We just went over 1000 listings on Ahwooga.com

We did unlock the site on Thursday to help with our final testing. It was kind of exciting knowing people might just pop in and either list an item or make a purchase. We have been working with some local Tucson companies and they have been loading items on the site. Today with 5 days to go before the actual launch date, we went over 1000 listings.  Everything is becoming very real now. The most interesting thing to me is, the closer we get to the launch date, the more relaxed I am getting.

Time for a three day break from Ahwooga.com

Just kidding, we will be working on the site some this weekend but not that much. We actually unlocked the site and people can log in and purchase items or sell items now. The help center has 20 videos uploaded to it and seems to be functioning well.

Time for dinner and a movie. Have a great Christmas.

We are deep into our final test phase

It's been a couple days since I have updated the blog and I can tell you it has been busy at ahwooga headquarters since we have a little over a week until we unlock the site for everyone. We had one really good glitch experimenting with some server settings that made the site go down for an hour. What was almost comical about it was I was driving up to meet with an interested client when the site went down, then as I was driving away, the site came back online.

The help center is starting to get populated with videos and soon text lessons. I really have been stressed out a little about this part. One of our long term dislikes about some other sites, are you either can't find what your looking for, or the information is out dated. Having that knowledge, we are trying our best to build the center in a modular format with short pieces of information that can be changed as the site grows.

Over the last week I have spoken with some of the nicest people who are interested in selling on the site. I believe this is my number reason my spirits are staying high. God bless these kind folks.

Search engines and the social media plan

We created new a new xml site that only goes as far as the sub category levels. What we are seeing so far is the spider are doing the rest by rolling down to the product level. The categories and products have smart URL's so it is presenting it's self well in a SERP. I know I have said this before, but this stuff is very exciting to me.

Yesterday we had 80% of the staff together refining our social media marketing plan. I personally thought it went really well and everyone has a firm grip of what need to happen to start to spread the word about ahwooga.com. It was funny to sit around a table with car guys in black t-shirts, jeans and facial hair reviewing how we are going to use Twitter and Facebook to benefit the business model. I know Mashable's Pete Cashmore and staff would have been proud of us.

One of the coolest items we discussed was the fact information is being delivered to people as much as it is being search for. I shared that great information pops up though the people I follow. This is even easier now that Twitter has created lists and I can sort though the people I follow.

It looks like the next couple days will be spent with UTM tags.

We have had some successes this week

The two main items were the installation of the SSL and the feed to Google shopping.
The SSL gave us some problems with the Youtube video we have in the banner, but that was an easy fix by creating a second banner in the secure areas of the site.

The Google shopping was a bit more difficult and the API call was touchy to say the least. But good things come to those who wait, I guess. Now every item uploaded to the site is auto fed and published to the shopping index.

We have more local appointments today to have customers start uploading and we are two weeks away from having our help center done. With the completion of the help center, we can unlock the site and start taking registrations.
All very exciting.

OK, Ahwooga.com is visible to the world now.

It's Thursday morning here in Tucson and we are on day 4 of Ahwooga.com being live. Yesterday we visited with some of our local friends in Tucson that have products that would work well in the site. These were easy sales for us to help the site start too get populated with products.
For the most part, these guys told us it was a "No-Brainer" for them to come aboard and they really liked it.

Two words, "Thank God"

We also started to receive phone calls and e-mails from others folks interested in the site once our help center is complete. I sure do enjoy when a plan comes together.

Ahwooga.com -Final Test Phase Press Release

Tucson, AZ (PRWEB) December 8, 2009 -- "My fondest memories as a kid were when I would travel to swap meets with my dad. My dad would hold up an automotive part and ask how much, the seller would shout out a price and my dad either bought the item or set it down and moved to the next spot".

The simplicity of those swap meet rules has never left me. “I have sold car parts on all of the major online marketplaces successfully over the last 10 years, but, for me, I got tired of the constant changes and increased fees. My staff and I experienced all the same challenges as other sellers have had. “
Joe Chirco shares a great story, “I was discussing a problem I was having with one of the marketplace’s level one customer service reps, and she told me that if I was unhappy, I should start my own marketplace and then I could charge my sellers whatever I wanted. So that’s exactly what I’ve done.”
The rules on Ahwooga.com will mirror those of a simpler time. Ahwooga members will have the freedom to promote their items and share with potential buyers their terms, including payment methods they will accept. We also want to promote buyer and seller communication; sometimes a purchase needs more than a couple of e-mails. There is a point where a phone call can really help out both the buyer and seller. "I still can’t believe sites that allow major purchases to happen without communication". This would prevent scammers from hiding behind their computers. "I also believe larger ticket item would be purchased with more confidence due to this open communication".
Benefits of Ahwooga.com

Buyers and sellers are encouraged to communicate No listing or final sales fees for members Re-listing unsold items free Classified ads show in searches with auctions and fixed price listing Five images per listing free Store fronts free for sellers

Bringing Ahwooga to the front of the domain today

This is a exciting day for Team Ahwooga. This afternoon we are bring ahwooga.com to the front of the domain and it will be viewable to everyone for the first time. Last night we had our planning meeting and I was asked "What will break initially?" My response, everything.

