I agree that you can choose who you want to buy from. But I do disagree that high shipping/handling prices are reasonable.

I am a seller. I set the opening price or reserve with the fees in mind, so that I don't actually lose money in the process. I do not use a "business" account for a paypal account. Instead, I use a "personal" account because the fees for a business account are just outrageously high. Then I just do not allow anyone to use credit cards, because the fees for allowing credit cards are outrageously high. They can use paypal transfers or money orders. It can be done, folks. You don't have to charge high prices for shipping to make a go of it.

I don't send the buyer the shipping amount until the item is packed up and labeled and weighed for her area code specifically. I do know that it takes some time for packing, but that hardly seems worth charging for, to me. And when you have a lot of packages to do, how do you split up that time to come to a couple of cents per package? I think that I sometimes fix my auction start times so that the ending times are spread out a little bit, so that I don't have to deal with them all at once, so that it's not that much time out of every day.

I also got a tip from another buyer that a way to save time at the closing of the auction is to package the item when the first bid is placed, and then label it when you finally know who the buyer is. When I do that, I write a note on it, so that I can keep straight on what is in which box.

And my post office is only 4 blocks away, although I usually go to the larger one, about 5-10 min drive away (about 1 mile), which again hardly seems worth charging for, to me.

And I can choose to go at times of the day when the line is likely to be very short or nonexistent, or I can use the machine, which usually has no line or only 1 person.

And like I said before, if you save packaging from items you receive, or use free USPS packaging, there's no excuse for buying all new materials for things that you ship out (and then charging the buyer for that). If I ever have something extra large or an odd shape, that requires a new box, then I let the buyer know about that, and what the box will cost.

So I still think that charging so much for shipping and handling is unnecessary and unfair.
Joy

<font color="#051E50" size="1">[ January 24, 2006 11:54 AM: Message edited by: djsnjones ]</font>