Sailboat Listings: time for a change?

[Capn Jimbo]

SBL has been around quite a while, and offered much value to those who are lookers, buyers and sellers. But over time it seems that many if not most of those listing are very, very old (I've seen listings back to 2012!) and more than likely sold or not on the market.

This creates a real problem. For example I found about 50 boats of personal interest in Florida. I took considerable time to email each of them with the expectation that most of them would quickly respond to a serious cash buyer. So how many did?

Five. Yup, you read that right. Just five - a terrible return, and trust me, my email showed serious interest and my readiness to buy - cash - and right now. In addition I received two responses from the sellers who stated their boats had long been sold, but that they'd had no luck in taking their listing down.

SBL seems not to care, as their focus is on their paid (featured) listings, not the many free ones they promote. A 60 day listing is $25, plus $10 per photo if you don't have a scanner. Sellers can also list, modify or delete a free ad, as long as they use their own ID and password. Lose the password, and now you have to fill out an online form, identifying your now sold or old listing and the email you used to post it.


Therein lies the problem

Apparently many free listing sellers don't bother to remove their listings. Example: of the 492 listings I found for my criterion in Florida - 4 long pages worth - less than half the first page were what I considered current (listed in the last few months). It would be safe to say that 75% of the listing were questionable. The last page had listings as far back as 2012.

And SBL is not all that anxious to remove these. If the seller fails to delete the ad, it apparently stays - confusing buyers - for years. And even if a forgetful seller follows their instructions and submits a request to delete, SBL warns:

"If you forget your username or password, you will need to use the support form below to request existing ads be deleted, or for your password to be manully reset (providing you have access to the contact email listed on the ad), and this will be done as time allows. It may take some time to reset your password for you, so please remember your username and password. We will not be able to modify free ads for you."

Apparently removing ads "as time allows" may mean years? Maybe so. Now while this may well punish the forgetful seller (who will continue to get contacted), what SBL forgets are the many potential buyers who must wade through multiple pages of older, old and VERY old ads and simply guessing which are on still on the market.


Who has time for that?

Not me, nor most of us methinks. When after hours of emailing I got but 5 responses out of 50 emails, I learned my lesson. When I mail an ad on the other big selling sites, I am far more likely to hear back. Look. It's time that SBL bring their site up to date, and get rid of old listings, whether that requires providing an easier way for sellers to delete, providing automatic deletion after say 60 days, or the like.

There is really no excuse for listings back to 2012, and where most of them are old enough (6 months to 5 years) that they are questionable. The horrible truth is that there may be an older listing that still IS for sale. A lose/lose situation for all concerned.

As for me, I hate to say it but I've learned to look elsewhere first, and only go to SBL to pick up perhaps the 10 or 20% of the ads that seem newer. Too bad. SBL, please - you've had a great site - fix it - please!

[snort]

I'm not currently in the market to buy a boat, so I use sailboatlistings as a resource to look at how I can modify my sailboat, based on photos of similar model boats as my own.
Yes, they never (or almost never) remove anything that's ever gone up on their website.

[denverd0n]

Same here. I quit looking at sailboatlistings.com when it became obvious that the majority of the listings were completely obsolete, but just never got removed. Frankly, I'm surprised you got a 10% return on your e-mails. I would have expected no more than 1 or 2 to respond.

[brownoarsman]

I liked SBL to check listing prices of similar boats. Particularly useful when you're shopping in the low end of the market and can show it to a seller.

[Steadman Uhlich]

I like sailboat listings, and the fact that the old ads are still there, even after a few years. It helps me do my research. So, I find it valuable to see the past listings, especially when looking for uncommon boats.

As for the cost?
Frankly, that does not bother me either. IF I were selling a boat, as a FSBO, the small fee for photos and a "Featured" listing is insignificant in the big scheme of things.

That's how I see it. YMMV. Obviously.

[thomm225]

Originally Posted by Capn Jimbo

SBL has been around quite a while, and offered much value to those who are lookers, buyers and sellers. But over time it seems that many if not most of those listing are very, very old (I've seen listings back to 2012!) and more than likely sold or not on the market.

