>>10463780...continued
Now, the USPS is always being beat up about its finances. In my opinion, this is because certain (((people))) want to privatize them. That, again in my opinion, will make them worse than any of the horror stories we're fed now (my PO is great).
But, the fact is, they got _fucked_ on this shipping agreement with China. And to avoid even more attacks about their finances, they had to offset it by raising _our_ rates, worsening the situation for sellers. It wasn't a coincidence that flat rater skyrocketed and all of these weird weight/zone fees came into play. It seemed to get even worse under deJoy with price hikes coming in hotter and faster across the board (even stamps for letters).
Further, USPS used to offer a discount of 10% online. That helped compensate for some of the FVF/tax shenanigans. But then they took it away, I believe under deJoy, making it a defactor price hike.
Speaking of the tax, that thing is insidious. It's possibly different now, but they used to charge the tax on items and shipping separately. So you got hit with two PayPal fixed fees. And then PayPal charged their fee on the total amount transferring, including the tax, even though eBay withheld the tax. That outsized CC fee hits me on in-person Square but at least there I can avoid it by taking literal dollars or a trade or anything. It's a death by a thousand papercuts sort of deal.
And that's before you hit risk factors. eBay makes it impossible to turn away bad buyers. It doesn't police them, its block lists don't work, and it charges you to refund any that get through. When you get robbed by these jokers, you not only every cent, you get slapped with even higher "risk-based" penalty FVFs even you _you're_ not the risky party.
It's so fucking expensive to sell on eBay now it's not funny. Crime is pretty much the only profitable business model. Selling stolen goods, selling weight loss scams, whatever. I would sooner set my property on fire.
