Sunday, May 27, 2012

The season is here!!

Okay, the past few weekends, my hubby and I have been out galavanting around different towns hitting as many garage sales and estate sales as we possibly can!! Why do we do this?? Well, we don't do it to get rich! It's a challenge to see what all we can find! We feel like treasure seekers! You just never know what's going to be there! And you don't dare miss one because that might be THE ONE!!

Well, I've been busy cleaning, taking pictures and doing research on our purchases. I'd love to keep most of it but, of course, I must pass it on!! So, come on over and see what we have to offer! More listings going up daily!!

Here are just a few!!


Darling as a 1st Christmas ornament or to hang in the room! Add the details of the child's birth!!


So cute for all those "firsts"!!


This, my hubby found!!


Great vintage item!!


This little set just jumped out at me!! Gorgeous!!

We have great new items so come on over and take a peek!! And when you are done looking in our store, wander around some of the others on OnlineAuction.com!! Lots of great deals, great prices and great sellers!! Thank you!!






Sunday, May 20, 2012

Everything 1.00 each at curiocache and crittercache!!!

Everything has been marked down to ONE DOLLAR at both curiocache and crittercache! Postage not included, of course, but still... there's dozens and dozens and DOZENS of things to pick from! Books, jewelry, figurines, pet care, plush critters, oddities, and more...here's a tiny sampling...


Precious Moments Pin "Make a Joyful Noise"

Radio Flyer Wagon

TY Beanie Baby Graduate Bear

Janet Evanovich Wicked Appetite

Writing Television Sitcoms Textbook


Delft-look kitten set


Zoo Story

Flying Pig Model

Don't miss out because when they're gone, they're gone... one only of each!

 You can find both stores, crittercache and curiocache at onlineauction.com!


Thursday, May 17, 2012

Beautiful things at Onlineauction.com!

I was perusing the "featured" auctions at Onlineauction.com and was amazed at the variety of beautiful, valuable and unique things that were being shown on the front page. Here's a little sampling... there are so many it was hard to choose!!

10K gold and sterling silver photo frame/pendant/pin all in one! From curiocache!

SIGNED photo of President Barack Obama with COA from Superstar_Autographs

White powder-coated billet steering wheel from hursthotrods

FIFTY-plus piece lot of vintage jewelry! From callmemomo


State-of-the-art SPYCAM men's watch with NIGHT VISION from genuinejewellery!



My favorite... the Camel with the Wrinkled Knees from DustyCorners!


Everything affordably priced, experienced, helpful sellers and, as always, incredibly supportive staff at OLA.com!

Wednesday, May 9, 2012

In Love With Twitter!

In 1995, I created my first website, CountryNaturals.com. I filled it with everything I love -- gardening, knitting, butterflies, etc. I posted photos, articles, and links. I put in a forum, published my email address, then sat back and waited for all like-minded souls to find me. 17 years later, I am still waiting.


A couple of years ago, I discovered Twitter. I spent a few hours setting things up, then got frustrated because they were always overloaded. After a half-dozen error messages, I gave up and wandered away.


After our annual charity event was over, I turned my attention to marketing, and went back to Twitter, as the first stop on my campaign trail. EUREKA! With a simple search, I found pages and pages of people doing all the things I love, promoting all the things I need, and selling all the things I want. 


There were so many, I started making lists for all of them. That's when the light bulb went on! I organized my lists, put them in a table, and decided to publish the table. (See below.) Now I can promote my new Twitter friends, which helps to make new friends (followers). But that's only half the story . . .


. . . I can also use this published table to promote other places and friends. After I post this article, I will go back to Twitter and tweet a link back here, introducing my new Twitter friends to my "old" OLA friends. I think you'll like each other.


But wait, there's more! After lunch, I will go to Squidoo and post my lists over there. (Love Your Pet Expo is an approved charity at Squidoo, so they might get some ad revenue, too.) Again, I will go back to Twitter and link to that lens. Again, more exposure for my Twitter/OLA friends.


Finally, if my fingers aren't too bloody by then, I will list Twitter ads for sale on OLA, again promoting my lists. Again, I will post the link on Twitter, this time bringing my new Twitter friends directly to OLA, (where they might notice that links in listings are okay, unlike other venues). 

Okay, I'm done, now. If any of you want to do what I'm doing and need help setting things up, let me know and I'll put together a tutorial for it. Now, please check out my lists and give me a follow.





Join Our Twitter Marketing Team!

