Another Great Ebay Move

[Exhibitman]

If Ebay's real concern was merely forcing sellers to shoulder the risk, then it could simply mandate insured shipping and let the seller charge accordingly at checkout. By stating "You cannot charge the buyer a separate fee for insurance, either in a listing or after the buyer has committed to purchase the item" however, Ebay is mandating that sellers set up-front insurance charges. It is impossible to set an insurance charge for an auction item because you don't know the final value. Last week for example I had two 1977 Topps cards soar way past my high estimate of their value and sell for over $100. Unless I jacked the buyer for a huge insurance charge up front there is no way I could have charged for insurance to actual value because I did not know the value. I submit that this new rule is another effort at making the auction seller go away. It wasn't enough to create a huge differential between the listing costs for auction and BIN items, I suppose, so now Ebay pushes the risk and cost of insurance onto the sellers, which is a non-issue in calculating a BIN shipping cost but a huge PITA when trying to calculate an auction listing.

[tbob]

One thing I think is incredibly stupid and wrong is that ebay now limits what a seller charges for shipping to a certain amount. If you are required to clearly state shipping costs in your ad (required by ebay) why can't you just skip items with exorbitant shipping? No longer can you ship an item priority mail (or at least they don't let me) and charge either exact postage for shipping. Actually I was going in the hole because I ALWAYS send with a delivery confirmation. Sending it priority mail was a way of sending it in a stiff, sturdy box for protection plus getting it there fast. Now the guys who use recycled envelopes, sometimes not even padded, are rewarded and can actually charge more than actual postage by sending it media mail. It just doesn't make sense!
BTW- I still see others who send out a poster on ebay and charge $12 shipping for a $5 item but sports card sellers are discriminated against.