Seems the people who spoke out about OLA had their views correctly confirmed this eve on OLA radio. OLA members will have an advertising campaign and OLA will match it. The google feeds are not in place nor will there be any RSS feeds for this site. Very well I find out this now before I wasted a pence on there. Not bloody likely to be aggro over the bloody drivel coming out of that chaps mouth you know. So my apologies to you who certainly knew your banter. This Fain chap certainly came off as a berk of sorts.

You mean that the owners of the site are asking members to pay for 50 percent of the advertising expenses in addition to the fees they pay to sell on the site?

Not only that but he kept saying the only way for OLA to succeed was to get 1 million Founding Members. Also a bunch of rubbish how some money will go to advertising from new Founding Members but it is up to the sellers to promote their stores and bring in new members. He recommended stickers, Craig's List and flyers.

He volunteered to match any monies collected for advertising but said that ebay hasn't advertised on TV for several months - big difference everyone knows ebay and no one knows OLA.

Also said sales were way up and they are #2 behind ebay on STR but yet they still won't show completed auctions. Looking at the "What's Sold" they are still averaging 100 - 150 sales a day out of 17 million.

He stated that google would have been ready but that the staff had to handle the hijacking problem first. Well, the so called hi-jacking happened yesterday and google was suppose to have already been completed for Featured and Fixed Price items.

I must admit Fain was a smooth talker and the groupies just thought the show was wonderful.

great smoke and mirror evade the question job ive heard. cheerleaders-blockers on chat made it hard for questions to be seen.
google and rssfeed will be in the future. nice scate job he did on that question.
ill admit a few months ago i did not now about feeds. well i do know and site using only spiders to get items seen on the web is wirthless.
i didnt get items moved fast enough and they bagged me for 96.00 for 2nd year of fm. if they ever get feeds maybe i can get some use of my 96.00
u can find me at feed heaven atomicmall i know have multi listing on first page of searchs

Confused wrote (View Post): › Not only that but he kept saying the only way for OLA to succeed was to get 1 million Founding Members.

The only way for OLA to succeed would be to stop burning money on advertising and get the darn Google stuff settled.

Angelsong777 wrote (View Post): › Confused wrote (View Post): › Not only that but he kept saying the only way for OLA to succeed was to get 1 million Founding Members. The only way for OLA to succeed would be to stop burning money on advertising and get the darn Google stuff settled.

What advertising?

pintobean wrote (View Post): › What advertising?

Well, the owner seems to be under the impression that spending money on advertising is the only way for OLA to succeed. It's NOT. The site and the members would be better off saving their money for now and getting everything settled with Google FIRST. That's where most of the internet's buyers are. IMHO, money spent on advertising is largely money down the drain, especially if they don't have solid Google exposure in place first. I think they'd do better with a change of focus. I'm not trying to be critical, just helpful. It sounds like OLA members have been encouraged to do a lot of their own paid advertising, and some are displeased with the results and out a lot of money when there's really no need for that.

Angelsong777 wrote (View Post): › Well, the owner seems to be under the impression that spending money on advertising is the only way for OLA to succeed. It's NOT. The site and the members would be better off saving their money for now and getting everything settled with Google FIRST. That's where most of the internet's buyers are. IMHO, money spent on advertising is largely money down the drain, especially if they don't have solid Google exposure in place first. I think they'd do better with a change of focus. I'm not trying to be critical, just helpful. It sounds like OLA members have been encouraged to do a lot of their own paid advertising, and some are displeased with the results and out a lot of money when there's really no need for that.

Chris Fain, the owner of OLA, has never said that spending money on advertising is the only way for OLA to succeed. As a matter of fact, he has said almost exactly the opposite. He has said over and over that word of mouth is the best advertisement.

We only recently discussed, as members, doing our own advertising as a group... no members are displeased with it because we've only recently been discussing it. The members who are displeased are the ones screaming in thread after thread that OLA needs to spend money on advertising... while most of us agree that spending a fortune on advertising right now, in this economy, would be ridiculous and a bad investment.

During the Thursday night OLA Radio Show, I asked if Chris Fain would match funds garnered by the sellers who CHOOSE to participate in a fundraising/advertising campaign. He did not ask for money from anyone on OLA for advertising or anything else.

I'm not trying to be critical either... just trying to set the record straight.

METZYMOM wrote (View Post): › As a matter of fact, he has said almost exactly the opposite. He has said over and over that word of mouth is the best advertisement.

I don't think word of mouth is the ticket at all either. The most critical factor in getting sales rolling better for sellers on the site is Google exposure. Happy sellers = more sellers = more products = more buyers. Word of mouth is something that will happen naturally as the site becomes more effective. Now I'm not on the site, and I've never spoken with the owner, but from the outside looking in ~ with as many years as they've gone with NO Google exposure when almost all other sites have at least some level of Google exposure, I don't think he understands how very very critical that element is.

I think one reason that you're successful on OLA is because you sell a great product that is affordable and has wide appeal. You can do well within the community of OLA sellers because you have a product that almost anyone could use. A seller like me would totally bomb on OLA right now because I depend heavily on Google search for the right buyers to find my stuff. It's very rare that a fellow seller is interested in something that I have.

I agree with that assessment Angel. I think the reason I have been successful is for those very reasons. I have many, many higher priced items, but don't list them as the traffic isn't what I need it to be to be able to sell them (to be to be??? roflmao). I think that is why some sellers fail at OLA, because it isn't right for their products at the time...

I hope Chris Fain knows how important the Google-ization is... I believe he does and just hasn't got the manpower to get it all addressed at one time, but truthfully, I don't know.

I think word of mouth is an excellent form of advertisement, but only in conjunction with many other forms, including Google, TV, Radio, Newspapers, Magazines... etc. The media ads don't have to be big, but they do have to exsist.

METZYMOM wrote (View Post): › I think word of mouth is an excellent form of advertisement, but only in conjunction with many other forms, including Google, TV, Radio, Newspapers, Magazines... etc. The media ads don't have to be big, but they do have to exsist.

I don't think all of those forms of advertising put together are even 1% as important as that Google exposure. You probably don't know that Wagglepop spent over $50,000. on at least 13 different forms of advertising last year with VERY little to no results to show for it. I have always had good sales on the site, better every year, and it's because of the excellent placement that my items get on Google. And most of my sales now are triple-digit sales because my SEO seemed to make a jump up a few weeks ago for one or more major keyword searches related to baby bedding. Now the site is a goldmine for me for selling baby bedding sets, my most valuable inventory! That is the kind of boost that you guys need at OLA.

I hope Chris Fain knows how important the Google-ization is... I believe he does and just hasn't got the manpower to get it all addressed at one time, but truthfully, I don't know.

He knows. He's known it since 1998. He needs to man-up and stop telling his sellers that it's just around the corner and then never even try to provide it. One excuse from Fain after another.