Occasional Seller? Beware of Shipping Reality

[acrumbacker]

Gone are the days of reasonable shipping.  I sold a an antique lamp that was fragile and required extra packing.  It didnt weigh a lot but was more bulky.  It was packed by our local UPS store.  Shipped from (near) Louisville, KY to Las Vegas.  The UPS air hub is in Louisville.

I used what I considered high rate of $60 for shipping.  The total turned out to be $128.  Ouch.

I am not whining; the fault is all mine and I should have somehow calculated that in a worse-case scenario.  I wanted to pass on to any infrequent sellers that you might end up taking a bath after expenses are deducted.

[inhawaii]

I never sell anything unless I know EXACTLY what it will cost to ship.

[broto_64]

The first thing I think about when I want to list something on ebay is how is this going to ship?
I've been doing this long enough where I usually have a pretty good idea and most often the answer is yay or nay right then, and it has to do with cost.
Size of package and weight are two of the biggest considerations.

After that most things ship cheapest via USPS.

UPS and Fedex do offer some competition but watch out for the hidden fees (Fedex is the worst here).
Next, will it fit in my mailbox or do I have to drive it up the road?

Yes because driving costs money too...