You have to look at the bottom of the AD for the boat you like. It shows just before the photos when it was posted.

That's what I go by when interested in a boat on there.

As for as posts not getting deleted, it's sort of an old system and the delete ad button doesn't jump right out at you. You have to search a bit as I remember......

Also, it would be quite the job for a single person to go through all the listings of all states etc and contact each one to see if they still wanted their ad posted

[SV Bacchus]

Early in my search I contacted 3 different sellers and was told, all three times, I sold that boat a couple of years ago.

I quit using Sailboat Listings and have never been back!

[Capn Jimbo]

Originally Posted by thomm225

You have to look at the bottom of the AD for the boat you like. It shows just before the photos when it was posted... Also, it would be quite the job for a single person to go through all the listings of all states etc and contact each one to see if they still wanted their ad posted

Yes, they do show the date of listing for each ad; however that alone isn't a whole lot of help. A newly listed boat may sell in a week and will not be available, while an older listing may still be for sale. Frankly, all SBL has to do is to allow all listings to automatically expire and be deleted after say 30 days - unless the seller renews it for another 30 days before expiration.

Problem solved, easy peasy. As it is now, SBL works for neither buyer or seller. What a shame.

[thomm225]

Originally Posted by Capn Jimbo

Yes, they do show the date of listing for each ad; however that alone isn't a whole lot of help. A newly listed boat may sell in a week and will not be available, while an older listing may still be for sale. Frankly, all SBL has to do is to allow all listings to automatically expire and be deleted after say 30 days - unless the seller renews it for another 30 days before expiration.

Problem solved, easy peasy. As it is now, SBL works for neither buyer or seller. What a shame.

Well, as you can see, lots of us still enjoy it for many different reasons.

You just have to learn how to make the best of what it offers.

If I hear about a boat for sale someplace then see that the photos aren't that great and don't show the boat properly, I'll go to SBL and check out the old listings for the pictures of the same type boat

I had my boat for sale on there for maybe two years, but after talking many potential buyers out of buying it, I decided to remove the ad

[RokNRich]

Make a better mousetrap.

[siamese]

I used SBL to sell my Catalina 309. Nice site to list on, and it will accept dozens of pictures. But for buying a boat, not so great, for the reason already stated. Stale ads.

I forgot my password when my boat sold, and discovered how difficult it was to delete my ad. I left it up for months, but finally managed to go back in and delete the ad.

Yes, it would be easy for them to make the ads self cancel after six months or so, but I'm going to guess that they like to have it appear as if they have many more ads than they actually do.

[jeffgraf]

Time for change indeed! I think they will see more and more competition as it becomes easier to set up online marketplaces (e.g., baloolist who just launched). Would be great to have also additional services such as price comparison, reviews, templates and escrow services.

[captd44]

Guess I am one of the few that had a great experience. I have watched ths site for over a year, made one call and purchased the boat! The seller removed the ad a couple of days later.

[SC28]

As someone who has recently both sold and purchased a boat, I personally love sailboatlistings.com

One advantage is that unlike yachtworld, you don't need to have a broker to list your boat. Not hiring a broker to sell my boat saved me over $2000 and ultimately allowed me to give the guy who bought it a better deal. Secondly, if you're looking for something low cost like a new dinghy or a cheap lake trailer sailer, then sailboatlistings free ads makes it possible. Nobody wants to pay money to list a sub $1000 boat.

As a purchaser, I enjoyed browsing through the listings every few days. In the browse section they list them in ascending order from when they were published and I can see everything that his been put up in just a few minutes. If I were to email on a boat that had been listed a while, I would simply shoot them a quick "boat still available" email with my number to call me if they were interested. My personal experience was that most of the people who had a listed ad up still had the boat and wanted to talk.

Sorry you had such a bad experience, but I like it just the way it is!

[Matt Johnson]

I stop looking at that site due to the extremely poor listing quality of the average post. 5 photos.... 4 of which show the "feature", a few sentence description, and the words "too much to list" in just about every ad. Seems the average sailboater is not much of a salesman.

Matt