Shipping prices changing from order to order.

[budman-mo]

I noticed this problem awhile back and called in and was given a **bleep** answer.
I use the USPS flat bag a lot and started noticing that the price was varying from order to order.
It's called FLAT RATE for a reason the price should be the same, every time until rates change.
Turns out that ship by weight to the same location is now different prices too ?

The **bleep** answer I keep getting is it has something to do with how my listing shows shipping.
That shouldn't change what I choose and what I am charged for postage ( a USPS price billed thru Ebay).

Today I sold two identical items from the same listing to two buyers who were in both Ohio so the postage would be the same but it's not.

The flat rate price was different for both and the by weight  price was different for both but they should be exactly the same.

I did call in tonight and after getting the barely English speaker who was no help at all I was handed off to someone who could see the problem and started a ticket for IT to see what's going on.

I can only assume if this has been happening to me it's likely happening to others too.

[nobody*s_perfect]

In September, USPS issued a new policy which resulted in different prices for "flat rate" packaging.  About 17,000 out of the 42,000 USPS ZIP Codes are now no longer eligible for the extra discount that eBay has negotiated with USPS. Postage labels for those locations will be charged at the published Commercial rate, rather than at the more deeply discounted eBay rate. The affected locations seems to be ones that are  awkward for deliveries (islands, rural, etc.). Here's the rather awkward eBay announcement about it:

https://community.ebay.com/t5/Announcements/USPS-Rate-Changes-Effective-September-16-2024/ba-p/34661...

[fern*wood]

It's amazing how the ebay phone reps don't even read the ebay annoucements.  I was given a tip a few years back to subscribe to the announcements to avoid missing seeing them.