If you want to launch or expand your Twitter presence,
here is a great way to do it.
We specialize in the following categories:
Love Your Pet Expo Sanctuary (requires product or $ donation)

Monday, May 7, 2012

Dealing With Issues Under and Beyond Your Control

 I haven't wanted to blog.I haven't wanted to advertise. I haven't wanted to interact. Heck, I haven't even wanted to offer and list new products! I've got nothing positive to say.

What happened, you ask? My site crashed! No, not my personal website...  it's my auction venue. The place I call home. The site I trust. And it couldn't have happened at a more inconvenient time. Right?

Today it's time to talk about Dealing With Issues Under and Beyond Your Control.

By now my readers may have surmised that I am referring to a recent incident at OnlineAuction.com, but truly, this nightmare could occur at any website. The server crashed... the site went dark... and when the site reappeared and things looked like they would return to normal, members and programmers found out that the down-time had also caused programming glitches that could and did haunt us for weeks. (They still are!) Added to that, the site owners must certainly have incurred a great expense in purchasing new, updated equipment, which when installed, created another round of programming hurdles to overcome.

It's been a rough couple of months. Together, we're going to get past it.

First, make a mental list. What is under your control? And second, what is beyond your control?

For OLA members, your auctions and your images are absolutely under your control.
They're your products, aren't they? Take a look at your store. Is it inviting? Well-stocked? Maybe this is a good time to make those revisions that you've put on the back burner. Maybe it's time to fine-tune your SEO. Maybe you really could get a better snapshot of that collectible. Use this unfortunate experience as a way to take a fresh look at your listings.

I applaud the folks who have taken down auctions that are missing images. It's actually a very easy thing to do. For example, once you're logged into the site, go to the OLA Home Page and click on Classic. Then click on Active. Then look to the right and click on the link to View 100 per page. Now scroll through your auctions and click the checkbox on the left side of any auction that is missing a thumbnail photo. Then go to the bottom of that page and use the drop-down menu under Select Action to choose the option Delete Selected. Follow these directions for each style of auction that you provide.

After this is done, your deleted auctions are still available to you. You'll find them in the Unsold folder, under the appropriate tab, (ie; Classic, Fixed, Dutch, Absolute, Sealed). This way your store remains attractive to potential buyers and you may work on updating your listings at your leisure! My recommendation is to reactivate using a Sell Similar option, as this optimizes your SEO with a fresh listing for the search engines to index. This is also a fantastic opportunity to scrutinize your listing and make any necessary spelling or grammatical fixes, or adjust pricing and/or shipping fees.

Some sellers, especially those with hundreds, or thousands, of auctions may argue that this removes valuable stock from available inventory. I understand this and sympathize. As a buyer myself, however, I guarantee you that I will not place a bid on an auction without having a photo to inspect. It's your business, and your call, though, so please choose wisely, as your peers depend upon your success as much as their own.

About the photos... and I want you to really let this sink in... in order for you to have uploaded photos to the OLA server, the original photos had to have been on your computer at one time. Where are they now? I find there to be 4 kinds of people in this regard:
  1. The Organizer This person has a tree of folders on their hard drive, categorizing each photo into product type, brand name and auction title. It should be easy for you to locate your photos on your hard drive and re-upload them into a new auction!
  2. The Lazy Loader This person loaded pictures onto their hard drive one batch at a time while writing auctions and has one single "My Pictures" folder that contains 5000+ photos in random succession. While it may be a more challenging task, you, too, can scroll through your photos until you find the image that corresponds to your auction. Might this be the optimal time to learn the techniques of The Organizer?
  3. The Annihilator This person loads the photos onto their hard drive for only so long as it takes to upload them to their OLA auction. Then they delete them. The most difficult situation to rectify... please see below, How to Find Your Images on Google.
  4. The Hoster This person hosts their photos at an online gallery, such as Photobucket or Google+, etc. They may or may not have removed the originals from their hard drive, but that's okay, as the copies are safely stored elsewhere.These photos should be fairly simple to locate as well, by merely logging into and browsing your hosting site and folders.
Now, what do you do if you cannot locate the correct photo? Well, retaking the photo is certainly a solution. There is another option, though... read on!

How to Find Your Images on Google
Google indexes text and images and retains a copy of all for use in their various search options. Open 2 tabs in your browser. In the first tab, log into OLA and open the auction you wish to revise. Now copy your entire title, exactly as it appears. Then move to the second tab and type Google.com into the address bar. Once there, look to the top of your screen. Do you see the Images tab? Click it. Now paste your title into the search box and click Enter. I'll wager that your photo(s) will be the first result(s) you see. If not, scroll down just a bit until you recognize your own photo. Do not use a photo that does not belong to you... this is copyright infringement.

