[Bill Alexander]

Ebay started tightening the noose around the casual vendor a few years ago. When the site was originally set up, it was far more "friendly" to use. Then the rules changed, some due to abuses on both the vendors and buyers sides, but most often to increase the profit margin while at the same time lessening the liabilities of ebay. I have basically stopped selling on the site after "losing" two parcels and having paypal claw back the payment. (The buyers in both cases were shrewd and used the rules to their advantage. Even after they indicated to me that they didn't want to pay for p of d shipping. This was a couple of years ago before the changes required p of d.) Left me vulnerable, and I had to go to proof of delivery shipping to protect my sales. But, proof of delivery is expensive shipping.
A fellow had a lot of Cdn army cloth for sale late last winter. It was listed with GPS. The lot was listed at a reasonable rate, about $30 US for the items. The shipping was over $25 and the duties were, IIRC, about $15. This was for about 15 Canadian shoulder titles that could be easily shipped in an envelope. So, the carrying charges were more than the lot... When I messaged the vendor, showing him that USPS quoted significantly less rates, and that the goods in question were duty exempt (returning Canadian historical material) his reply told me to basically f*** o##. So I did. A vendor who does not consider shipping outside GPS, is really limiting their market. Unfortunately, it seems that many vendors are not aware of the charges added to the lots as they are automatically generated based on the buyers location. And, now ebay UK is using something similar to the GPS.
Like Bruce, I am pretty well done with ebay.