poprockscandy.com is closing down

It's official...poprockscandy.com is closing down.  Started in 1997, we helped individuals and businesses with getting Pop Rocks candy.  Restaurants and bars used Pop Rocks on desserts and rimmed specialty martini drinks with Pop Rocks.  A few Japanese restaurants used Pop Rocks in their Sushi.  Some of the notable businesses; Flo at Progressive Insurance did a promotion with Pop Rocks, MGM Studios promoted a movie, Google did a employee appreciation gig with Pop Rocks and the producers of the Big Bang Theory TV show bought Pop Rocks.

Why close down poprockscandy.com?

A couple of reasons.

1.  Dwindling demand.  I started poprockscandy.com as a pure play e-commerce site.  Our organic SEO was very high because we started so early in the internet game.  We ranked #1 in search engines for many years.  However, around 2008 time frame, I noticed sales peaked and the order rate was moving slightly downward.

I started looking into the web stats and our online competition.  Stats were slightly lower too. Competition from more traditional candy distributors had certainly caught up.   We were inline in most other candy websites in terms of pricing.  Candy.com sold Pop Rocks, but their prices were 25% more, so I was not priced out.

It soon became apparent that the pay to play advertising and sponsored websites were moving to the top of search engines and getting the attention of the end users.  I had a philosophical aversion to pay Google and Yahoo.  I looked into it, but just did not want to pay.  It was a part-time business and not enough sales to justify the payment.

2.  The manufacturer of Pop Rocks would not sell.  I would order from Pop Rocks Inc every few months.  Sometimes it would take them several weeks to fulfill an order.  In the Summer of 2014, I placed an order and after 4 weeks, I called Customer Service to inquire on the status of the order.  Their answer - we can not fulfill your order with no answer to why.  I called the VP of Sales of North American.  I told him the situation and he seemed shocked and said he would look into it.  A couple of more weeks go by.  I called again and he said the decision was blocked by the parent company, Zeta Especial.  I exchanged an email with Dotty, President of Zeta Especial.  She would not give me an answer.  Conclusion:  Close down poprockscandy.com

Now, I need to change the title of my Blog.