a specific, detailed post that’s not longer than a short paragraph, you’ll get a lot of great leads. Be specific about size, age, price range, color, gender, location, ability whatever you’ve got and let people come to you. I was inundated with good options doing it that way and people locally showed up on it with horses for me to try since I was trying to avoid traveling too far. I also find putting an actual # on your budget is much more helpful than saying “low 5 figures” because that means different things to a lot of people (is that $15k or $35k?). People who put a # on their adds tend to get more viable options than those who put a whimsical range on it.
You’ll still get plenty of idiots who can’t read or who think your preferences like “must be within the OH/KY/IN area” are flexible enough to include their horses in Houston, TX. Or your size preference for “5’2” rider seeking small horse" means “here’s my 17.2h behemoth you’ll love him” is not a waste of everyone’s time. But mostly it resulted in a lot of good leads.
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I have had the most success on Facebook. When horse shopping it IS a pain in a butt. Having to go through thousands of horses to find something that is even remotely what you are looking for. When selling, you get a LOT of the same questions over and over, even if they are in the ad. And a TON of tirekickers. But for buying I know a lot of horses that are listed on FB sales groups aren’t even ON any of the sites. Sadly, that seems to be the norm at least around here.
If you post “ISO 16.2+ gelding in Texas” I guarantee you the first response will be a 15.1 mare in Alberta. I guarantee 
But yes, ISO ads are not a bad way to get leads. But they will make you worry about whether schools are still teaching students to read based on the responses
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^^^This! As someone who is casually perusing those FB ads daily while my trainer is doing her thing the traditional way, it’s difficult as an amateur on a tight budget to forward potential prospects to her if it’s not even in the ballpark, price-wise. I have no interest in wasting her time, my time or the seller’s time inquiring about one that I won’t be able to make happen.
Also, I see a ton of ads that include a lovely description with promising photos but then say, “Please PM for video”. Maybe there is a specific reason for NOT putting a video directly in the Ad but it’s frustrating for shoppers like me. I’m reluctant to contact a seller on my own since I do have a competent trainer. If i’m going to forward one to her that I like enough to ask her to pursue on my behalf, I’m only going to do that with all the relevant information available in one message to her. It makes no sense for me to send her on a wild goose chase for video of something that may not be at all appropriate for me. Consequently, I just skip those ads that don’t include the video right there in the ad for all to see. That may be something to consider when you post yours.
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I think it’s largely laziness or computer ineptitude.
The worse is that if you have to ask for a video, then you’re in the awkward sport of responding back and saying you don’t like the horse/you’re not interested. If the video was in the ad, you never had to be put in that position in the first place.
I’ve started giving up on ads that don’t say the horse’s age, height, gender, and location. The number of adds missing one of those things is ASTOUNDING. I could write a book.
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I likewise had success in the FB ads - skim the responses to the ISO ads, you will find a lot of options, or post your own ISO ad. But mostly, you just have to keep checking all the sources, because you can’t predict what will be posted where. I regularly checked BigEq, the Exchange, warmblood-sales, dreamhorse, and the FB groups. And even then, the first time it took me 6 months to find a horse, and the second time I found the perfect horse posted in a FB group, an hour down the road from me, and he was standing in my barn less than a week after I tried him!
As far as people putting their budget in a more vague “low five figures” or “lower mid fives” I have always assumed people are concerned about the $20k horse suddenly becoming a $25k horse if you say your budget is $25k. And, there may be flexibility in the prices or the budget so for some people it may be worth sifting through the responses with a less specific number posted.
It drives me insane when people don’t post video. EVERYONE is going to want to see video these days and with iphones there is no excuse for not having any. Some people don’t want to figure out how to post it, but it wastes a lot of time for both sides when it isn’t posted.
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For those worried about inquiring on horses being out of their budget when no price is posted, I don’t think that is a bad thing. I mean I inquired on one that was grossly out of my budget (more than 3x it) but even the seller admitted that a lot of horses with similar experiences were in my budget. I think there after they did include a comment that his price was over $80k. And I think he’s still for sale so I don’t feel too bad.
