Team Ahwooga is constantly looking for ways to not only improve the site but also improve the user experience. We feel that these 2 things will improve the seller performance and increase seller visibility.

To that end we have created a web based portal of information we call the Ahwooga Warehouse. The warehouse combines a full blown forum, tech articles and manuals, an interactive calendar and a picture/video gallery.

Visitors can take in all the information we put into the site and they can also contribute by adding additional content to the site.

How can this benefit you?

By participating in the forums, galleries and the creation of content, you will be helping to generate more traffic to you through increased visibility before a wide potential customer base. Through your minimal efforts the entire site can benefit greatly, so please click the following link and join us in the warehouse.

The site also features a banner management system that is set up to drive traffic to the main Ahwooga site and to seller storefronts.

Please take a few minutes to browse around. We are open to any suggestions, so feel free to contact us.

The Top Level Categories are ;

• Shows and Events – All
• Services- All
• Wanted – Products and Services

Classifieds are able to have up to 8 images and full descriptions the same as our auctions or fixed priced listings and all are indexed and viewable though searches.

These ads are going to give businesses that our in our market a way to promote the service they provide right along an already strong base of product listings.

For shows, local and national event can have a global presence.

To post a a free ad in these categories, you need to be logged in and choose sell. If you don not need a membership, choose “No Thanks” at the bottom and then you will be taken to the beginning of of the select a category to list in.

On the last listing page you will need to pick the duration of the classified ad. The pull down bar defaults to 30 days, please change this to 90 days and your ad will be free!!

We hope you take advantage of this cool option.

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.

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!!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=4igUg5jfaL4

Episode 5 of I Am Ahwooga. The theme was Head Shots, straight on but as always there are a few twists and lots of fun. Enjoy

The I Am Ahwooga Facebook group is now over 1100 members and over 1800 user submitted photo’s.

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!!

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.

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.

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/

As always, I want to thank those of you who have shared with us ways to improve the site.

Through buyer feedback and traffic analysis we were able to identify areas where buyers were experiencing some difficulties. By allowing sellers to put their phone numbers in their banners and listings, buyers who may not be as computer savvy can still call you and make a purchase but we wanted to streamline the process and make it better for buyers.

We walked through the procedure many times and were able to implement a set of changes that both simplified and improved the purchasing procedure.

We see buyers come in from a general Google search and within 5 to 7 minutes they view a product page, register for the site, complete their verification, return to the product page and then purchase the item.

As a seller you may not have had the experience of buying on Ahwooga, so we encourage you to go to the site, look around, find a hot wheel or a sticker or something and make a purchase from another seller so you can experience what the buyers experience.

As always we would love to hear how it went for you and we are always open to suggestions.

With the large increases in traffic we have been experiencing recently, we wanted to make sure new site users are able to navigate through the check out process. I personally had a lot of fun since I bought some really cool items during the final testing after changes were made. In a couple of days I will publish the changes that were made.

We added more search engine optimization today. In this site update, we made what shows up in your browser title bar be the title of the listing.
(see highlighted areas)
This will also make the search engines display the same result once the site has been re-rolled by the search bots.

Tonight I am running a new XML site map to try and speed up this process and will submit it to all the major search engines. The end result will be, more click-ins into our site from natural search results.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=1qoI4Ji4HJU

For everyone how has helped with this by linking our site to other site, I want to say thank you for helping share the word and strengthen the site.

Six months have gone by since our hard launch and the site is at 75,000 live listings. The lion’s share of these listing have vendors phone numbers and e-mail address so viewers who either have questions or maybe feel more comfortable calling about a product can do so.  And with the backlog of customers we are helping bulk upload ad the ones doing their own listings, this growth is going to continue at a rapid pace. The staff here is going to continue to aggressively seek out more vendors that in turn will bring in more buyers.

Google search results change depending on the search term you type in to a search. For a product search such as “87 Mustang GTX V-Fiber Body Kit” for example, the Google search result on page 1 displays three shopping results and an image. The links to these 3 results are linked directly to products pages of the sites they reside on. So if you clicked the second shopping result it would take you our site to that specific kit.

Natural Google search results are created for the site by us constantly updating our XML sitemaps, see the second arrow.

This is just another free service that we offer our sellers to help them connect with buyers looking for products.

Click image to enlarge

Each individual seller now has their own unique feed that the staff here at Ahwooga HQ verifies that the products conforms with the policies of the Google shopping and then submits them. If you are ever bored to tears and have nothing else to do, here they are. Link

We will continue to strive to make Ahwooga the best place to find Automotive related products on the web.

We had a great time with this one.  A lot more random vehicles with a “Pet” feature.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=UmMZmjdUXmA

Thanks to everyone who has uploaded pictures to the group.  It really is cool to see the diversity and then share a slideshow.

We tried to get everyone we had missed before in it.  If you have posted a pic but haven’t seen your vehicle in a video yet, please post a message on the group page and we will make sure you get in the next one.

We will be posting the next theme soon so get your cameras ready.

Thank you all so much for participating, we are honored.

-Team Ahwooga

We always take a proactive approach to things like this, so we feel it’s best to make the changes now instead of later. As a result your listings will not appear in Google Shopping for a short time, but fear not…the re-worked feed structure promises to be even more reliable and efficient.

It’s been said that the only constant is change. This is one instance where due to change, we are pleased to be able to make our site better for everyone involved.