Postage System Malfunction

[elephantdance43]

The eBay postage-purchase system overwrote my shipping choices and calculated inaccurate postage.  My auctions all ship in Priority Mail Flat Rate boxes (free shipping to buyer, easy to understand and plan). But despite specifying Priority Mail Flat Rate boxes, the postage-purchase system did whatever it wanted and ignored my selections.  I had to fix postage at the post office; the real cost was more than eBay's calculations in four out of six cases. Is this normal? Should I expect this kind of drama in the future if I purchase postage through eBay? 

[inceptions]

Hi @elephantdance43 

You're listing your items with Priority Mail weight-based shipping, not Flat Rate options, so whatever you use on your listings is the default you'll see when you purchase labels through eBay. You either need to change your listings or change the values on the shipping label before completing the purchase.

When you purchase labels at the post office, you pay more for them than the discounted rate eBay provides. Also, for several of your items, Priority Mail weight-based would be cheaper than Priority Flat Rate if you listed using weight-based calculated shipping (for which you'll need a postal scale so you can enter the correct packaged weight when creating labels).

http://pages.ebay.com/help/pay/calculated-shipping.html

[elephantdance43]

OK. So now I know I have to carefully review everything and nothing can be taken for granted. Thanks. Priority weight based would have been "cheaper," but would have required finding and buying ideally sized boxes for shipment. I had specified flat rate when I listed due to reduced rigamarole.  I didn't expect eBay to change my selection; now I know they will. Thanks. Been a seller on eBay since 1999 and the selling process gets harder and harder. Eventually, it won't be worth the effort. But thanks for your help.

[inceptions]

Hi @elephantdance43 

To clarify...eBay did not change anything. You listed the item with Priority weight-based shipping and so that is what the default was for your shipping label.

You can get free Priority Mail weight-based cartons that should work for items you might ship in a flat-rate carton. You can pick them up at the post office if you just need a few, or you can order them through USPS and have them delivered to you. For what you've been selling, it looks like you could be saving yourself a lot of money by shipping via weight-based rather than flat-rate cartons.