For those not in the know. I've had the Hip Hop Soda Pop Shop on Ebay for almost 5 years now specializing in glass bottled soda pop, mostly root beers.

At one point 2 years ago I was up to 276 flavors of soda in glass bottles and sales were great. Roughly 10 orders week and it kept me busy as a side job to my day job.

Two years ago Ebay cancelled all store listings for under $1 which wiped out a bit of my ability to sell alot of my sodas as they no longer would allow me to sell for less than $1.

A year ago sales dropped from 40 orders a month to 2. I had to sell off most of my inventory and stick to what I know would sell. A year later and sales are miserable.

To drive the final nail in the coffin Ebay called last week stating that as of March 30th Ebay listing fees will go from $.03 per item per month to $.20 per item per month.

That pretty much wipes out any profit I was making as Ebay also takes 8% of the sales price and Paypal takes another 3%.

This means for every bottle I sell I would make $.03. So roughly 1000 bottles would need to be sold each month just to cover the monthly Ebay fees to own a basic store.

I don't have the funds to create my own web page or the time. So it looks like another shop bites the dust.

I have plenty of inventory left for those interested. About 100 cases to be exact. Maybe 40 root beers and a bunch of other old time names.

Thanks to those who have been interested and followed.

It's been fun..

Josh Davies

that is a huge shame! wow, sorry to hear that. you could always open a website store not on ebay. if you need it, i could probably provide the hosting for a domain, so that cuts your costs some. as long as you don't generate ridiculous traffic of course, but i am sure it would be fine. i have never used it, but there are commerece apps i can install, if you are up for playing around with it all a little bit.
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anthony's root beer barrel http://rootbeerbarrel.com

Yeah, Ebay is a joke, it used to be the cheapest place on the net. But they've raised fees so much no one can compete with Amazon and the such.

Just like the government, tax the hell out of the sellers trying to make a buck as opposed to cutting fees and increasing the amount of sellers therefore increasing competition and increasing sales. More sale means more money for Ebay. Morons....

Anyway, I do have alot of ideas that I've put together over time of what I'd like to see from a website. I just don't have the knowledge to implement them.

having a host would definitely be a great first step. Now just need to a build a site and a shopping cart.

Real sorry to hear that you are going to be packing it up on ebay. I can't tell you how many times I've looked at your root beers wanting to buy a few - but I just couldn't bring myself to pay for the shipping.

I hope you get your web-site up and running!
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The Professor is Back
www.professorrootbeer.blogspot.com

We can help with a site, a shopping cart, and a domain, if necessary. We'd need to use PayPal and / or Google Checkout, but other than that there wouldn't be any fees.
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Bottoms up!
Kevin Guske

“So here’s a tribute toast with root beer in hand to you and the many mugs of suds along your happy trails.” --Charles Wysocki, artist and root beer fan, 1928-2002

Soda-MN-Good wrote:

I don't have the funds to create my own web page or the time. Josh Davies

Do you mean web site? I pay only $4/month for a web host. That is the one thing that has become less expensive over the years.

indeed, i'd be happy to set up all of the stuff for you. the templates that come with the shopping cart software is pretty good, just need the images and logos and junk for your products and site.
and it would have to be google checkout or paypal.

it could be a subdomain off of one of my domain or you/we/i could buy one.

Kevin i am sure would do a better job than me but i am happy to help too if you need web space or whatever.

the world needs more soda ordering places!
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anthony's root beer barrel http://rootbeerbarrel.com