While we appreciate your comments-
eBay is not the way of the future for us- nor is the internet.
As our primary business is food related- restrictions on international shipping, and shipping most especially to the US makes us very much wanting to concentrate on the wholesale business.
What we do on eBay is primarily 'fun', and represents less than 5% of the total picture. With gas prices, and travel eating into my time behind the keyboard- I am ready to say 'to hell with all this eBay nonsense' and move on. It has been fun. But the time has come where I am actually lashing out at buyers! There is a breaking point, and I am not desperate enough to have to put up with the nonsense most of us are faced with on a daily basis. Life will go on without eBay.
HOWEVER- web commerce for chocolate- with temperature, and geographic restrictions has its limitations.
We have no inclination to be anythingother than what we are now.
Expansion into the US was achieved by a reciprocal agreement with a US manufacturer. When we are faced with a US order, we simply hand it off to them. And when they have a Canadian order- we fill it here.
The internet is not the be all, and all that some people believe it to be.
And- for those that market products they do not produce- it is most often a colossal waste of time and resources. Why anyone would waste their time, and energy, only to be met with an offshore manufacturer, who can undercut them at every turn, is beyond me. Many treat the internet like a giant multi-level marketing scheme. And that's sad.
We produce what we sell- and it is a very specialized field.
As such- we actually turn down more business than we accept. This is reality. We can only meet so many of our customers expectations.
It is a good business, but not one ideally suited to being conducted on a global internet scale.