Post the Worst "For Sale" Picture You've Seen.

[Bleemus]

Originally Posted by denverd0n

Okay, this is not a picture. Just a complaint about a TOTALLY STUPID website for selling boats! Which one? Popyachts.com

Seriously. These people will not let you look at the boats for sale unless you register. WHAT!!??!! Could they BE any more stupid!?!

Let's do a quick mental exercise. How long would Walmart have stayed in business if, when he opened the first one, Sam Walton had stood at the door with a clip-board and told potential customers, "You can't come inside to look around until after you register"?

That's right. Not darned long at all! Probably wouldn't have finished that first day! I mean, for God's sake! Even "membership" stores like Sam's Club, Costco, and the like will let you come in and look around, check prices, see what they have, before they force you to sign up.

Okay, rant over. I feel better now. [emoji2]

Nearly every boat from PopYachts is available on some other site. They just take advantage of the fact that most boats are open listings. I met a PopYachts broker at a boat and he wascthe most clueless person I ever met. Tried to tell me the Yanmar ran on gas. Lol.

[Therapy]

Originally Posted by denverd0n

Okay, this is not a picture. Just a complaint about a TOTALLY STUPID website for selling boats! Which one? Popyachts.com

Seriously. These people will not let you look at the boats for sale unless you register. WHAT!!??!! Could they BE any more stupid!?!

Let's do a quick mental exercise. How long would Walmart have stayed in business if, when he opened the first one, Sam Walton had stood at the door with a clip-board and told potential customers, "You can't come inside to look around until after you register"?

That's right. Not darned long at all! Probably wouldn't have finished that first day! I mean, for God's sake! Even "membership" stores like Sam's Club, Costco, and the like will let you come in and look around, check prices, see what they have, before they force you to sign up.

Okay, rant over. I feel better now.

And yet, multitudes (millions, Billions?) click on "AGREE" every day.
Why not?
I admit sailors are less likely to click "AGREE" than the general population.

[Three Sisters]

Originally Posted by Bleemus

Nearly every boat from PopYachts is available on some other site. They just take advantage of the fact that most boats are open listings. I met a PopYachts broker at a boat and he wascthe most clueless person I ever met. Tried to tell me the Yanmar ran on gas. Lol.

Enquired once to the website to ask the draft of a listed sailboat. I mean what a silly question, right ? Sailboat draft. All I got back from them was a continuous stream of emails advertising other listings...until their email address was blocked.

[TooCoys]

Originally Posted by Three Sisters

Enquired once to the website to ask the draft of a listed sailboat. I mean what a silly question, right ? Sailboat draft. All I got back from them was a continuous stream of emails advertising other listings...until their email address was blocked.

I've had that happen with more than one company!

[TooCoys]

Originally Posted by Bleemus

Nearly every boat from PopYachts is available on some other site. They just take advantage of the fact that most boats are open listings. I met a PopYachts broker at a boat and he wascthe most clueless person I ever met. Tried to tell me the Yanmar ran on gas. Lol.

They scalp open listing and craigslist ad's, add 5% to the sales price, and prey on the uninformed buyer.

[denverd0n]

Originally Posted by Therapy

I admit sailors are less likely to click "AGREE" than the general population.

I don't know if they are or not, but -- except for maybe a few remarkably rare exceptions -- it is an incredibly STUPID business model to require a potential customer to register before you will allow them to find out what exactly you are selling.

That is, unless the only "business" you are really interested in is collecting registrations. And maybe that's it. Maybe popyachts doesn't really care about selling boats. Maybe all they are interested in is collecting e-mail addresses so that they can sell them to other companies. Maybe their entire business plan is "be the best click-bait site in the world."

In any case, I will never visit their site again. That's for sure.

[Therapy]

Originally Posted by denverd0n

I don't know if they are or not, but -- except for maybe a few remarkably rare exceptions -- it is an incredibly STUPID business model to require a potential customer to register before you will allow them to find out what exactly you are selling.

That is, unless the only "business" you are really interested in is collecting registrations. And maybe that's it. Maybe popyachts doesn't really care about selling boats. Maybe all they are interested in is collecting e-mail addresses so that they can sell them to other companies. Maybe their entire business plan is "be the best click-bait site in the world."

In any case, I will never visit their site again. That's for sure.

BINGO!

[mogulskibum]

Every now and then I come across a site that requires "registration" before letting me see what I want to see.

Name: Joe Blow
Email: joeblow@123.com
Phone: 123-456-7890
Street Name & Number: 123 Main St
City: Anywhere
Country: Mars

That works about 98% of the time...


Occasionally they want to "verify" your email address. Then I have to decide if I want to spend an additional 5 minutes quickly setting up a free throwaway email address with google or yahoo or whoever. joeblow837402@whatever works fine. After the one use, I'll never use the email address again, so I don't care if they sell it...

[denverd0n]

Again, not really a "worst" picture, but a pet peeve that I see in WAAAAY to many ads...



How does showing me your cutesy-pie sign help me decide if this is the boat for me? And if you don't intend to include the sign in the sale, then don't feature it in your ad! I put this in the same category as the pictures I see of the dog, the cat, the kids, the fish you caught, or the wife (seriously? are you selling her too?).

[TooCoys]

Blow up doll anyone?

[Seeking Solace]

Originally Posted by TooCoys

Blow up doll anyone?
Attachment 147827

Doll does not convey.... Lol

[MartinAdelaide]

I have to say, having bought a boat earlier this year, that the most common problem was far too FEW pictures. I just went to Gumtree (Australian site) and found an ad for a timber sloop and there are just two photos, one from behind and another of the boat on the slip. Incidentally, this happens to be at my boat club.

[44'cruisingcat]

Originally Posted by TooCoys

Blow up doll anyone?
Attachment 147827

Could be quite the selling point!

[wyb2]

Originally Posted by mogulskibum

Every now and then I come across a site that requires "registration" before letting me see what I want to see.

Name: Joe Blow
Email: joeblow@123.com
Phone: 123-456-7890
Street Name & Number: 123 Main St
City: Anywhere
Country: Mars

That works about 98% of the time...


Occasionally they want to "verify" your email address. Then I have to decide if I want to spend an additional 5 minutes quickly setting up a free throwaway email address with google or yahoo or whoever. joeblow837402@whatever works fine. After the one use, I'll never use the email address again, so I don't care if they sell it...

Don't have to set up a new gmail or yahoo account each time or remember a password to a "junk" address, just google "temporary email". They create a real address with a functional inbox that you can use for a set amount of time (10 min, 1 hr, whatever), then delete it forever.

[denverd0n]

Yet another pet peeve, that is only sort of a "worst picture" (have you figured out yet that I have a lot of these pets?). When they use stock photos from an advertisement, instead of a real picture of the boat that is being sold. This basically says to me...

"If you saw what the boat really looks like you would never waste your time calling. So I'm going to use a photo I found on the internet (oh, by the way, I'm probably violating copyrights by doing this), and hope that you are stupid enough to think that the boat still looks that good."