This weekend we put in a new major category for services. There are so many shops that not only offer parts, but also have services they need to promote. The way this is designed, all service classifieds will show up along with products that match the same keywords. Below I did a search for a Packard Antenna and the results came up with a product for sale and a classified for rebuilding antennas.
We are very excited about implementing this new category for both our buyers and sellers and believe this is a first for a marketplace site to have products and services come up side by side the same search. We also strongly believe that when used correctly will become a strong benefit for our selling members revenue streams.
For non member sellers who want to promote a service they offer, these listings will cost $1.00 and have the same upgrades as a fixed pried or auction listing. This is a very competitively priced option for putting yourself in front of a targeted audience like we have here on Ahwooga.
Earlier this week we introduced another top level category, Car Show and Swap Meets. For membership level sellers, there is no additional cost for creating a classified listing for an event. For non-membership level sellers the cost of a 30 day classified is just $1.00.
I’m not sure we have had a visitor to the site that doesn’t enjoy seeing these types of listings, so post them up.
It will take a little while to build this category, but when it’s rolling it will be great!!
If you are not yet part of the I Am Ahwooga Facebook Group, please join.
This has been a very fun ongoing way to help brand our new company and showing our passion for cars!!
Today we installed a Live support chat feature on the site. With 85% of all visits to the site being first time visitors, we knew there was a need for more support than a contact form or an e-mail address.
This is a very simple program to use for the person requesting the chat and you only have to enter a name to get started.
This option is available when the chat button is green and one of our staff members is online. The button turns grey when we are offline and it offers a way to send a note to us. The offline message will direct users to our help center.
We spent a while today and tested it in all the browsers. IE8 and Google Chrome worked the best, while Fire Fox had an odd issue with shrinking the original window. Over all the software seems to be working well and did not effect the speed of the site.
Managing your social online presence can be very time consuming and with multiple ID’s and different sites to post on, just the time to navigate to the sites can become a chore. We know this first hand here at Ahwooga HQ, because we had to find a way to become more effective with less available time.
We try very hard to avoid desktop applications since we need access from our homes, on the road and at the office. For managing our Twitter, Facebook Profiles/Pages and LinkedIn accounts we have been using Hoot Suite.
Hoot Suite uses a browser instead of a program and allows us to have it running in a window behind what we are currently working on. When we need to post an update, it’s there. We are confident in recommending this service and of coarse are big fans of using social media’s to promote products across the web. The site also has a very FAQ and help section. There is even mobile apps.
I hope this helps, and we are looking forward to see you tweets, updates and tiny URL’s about your Ahwooga listings.
We got a call from a very nice gentleman in Texas that sells parts and manuals for planes that was interested in our site. Originally we had not offered this category when when we launched the site. So the staff sat down to discuss if we should create it? Our unofficially motto has always been “Buy any Sell things that move you”. We all agreed that aviation products fall within that scope.
As always we have been keeping a close eye on the progress of our young site. Ahwooga just turned 7 months old and is continuing to pick up speed and momentum.
In previous posts to this blog I have shared things that our team has done to improve the site. As always, I want to thank the buyers and sellers that have provided valuable input. That really helps us make good decisions.
I would like to review some facts about the last 30 days that have created some smiles for us.
The last 30 days represents 14% of the sites life.
Below are stats from the last 30 days as a percentages of the last 7 months.
New Members – 24.2%
Number of Sales – 27.4%
Dollars in Sales – 43.8%
Visitors to the site - 23.3%
The beginning of August shows numbers that exceed those stats.
One of the only things we can’t track is telephone calls from buyers looking at listings. I truly hope all of our vendors are too busy to ask every caller “how did you come across my products”. With over 90,000 listings with phone numbers to the vendors, phone calls must be coming in.
Just for the record, our team is going to continue to be as aggressive if not more in growing the site and doing what we can to benefit both the buyers and sellers that use our site.
This has all been possible because sellers put their trust in us to help market their products.
Thank You.
Team Ahwooga
P.S. We have published some tips for selling auto parts online for most of our veteran sellers, the information is just review. Maybe someone might pick up a few idea’s to help them wherever they sell. You can fin the tips here: http://www.sellcarpartsonline.com/
