If only there were one central site for boat sales

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PCUK

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With so many boat sales websites it takes ages to trawl through them all. It would be very nice if there were one central site that listed everyone elses lists and also had a facility for including boats wanted in part exchange. A dedicated central boats wanted site would also be a valuable asset.
When looking for an apparently rare specific boat it is even more disheartening trying to find it on all the sites.
 
I havent looked for a while, but Rightboat was looking as though it was heading in that direction.
But somewhere along the line, people want to get paid...would you pay to access such a site?
 
My company makes price comparison sites and it would be relatively easy to set a site up that trawls sites selling boats and attracts affiliate business.

The problem is making it pay, because i suspect even if it actually started selling boats, I doubt the myriad of brokers would be willing to share any revenue. I expect the boat listing sites would be more amenable as they already embrace the interweb.

But another problem would be the poor descriptions many boats are listed under.

Then there is the potential revenue. Price comparison sites make a small amount of money from a large number of transactions and that would not happen with boats. After all, how many boats are sold everyday in the UK? When you look at a price comparison site listing, say, kitchen equipment, they channel thousands of sales a week.
 
OK Tom, Although this might contravene the Forum Wanted rules.

Beneteau Ombrine 801 with 230 diesel.
Ideally part exchange for my 12 metre semi-D steel/aluminium Flybridge, valued around £90,000

This will be interesting!!!!
 
Nothing particularly difficult about finding a good selection of boats for sale - Yachtworld.com is pretty comprehensive start. Big difficulty will be Part Exchange. Remember most boats are offered for sale by individual owners so the chances of finding an individual who is willing to consider part exchange for your particular boat is close to zero.

The few dealers there are who buy and sell boats rarely deal in high value boats and equally don't like P/Ex as they could swap one difficult to sell boat for another! More likely against a new boat where either they want to shift stock or they have time to sell P/Ex while waiting delivery of new boat.
 
PCUK said:
OK Tom, Although this might contravene the Forum Wanted rules.

Beneteau Ombrine 801 with 230 diesel.
Ideally part exchange for my 12 metre semi-D steel/aluminium Flybridge, valued around £90,000

This will be interesting!!!!
Click to expand...

I have always thought the Ombrine 801 a really well thought out boat with some nice detail touches.... But when I was half heartedly looking for one last year I couldn't find a broker who had even heard of them...I did find one eventually at £39995 I think it was an 02 or 03 boat... but funds were slow to arise my end so it sold before could do anything about it.. Good luck
 
Thanks Firefly,
Thanks also Pendana but I've seen that one and the only other possibility - an 800 and these are the only two currently listed in the UK
Yachtworld and YBW are just two of the ten different sites I have to check to see whether any new listings have appeared, which illustrates how problematic finding a particular boat can be.
 
" one central site"
isn't that the wet dream of any portal site owner in any business ?

yes there is one,
its called "google"


on a more serious note:

"Google" your preferred boat name / type every now and then, You will soon discover if there is another one available somewhere...

good luck :)
 
I don't know Peter,
some IT wizard on here might now,
I remember long ago, when searching for a certain (not very common) boat that not many "new" links came up in google,
and many links pointed to the same add or article...
So I understand what you mean.
 
If only there were one central site for boat sales

That would be a monopoly with no competition. The model for price comparision sites wouldn't work well with boats, as such sites are geared to mass market commodity items with a simple proposition. Boats are low volumn, high value, highly specialised functional propositions and never sell at advertised prices. To a degree this is going on anyway, you'll see the same brokerage boat on many different sites.
 
Use Google Alerts (google this to find out how to work it). This will send you an e-mail to your inbox when whatever you are looking for has been put on the web. So if an advert for the type of boat that you are looking for is put on the Web then you will know about it. It works very well.
 
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