This has to be criminal! I think they have been doing this for some time, but I've just realized they now charge a final value fee on shipping costs. I know why they have done this, it's to discourage sellers from inflating shipping costs to pay less in fees. But it still doesn't justify the change. If you charge the actual shipping costs, it's now actually costing the seller money to ship the item themselves, which is just ridiculous.
Geez, I have not been selling on eBay for years, but I believe that they had been doing that way back then. They do it because sellers have tried to embed some of the cost of the product into the shipping fees (both to reduce eBay fees and to make their products come up higher in search results sorted by price) and because they can. I left eBay due to their absolute arrogance and favoring of buyers over sellers, even in the most egregious circumstances.
eBay and PayPal are though different companies not origin is same. They always discourage seller and give priority to buyer over seller. I am not against buyer protection but there should be something for sellers as well. It might be the part of their business plan.
I remember selling walnut boards on ebay back in 2003-5 (bought them from the Amish dirt cheap, resold on ebay.) Can't even imagine doing the same today with all the fees and whatnot. I'd probably be losing money majorly on the shipping. Those boards were not light.
Haha, I love your first sentence, has to be criminal!!! Yes it was there for quite a while now. Infact that is how they are making money other than taking percentages on each sale. There was a big down fall in 2007-08 where ebay didnot have much sales, I guess that is when they started this new venture of stealing money from the sellers, without much of a hype.
I quit ebay when they started taking HALF of my sales, so don't know when this occurred. What I do know is that IF knowledge of these fees was readily available AT THE TIME SELLERS POST THEIR ADS, ebay is NOT stealing money from sellers. It is the SELLER'S responsibility to know costs in ADVANCE of a sale, whether the sale is on eBay, in a brick-and-mortar store, or even out of the back of a truck. If the seller does not know his costs BEFORE the sale, there is no way he can remain in business for very long.