In helping others to find their images, I had only one single auction that I could not find a photo for. That seems insignificant, considering the number of photos that I have searched! In that particular case, the seller had no choice but to retake the photo. And mind you, it only takes about a minute to accomplish this task. Once you've located the correct image, right click on it and choose Save Image As to save a copy on your hard drive. (Just remember to organize your My Pictures folder so that you can find it!)

In talking about your auctions and what is under your control, how many of you have experienced a lag time in receiving notices? I know I have. One easy way to combat this is to be diligent about checking your OLA store frequently. By this I mean you should log into your account and take a visual of all aspects of your status. Daily, if not more often! Remember to check the following:
  • Omail (Someone may have a question!)
  • Classic Auctions with Bids (Always exciting, now you'll also know when that sale will occur!)
  • Sold Folders (All types you use, just so you don't neglect a sale!)
  • Current Bids (Those bids you've placed - you don't want to lose that item!)
  • News / Announcements (OLA might have said something you need to hear!)
  • The Chat Forum (This is another good place to find news and tips. Don't miss out!)
Now... let's discuss what is beyond your control.
Site programming. Period.

Seems like a short list in comparison to what is under your control, doesn't it? I agree that bad situations such as this are frustrating, especially when repairs don't appear as quickly as we would like. It can get you down!

So what do we do? We realize that we are not programmers, and we have no idea of the complexity of the current issues. If there is a glitch that you cannot find a work-around for, contact one of the Customer Service representatives, namely Renee and Frank. For Renee, send an omail to Renee. (How easy is that?) For Frank, send an omail to OLASupport. They are both more than willing to help you solve a problem and/or report any issue to the IT Dept. Also, if you can take a screenshot of any trouble you've experienced on the site, you can forward it to James, at James@onlineauction.com. He's our direct contact to the IT Dept and while I am sure he's been crazy busy, working 'round the clock lately, I am also sure that he needs to see your problem in order to work with those techies to solve it. Help him out.

As for me, I am done doing nothing. I plan on getting back to my blogging. If you've followed any of my previous posts, you may have noticed that I like to advertise auctions from many different sellers and provide links back to the site, as well as my own offerings. This may not happen as often as before, as I am rather embarrassed to link to a category that has so many missing photos. So let's get those photos back up, guys! I want to share your stuff!

I believe that other sellers who regularly promote feel much the same as I do. It's time to fix this... start reloading those photos so we have a site to brag about! You'll find the bloggers, the tweeters, the Google+'ers, and the Facebookers very responsive, I guarantee.

Meanwhile, practice a little patience while our programmers work tirelessly to brings the site back to a status that is even better than before.

What's your approach in dealing with issues under and beyond your control? I'd love to hear your ideas and suggestions in the comments area!
 

Thursday, May 3, 2012

Blogging again finally

I tried this blog earlier and had such a hard time with it but I am going to try it again anyway. We recently went to Ohio to help my husbands sister get his mom's house cleaned out and ready to rent. I had no idea she collected so much STUFF. I am helping his sister by listing some here on OLA. I will attempt to show some of the items in this blog. I do not know about all of them but I will put in the listing all I know and will also let you know if I do not know much about the items.


AN ASSORTMENT OF UN-USED POST CARDS


PICTURE OF AN OLD STOVE SOMEONE WAS PROUD OF


BEAUTIFUL HAND COLORED SCENES FROM GLACIER NATIONAL PARK BOOK

PAIR OF AMBASSADOR SCOTCH SHOT GLASSES

REPLICA OS APOLLO X1 MOON PLAQUE (ORIGINAL PACKAGE)

OLD TIME UNCLE SAM BANK COLLECTOR ITEM (WORKS GREAT)

TRAIN BANK NEW (IN ORIGINAL BOX)

TWO CANADIAN SHOT GLASSES

There is so much more to get listed and I may blog this again. I do not want to have too much in one blog and if you would like to see more you can visit my store on OLA by going to the following link where you can see her items and also my items. I would be so happy to see you  at chateycathey and hopefully you can find something of interest to you. Any questions you can omail me and I will be happy to answer them as best I can.

Thank you for taking time to read my blog and learn about some of the items I have listed. Please leave a comment, good or bad as they all mean something to me.

