The oldest community of online auction users, Online Traders Web Alliance (OTWA), announced the official launch of the OTWA Community Marketplace, an online auction and classified Marketplace.

OTWA soft launched the Community Marketplace last month after its initial beta test proved the site was up to the challenge of high performance and reliability. Today, OTWA officially announced the hard launch of the community marketplace with 3 million banner ads strategically targeted throughout the Internet, Google AdWords for search and Adwords for content as the primary online advertising. Additionally, OTWA is preparing to target offline advertising through the antiques and collectibles trade publications, collectors’ magazines, and direct marketing.

According to the company, the OTWA Community Marketplace had an overall sell-through rate of approximately thirty four percent of all items listed during the soft launch period. They attributed this in part to the premise that by charging a small fee, and including free image hosting, free gallery, free click to enlarge, free slideshow, and much more, sellers tend to list items of interest to buyers, rather than items they were unable to sell on eBay. The backbone of the marketplace is OTWA's existing community member-base of 30,000.

OTWA's owner Jim Wells Miller said that because of the community tie-in, the OTWA Community Marketplace is able to offer buyer rewards and promotions, as well as frequent seller incentives that create a fun marketplace experience, keeping it exciting for both buyers and sellers.

Wells Milller said, "We are a community first and foremost; the marketplace is an additional feature of OTWA, and building on that premise enabled us to create a successful, fun and exciting marketplace alternative."

http://www.otwa.com