This gives us three weeks for our final testing phase of the site.

Today we are also going to launch our new video that in 1:47 reviews the benefits for sellers.
I will keep you posted on how it goes.

When you have a company named Ahwooga, marketing needs a twist to it

We didn't want to just have the same old marketing videos. Here is our first of many.

The Ahwooga staff Goes to the Good Guys Show

Between building the site and running the existing business, we spent time finishing up the Ahwoogawagen. There were just 150 1954 Packard Clipper Ambulance produced and we have one of them. As soon as we saw this vehicle, we loved it. Saturday night we loaded it on the trailer and early Sunday morn we were on our way to Scottsdale for the Good Guys car show.

Supporting software needs.

Ahwooga.com's main site is written in ASP code so it resides on windows mirrored servers. We have always enjoyed using PHP open source software, OK no big deal PHP can run on windows servers. We have always supported our sites with SMF forums and wordpress blogs, so how can we get them work under the main header. Fortunately our Help center displayed with the body of the site and maintained a consistent header and footer already. So thanks to some frame technology, everything is displaying properly. 

Having a forum board was very important to us to help support items that might be missed within our learning center, and we have always had fun with wordpress to show people that we are also people.

We found some software we really liked

We interviewed a bunch of companies that wrote software and finally found one we liked. It was uploaded it to our brand new server bank and hidden behind a lock and key so no one could find it and start to "ahwoogasize" it. This has been the best part of our idea to date. On our company sites we have been able to plan and manage three levels, server, admin and front end. When selling on other marketplaces we only get to manage our listing appearance. On this project we get to design it all and have to add the forth level of designing what our customer will be able to show their end user.

This has added a degree of difficult that has been very exciting. As I'm writing this, we are 4 or 5 days away from bring it to the front of the domain and removing one of the locks.

Wish us luck.

So Ahwooga.com is the name, now it's Branding time.

OK, we named the idea Ahwooga.com, cool. We all liked it and it's automotive related, now the branding message. This was a very important part to all of us. What is the statement we could all rally behind.
I have forgotten how long this took, maybe a couple of days, the one we all liked was

Ahwooga, Your Online Automotive Marketplace With Swap Meet Rules

So know we had an idea with a name and a mission. Moving forward.

What are we going to name this idea?

Coming up with a great name for this site was difficult and several members of our team spent sleepless nights pacing back and forth. We won't list the names that were rejected as there are too many and they just didn't work.

On one of those restless evenings one of our owners was racking his brain searching for a site name. His four year old son stood by impatiently waiting to play "army men" with his pop. Our owner was focused on his name search struggle.

Finally having enough, his little boy walked up to him, reached out, squeezed his dad's nose and said...AH-WOOOOOOGA! Our owner stopped, dropped his pencil, picked up his son and they played "army men" for 3 hours that night.

Figuring out what we should do to create Ahwooga.com

So the idea of starting a new Automotive only site was out and everyones brains were doing kart wheels.
We decided to have a brain storming meeting of what could be a fun and effective venue for selling and buying automotive related items.

We grabbed a couple markers and wiped down the large white board and started throwing out idea's.
Then we starting pointing out the pros and cons of the sites we were currently selling on.

This process was a lot of fun and the white board didn't have much white left on it.

The main points that came out of the meeting were.
No Final Sales Fees
Sellers Make Their Rules
The Idea Of "Swap Meet Rules"
Free Re-Listing of Unsold Items
Communication Between Buyer & Sellers
Memberships Levels
Prevent Category Killers
Provide Great Support
Teach Visitors How To Use The Site.

At this point, the idea did not have a name.

Creating Ahwooga.com Your Online Automotive Marketplace

During the summer we were becoming frustrated with other marketplace we were selling on.

Our companies e-Commerce site was doing great, but we always liked selling over different channels.

During one of the conversations a level one customer service rep told us "if we don't like their site we should start our own".

That was the birth of www.ahwooga.com

In this blog, that should have been started month ago

I will review the making and ideas of creating the site and rhe people behind it.

Don