BE SAFE, BE HEALTHY AND BE HAPPY
We recently went to Ohio to help my husbands sister clear out his Mothers house and get it ready to rent. I never knew she collected so much stuff.  I am trying to help her sell some of it by listing it on OLA http://ola.com. There is some that will be simple and some that will not be so simple. I will give all the information I can about all the items but I must admit there is some I know nothing about. So here it goes:

THIS IS JUST A PICTURE AND NOT A REAL STOVE FOR SALE.


THREE DIFFERENT SHOT GLASSES


HAND COLORED SCENES IN GLACIER NATIONAL PARK


AMBASSADOR SCOTCH SHOT GLASSES



REPLICA OF APOLLO MOON PLAQUE

COLLECTORS BANK

ASSORTMENT OF NINE STEEL SKELETON KEYS


UNCLE SAM COLLECTORS BANK (WORKS GREAT)

LARGE ASSORTMENT OF UN-USED POST CARDS


I could list so many more and I may do another blog with some more. I do not want to list them all in a blog as I do not want to overwhelm the blog with listings. 

If any of these are of interest to you or if you want to see more like these I would be happy if you visit my OLA house at http://ola.com/store/chateycathey where you will find more listings like this and also a lot of my own items listed there. 

Thank you for reading my blog and please leave a comment. Good or bad they all count to me. 

Be safe, be healthy and be happy 


Wednesday, May 2, 2012

May Seller of the Month!!!

I would like to introduce you to Callmemomo!! She is the OLA.com seller of the month for May!!

Here is her story:
"I began selling online in 1999, but just as a little hobby on another site. I didn't really begin in earnest until I discovered OLA in 2008.

I started selling because I had started buying at the other site and thought it might be fun. Also, I had come across a product everyone was looking for and no one seemed to have but me. Remember the Pokedex? Probably not, but, it was "hot" and I managed to get some when EVERYONE was looking for them. That was fun!!! It became a fun thing for me to do in my "spare" time.

I'm not sure what the most interesting thing I've bought is because half my house is from OLA!! But the most "intriguing" thing I've sold was and old brass incense burner, I think. I go to estate sales, yard sales, charity sales, etc. and had picked it up for $1.00 and it went a little crazy here on OLA and sold for something like $35.00. Who knew? The most fun I've had was doing the Rummage Sale in 2008. I wouldn't mind doing one of those again. That was fun!!

OLA is definitely my biggest, most time-consuming hobby, but I also crochet, sew, watch movie marathons with hubby, research on the internet random stuff that pops into my head and do whatever spontaneous things hubby or my son suggests we do for that day.

Creating an OLA house … the biggest things are making it attractive but not overbearing and making sure your categories are there. It's important if someone is looking for that "special" item, not to make them go through pages and pages of items to get there. They won't do it. I have tons of listings, but I also have all the categories for them. It's a very useful aid. I would suggest for your listings to take a picture like there is no description and describe like there is no picture. And PROMOTE yourselves! It's your business and that's part of the "job", but it's also part of the fun!! And fun is as important as anything else."

Now, not only would I like to congratulate Momo but also tell you about what I got in the mail the other day!! An awesome bag, crafted by Momo!! A one of a kind item and it is absolutely wonderful!! I just love it!! (It's actually a gift or I'd show it to you!!)

She has some other fabulous bags and purses, though!!



So, you see she has more!! Just pop over to her store and check out all that she has!! I just got the alcohol stove and bag . . . . may have to pop in for more!!!




Tuesday, May 1, 2012

Terrific Tuesday Game/Sale!

It's time for the Terrific Tuesday Game & Sale. Make new friends. Find great bargains. Here are the participating sellers this week. Contact any one of us to join the fun.

kornkountrytreasures
10% off everything (merchandise)!
http://www.onlineauction.com/store/kornkountrytreasures

knickknackcentral
20% all fixed AND combined shipping for all items listed!!
http://www.onlineauction.com/store/knickknackcentral

CountryNaturals
http://www.onlineauction.com/store/CountryNaturals

maggiemaybecrafty
a little gift with each outgoing package.
http://www.OLA.com/store/maggiemaybecrafty


oldturtleheart
Buy one item, get 2nd item (equal or lesser) for HALF PRICE!
Discounted combined shipping.
More items added since last game!
Classic auctions ended at games end.
http://www.onlineauction.com/store/oldturtleheart

yogibear66
15% off everything and combined shipping
http://www.onlineauction.com/store/yogibear66
_________________
YogiBear Pictures, Images and Photos
http://www.onlineauction.com/store/yogibear66
https://www.amazon.com/author/cathycavarzan
www.angsbeadedcreations.com
http://www.onlineauction.com/store/yogissportsden