I know eBay has “eBay envelope” for like certain collectibles but that’s limited by category (that service also has never worked for me), so perhaps this seller just has a custom shipping rule that is that low? But they would lose money on a sale like this. I suppose the hope could be that people buy multiple items at once if they have plenty of (in this case) retro games
Edited - added screen shot of low end rate costs for ground advantage and media mail
$2.95 shipping is plenty for a bubble mailer with a game case in it. Additionally, there’s tons of fraudulent packages right now and the instruction from management is to just deliver it even if you catch it.
Ive never seen a bubble mailer cost less than $5.40 as a seller and that’s with ebays discount, im talking 2 ounces
You could be right. I know delivery better than postage pricing. Seeing $2.95 on a label wouldn’t trigger any red flags to me.
I think the bigger companies have special deals in shipping. Might also be their postal printer they have through a 3rd party company.
Depends where you are but for us if it fits in a 6x9 envelope and is thinner that a certain height ( I forget 5/8" maybe. Then it ships for a couple of dollars. As soon as thickness goes over that limit is becomes like $20
What service is that? Cant be ground advantage which starts at 4.50
If it’s non machinable (rigid) then it has to go ground advantage, etc.
Im in Canada, so 6x9 under 50g is $1.75 I think. Higher rate for heavier.
Wow what an amazing deal, sucks to be in the us i guess
Yeah my sister sent me a thin spring jacket across country, in one of those envelopes before. Cost her $2. But as soon as you exceed what they determine is a letter slots thickness, it jumps to $20+ bcause now they can’t drop it through a mail slot and needs an actual delivery
In the us the postal service has media mail, bit this seems low even for that. It’s likely they are in a member nation of the UN’s universal postal union (192 members!). One of the agreements between members is to deliver or forward on mail from all other UPU members. This can appear initially as a financial loss due to the postage rates and volumes from/to some member jurisdictions, but the members reimburse each other and various fees are assessed. This is a vastly oversimplified explanation, but it’s an incredibly convoluted system even after many many revisions. The Wikipedia page for the UPU goes into some history and much more detail. The section Terminal Dues give more detail better than I can. The subsection on Modifications specifically but there are only two relatively brief subsections under Terminal Dues.
Interesting idea, I wonder is this why packages from cheap chinese sellers are a thing? For this particular eBay listing - I found this company’s headquarters in Miami, FL so probably not the case here?
Ding ding ding! We have a winner! Yes, that is exactly why!
