I had a surprisingly good month-January is not typically a great month for my items. I had $1793.00 in sales, which was actually $18.00 more than in Dec. I sold 45 items to 19 new to Ola buyers, 2 repeat customers and 1 existing buyer to the site. In the interest of fairness, I did also have $327.00 in sales at ebay. The difference is that the sale of those 3 items cost me 29.64 for listing and final value fees, and my sales at Ola came out of my $96.00 annual founding membership fee. I will happily be renewing my membership later this month.

Oh, and Feb. is looking pretty good too so far!

Congratuations on another great month. OLA is definitely working for you but you have been the only one to ever confirm her sales. The only other seller that seems to have good sales is Strategic who does very well with his coins.

What I don't understand is why you have never been seller of the month. You have a lot more sales than some of the cheerleaders who have been given this honor and you don't participate in the games, etc so your sales are all "true" sales.

My main reason for continuing to post is to tell people to try the monthly first before signing up for Founding Membership especially since you can be banned from the site for any little reason.

sixftrs wrote (View Post): › I had a surprisingly good month-January is not typically a great month for my items. I had $1793.00 in sales, which was actually $18.00 more than in Dec. I sold 45 items to 19 new to Ola buyers, 2 repeat customers and 1 existing buyer to the site. In the interest of fairness, I did also have $327.00 in sales at ebay. The difference is that the sale of those 3 items cost me 29.64 for listing and final value fees, and my sales at Ola came out of my $96.00 annual founding membership fee. I will happily be renewing my membership later this month. Oh, and Feb. is looking pretty good too so far!

I am very happy for you, but again you are one of the lucky ones at OLA that continue to make money. Reason is you have the item that collectors want. Most sellers over there are not.

Good Luck with continued sales!

Quote: › sixftrs said I had a surprisingly good month-January is not typically a great month for my items.

That is some great sales. I once sold, well tried to sell, on OLA with disasterous results. Nearly starved. I'd always sold well on ebay prior to that. I have since moved and am doing far better but, nothing close to your sales. Would you mind telling me again what it is you sell? I sold soup to nuts items. Even the old hanger's on on OLA do not reflect numbers anything like yours. MM's feedback is very good but, the first page or so read more buys, at least as many buys as sales. Didn't go any further. You are clearly there to sell!

Do you have an idea why you seem so much more successful than the grand majority? They should consider making you some kind of spokesperson, team leader, something. Don't you think your selling secrets could benefit those struggling?

Those sales are GREAT !! Yes- I too would like to know this Ola member's 'secret' in getting sales- I think I've had about 53 sales since Dec of '08. Of course SOME of my sales and feedback mysteriously disappeared.
I have a good friend on Ola- who also makes great sales- from chat members AND first time Ola buyers. She pretty much stays out of 'conflicts' hardly ever posts anything that would be considered 'negative' - She's just a good girl who goes about her business and sells. Unlike me- she is able to 'hold her tongue' when she sees 'unsavory' things going on.. LOL- guess that works !! Her Ola sales are as good as my Ebay sales !! She offers quite a variety of items on her auctions- mostly glassware, but many different items.. and gets 'top prices' for them. I wish I could be more like this seller.. Betty Lou

Oldfogey, I sell American Girl dolls and accessories. I have nice items, but they are hardly unique-there are lots of sellers at ebay, and even some at Bonanzle and AM that carry the same things. I'm a good and honest seller, but people have to buy from me to really appreciate that, so I can't give you a good reason why I'm having success at Ola when others of you didn't. One reason could be that I know it has been some time since you sold at Ola, and items didn't use to show up in google searches. They do now-I get great google placement and over 50% of my new buyers tell me that that's how they found me. I don't facebook, tweet, twitter or any of that other stuff-I just put good keywords in the box below the auction title on Ola's listing page and check to have my htpp address included at the bottom.

