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It wasn’t so long ago that selling a horse involved placing an advert in a well-known equestrian weekly and waiting for phone calls from a plethora of possible purchasers.

A single image, and a few choice words were all that showed potential buyers what you had to sell. Now with the dawn of social and digital media, your equine advert isn’t complete without a variety of images and video, as well as a degree in social media to know where and when to place your advert. In this article we look at the benefits (and pitfalls) of selling your horse online.

Trying to sell your horse online yourself can be hard, but it can be a really effective way of making sure the horse you have to sell gets seen by a lot of people. Video and images allow purchasers to gauge an idea of what is available before making unnecessary enquiries. But with thousands of new horses for sale online every day, it is often worth utilising the huge network a specialist equine sales website can provide. For a fee, many will simply offer the chance to place your advert on their site, or some, like Right Horse Right Home will not only tailor your advert to ensure maximum visibility, but forward your horse’s advert to possible buyers looking to purchase a horse or pony. In doing this they can direct your horse to serious buyers in the correct demographic.

Selling horses online does have its pitfalls. A great video, a smart advert and a horse for sale will ensure you have a huge amount of enquiries, but sadly not all of them will be serious buyers. It is very easy for people to ask for more video, prices and details without ever having the intention of travelling to view a horse, and this can be frustrating not to mention time consuming. And whilst social media channels such as Facebook can be a great way of ‘sharing’ your advert, picking which groups to post your advert to can become confusing and if done incorrectly will leave your advert flat – so know your market and where your horse will be received the best; there’s no point posting your happy hacker to a group aimed at top flight dressage diva’s.

We all love a bit of social media don’t we? If selling your horse on Facebook or other social media sites, you must be prepared for both positive and negative comments. This can be about your horse, your riding or even the video itself. Don’t be tempted to get in to a dialogue with online users, it can be upsetting and damage the credibility of your advert.

A note on video; DON’T spoil your advert with a bad video. Equine video’s have now become a main stay of an online equine advert, giving people the chance to see how a horse moves, what level it is working at and if it’s suitable for the job. Long videos or video’s shot from far away turn off buyers, so keep an equine sales video short and sweet, Walk trot and canter, a jump if it’s a jumping horse and anything else that might be worth seeing for the type of horse you are selling. -. here is a great example of a video for a childs pony:

Bear in mind that many people nowadays will buy a horse from a video so you see how important it can be.  We help many owners who list their horses with us by putting together their videos.  This one of Pebbles here was loved by many when we promoted him and he sold to a super home in just over a week. It is doubtful that without the video he would have gained quite as much interest as he did.

Selling a horse online can be a great experience if done correctly, but it also means you have to be more aware about what is placed on your advert, where to place an equine advert and the media you add to the post. At www.righthorserighthome.co.uk we pride ourselves on being able to effectively help you sell your horse or pony online and take the stress out of doing so. By carefully choosing where your horse will be promoted and forwarding their details to serious buyers we aim to help sell your horse as quickly and effectively as possible.