I receive about 3 complaints a week from customers about shipping costs. Sample complaint: "I know it only costs $5 to send it priority from NY to California! Why don't you just stuff it in a flat rate box!" I'm getting pretty tired of responding to these people. I don't set the ship prices on my items - if the item weighs less than a pound, I send it 1st Class Mail, and if it weighs more than a pound, I send it priority. I buy eBay's lightweight packaging and do my best to keep prices down. Ebay's Ship Payment System is bizarre - they charge the customer one price, charge me another price (pretending it's a discount), and then bill me 10% (which eliminates the discount). I'm guessing that this weird arrangement allows them to avoid paying taxes on their shipping profits. Whatever. In any case, I'm sick of them outsourcing shipping cost complaints to me, since I have zero control over my customer's shipping costs. They should AT LEAST direct customers to send shipping inquiries to eBay, not to sellers. eBay uses this passive strategy regularly - they don't want to deal with customer service complaints, so they use sellers as free labor. I'm also tired of the way eBay pressures me to offer free shipping. I sell used clothing, and my prices are low. The only way to offer free shipping without literally giving the clothes away is to raise prices to cover the cost. I tried it once, and my sales stalled completely. I tried to switch back using the bulk listing tool and a tech bug made half my listings unpurchasable. Ebay didn't alert me and I lost money for months. When I figured out what was wrong, eBay refused to refund me store fees. It was a total disaster.