Once a new customer makes a purchase, I try to make shopping at Ola a very positive experience, and worth the hassle of learning a new site. I include a free small American Girl item with their purchase, send them an email with their delivery confirmation number and let them know that I've included a welcome to Ola gift in their package. When I ask all new buyers how they found my auctions, I let them know that I run a promotion where if they refer anyone to Ola, and that person buys something-from me or any other Ola seller-and then omails me with the referrers name or buyer id, the referrer earns a free AG item. People LOVE free. The small amount of money I spend for the free items (they average 2.00 each) is more than made up in referrals, and repeat business, not to mention goodwill.

I really don't have any secrets to help me make sales, lol. Most of the things I do are common sense and just good business practices. I communicate very well with my buyers. I have a standard email that I send to all my new buyers that thanks them for their purchase, explains how to navigate Ola, and how to find their invoice. I ship their items quickly-always within 1 business day of payment and probably 75% of the time the same day. I package things well and ship the cheapest way possible for the buyer to help them save some money-hopefully that will leave them with more to come back and spend with me at a later date. I charge actual shipping cost.

I do sell a small amount at ebay, making sure that the items I have listed there are also available in my store at Ola. If someone purchases an item at ebay from me, they also get the email with the delivery confirmation number, along with a little blurb explaining that I have a store at www.ola.com, that the same item that they just purchased for x amount at ebay had been available there for a lower price, and encouraging them to check my store out if they would ever be looking for AG items in the future. Probably 80% of those ebay buyers end up being Ola buyers.

I also think I was realistic when I joined Ola. I wasn't expecting to join a small, upstart site and immediately make the same kind of sales as at ebay. I was fortunate enough to be able to work on building for the future. With things at the bay going from bad to worse, I'm very glad that I made the move to Ola.

Quote: › I'm a good and honest seller, but people have to buy from me to really appreciate that, so I can't give you a good reason why I'm having success at Ola when others of you didn't.

Didn't and aren't.

I apologize sxftrs. I remember you telling about selling this item earlier. I know zero about your dolls but, others have told me that it is a desirable, highly collectable item. I am told that you also are selling at an especially affordable price. Because your individual sales often enter the $20-30 range all these things might give you an edge on the sellers with multiple, small priced items. All the same, let's be fair, this can't explain all your success. There has to be something here that could possibly help other OLA'er's. Contrary to some things said about people hating OLA seller's, that has never been the complaint. I used to be that starving seller on OLA and, if there is the smallest chance your business model might help some others, why not offer it and see?

Quote: › I also think I was realistic when I joined Ola. I wasn't expecting to join a small, upstart site and immediately make the same kind of sales as at ebay. I was fortunate enough to be able to work on building for the future. With things at the bay going from bad to worse, I'm very glad that I made the move to Ola.

This in the one myth I wish OLA would not plant in other's heads. I cannot EVEN imagine 1 person moving from ebay to a place nearly unheard of and expect anything like the sales they had there. That really borders on insulting the intellect. You are a level individual. Do you really believe anyone thought that? I know I didn't and neither did one person I've communicated with. What we did expect has been covered so often on these boards no point saying them again.

Also, as much as I think these changes at the bay will hurt many, there are also those that tell me they will save $. I'll leave that to them to work out.

Because you are clearly one of OLA's success stories, your business plan needs placed before the OLA crowd. At least it would make a viable, honest evaluation of what creates sales, wouldn't it? I mean, off site sales, of course. Thank you for taking the time to answer my questions. I appreciate it a lot. If no one asks you over at OLA, offer a little business advice. Maybe you could get someone to get the more successful sellers there to come forward with how they succeed( w/o all the games and such).

you are a great seller on OLA congrats...so was I.....congrats!!! prior to my removal...after 1.200 feedbacks

Quote: › I cannot EVEN imagine 1 person moving from ebay to a place nearly unheard of and expect anything like the sales they had there

I could show you hundreds of them. They move from site to site and when they don't get the massive sales they expected within three months, they shut down and look for the next "Promised Land".

They will complain in the forums about how they've done their part, by listing their items and it's the site's fault for not bringing in the buyers. They don't want to hear that they may have to actually be involved in marketing their business. They didn't have to do these things on eBay.