Em
If it’s laziness, I would think it takes a lot more effort on the part of the seller to respond directly to each individual request for a video thru the PM feature on FB. I’d not chalked it up to laziness at all for that reason. Who wants to respond to 50 individual requests to which you have to repeatedly attach the same video?
My assumption has thus far been that there must be something worth passing on in said videos for it not to be posted publicly. Or, perhaps there is some “unknown to the average amateur buyer” reason for not posting one with the ad, although this seems unlikely given the number of ads that DO offer unsolicited video, good bad or ugly.
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People are so insane I can’t even begin to fathom. About a month ago a professional posts a photo of a horse. That’s it. Just a photo. Says DM for information. About 20 people comment “age, height, location, video.” The seller goes through each one replying “DM sent” instead of just ANSWERING THOSE BASIC QUESTIONS. The thread goes on for days like this. By the end at least 3 dozen people asked for the same information and it never occurred to this PROFESSIONAL to put it in the ad. No, she’d rather send a jillion DMs and then post on the listing “DM sent” than save everyone hassle and put this basic information in the ad itself. This is so inane I really want to find the screen shot to show you because I promise you this exact thing happened.
If you didn’t already hate people, horse shopping on FB would make you.
I think a lot of people are really incredibly lazy. They throw ads up on FB without thinking through things. There’s no “form” that makes you list basic stuff like age, height, breed, location etc. So sellers put up the stuff they think is important but often just omit or forget about really important information.
My suspicion is that a lot of people don’t know how to link to videos on a FB post. Or they’re posting from their phone and the video is on their desktop or something. I don’t get the impression it’s a conscious effort to keep the videos private in most cases. I generally think it’s laziness, ineptitude, or just not thinking to do it.
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YES! Exactly.
Another of my favorite observations is the description that says “Currently showing at 3’” or “Currently showing at 3’6” then they only show a flatting video or video of the horse doing the 2’6" baby greens or modified adults. SMH. People are odd. Or the REALLY, REALLY blurry video that pretty much shows you nothing. Or even the far away video taken from the in-gate rather than from the side, so you really cannot tell much at all.
I could go on all day…some folks need a marketing 101 lesson.
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How about the video rotated on its side, sent in a format so that you can’t rotate it to view it clearly. I HATE PEOPLE 
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I had to share the one I mentioned above because the ad was SO LACKING in information and rather than add that info the seller instead DMed each person individually. It went on like this for DAYS. I covered the seller’s name… but this was public on facebook so I don’t think there’s a whole lot of harm in sharing it. I have no idea if the horse sold. It ended up being wrong age and wrong size for me but of course I had to inquire to find out because neither was in the listing itself
I had to share the one I mentioned above because the ad was SO LACKING in information and rather than add that info the seller instead DMed each person individually. It went on like this for DAYS. I covered the seller’s name… but this was public on facebook so I don’t think there’s a whole lot of harm in sharing it. I have no idea if the horse sold. It ended up being wrong age and wrong size for me but of course I had to inquire to find out because neither was in the listing itself [ATTACH=JSON]{“data-align”:“none”,“data-size”:“thumb”,“data-attachmentid”:10172375}[/ATTACH][ATTACH=JSON]{“data-align”:“none”,“data-size”:“thumb”,“data-attachmentid”:10172376}[/ATTACH][ATTACH=JSON]{“data-align”:“none”,“data-size”:“full”,“data-attachmentid”:10172377}[/ATTACH][ATTACH=JSON]{“data-align”:“none”,“data-size”:“full”,“data-attachmentid”:10172378}[/ATTACH]
I actually think this is something else. Facebook has been sporadic in enforcing the policy of not advertising animals for sale. I gather that once they take a few of your ads down and give you a warning, doing it again can result in you being banned. Some of these people might not be taking the risk anymore after a warning. That is my only explanation for such illogical behavior.
So what is the reason for advertising prices in the mid-whatever figures? So that price can be quoted according to how many commissions end up happening?
