We sell this equipment, so read this knowing that. Here are the actual reasons, and you can judge them.
The rail was cut for a different staircase
This is the one that catches most people. A straight rail is cut to length for the flight it was fitted to. It can be shortened and it cannot be lengthened.
So a used lift from a marketplace listing very likely does not fit your stairs, and the only part that transfers cleanly is the carriage and seat.
A curved rail is worse: it was manufactured for one specific staircase, with its exact turns. It will not fit yours, and the rail is most of the cost.
Licensed installation, where it applies
Several states regulate stairlifts, platform lifts and elevators, requiring licensed installation and an inspection. In those states a self-install is not a legal shortcut regardless of where the equipment came from.
Others require nothing at all for a stairlift in a private home. Our state pages set out which is which, because it genuinely changes the answer.
Warranty and parts
Bruno and Harmar both sell through authorized dealers. Equipment bought outside that channel frequently arrives without a transferable warranty, and parts can be harder to obtain for a unit with no dealer history.
Ask any online seller two questions: who honors the warranty, and who comes out. A warranty from a company that does not service what it sells is a piece of paper.
What a self-install actually involves
Not the drilling. The parts people underestimate are setting the rail angle to the pitch of the stairs, commissioning the travel limits at both ends, testing the obstruction sensors rather than assuming them, and verifying the whole thing under load.
Those are the safety systems. A lift that travels and stops is not the same as a lift that stops when it should.
The honest cases where buying used makes sense
It does happen. A straight lift, on a supported platform, where the rail is longer than your flight so it can be shortened, fitted by somebody who knows the platform.
That is a narrower set of conditions than most listings meet.
If you have already bought one
Tell us the make, model and rail length, and we will tell you honestly whether it can be made to work. Sometimes it can. Our service team takes that call regularly and we would rather fit it than have it sit in a garage.
What we would buy online without hesitating
Rollators, walkers, transport chairs, shower seats, transfer benches, threshold ramps, non-slip matting. None of it is cut to fit a house, none of it needs commissioning, and it all ships free from our online shop.
The line is simple: if it has to be fitted to your building and tested under load, buy it from somebody who will come and do that.
What about the very cheap new ones
There are imported units sold online at prices well below the established manufacturers. Some are perfectly adequate machines. The question is not the metal, it is what happens in year three.
Ask: who stocks parts for this in the United States, who services it, and what happens if the importer stops trading? If nobody can answer, you have bought a machine with a service life limited by somebody else’s business decisions.
Shipping damage
A rail is long, heavy and easily bent in transit, and a bent rail is not repairable in any practical sense. Freight damage on this equipment is common enough to be worth knowing about before ordering something that arrives on a pallet.
What we will and will not do
We will service equipment we did not sell, including from manufacturers we do not carry, where parts can still be obtained. We will tell you honestly when a platform cannot be supported rather than taking the call-out fee and discovering it at your house.
Our service page covers what we can pick up.
Where online genuinely wins
Anything that is not fitted to the building. Rollators, transport chairs, shower seats, transfer benches, grab bars you will have fitted, threshold ramps, matting, bed rails.
All of that is standard product, sized by measurement rather than by survey, and ordering it online is sensible. It ships free from our online shop.
The test
Does it have to be cut, fixed, commissioned and tested under load in your house? If yes, buy it from somebody who will come and do that. If no, buy it wherever is cheapest.
That is the whole rule, and it is not a sales argument so much as a description of what the money is for.