Shipping mysteries

After experiencing online shopping for the past 2-3 years, I still cannot fathom how shipping rates are calculated. There are occasions when sellers are obviously trying to earn via excessive shipping and packaging fee. But there are more occasions when sellers are being truthful. To make things easier, lets just use USPS (United States Postal Service) for shopping from US merchants and just focus on the honest sellers.

Today I received a package of action figure from Amazon.com (I will talk about the figures some other day when the other figures have all arrived). It was shipped last Wednesday so item was actually delivered in less than a week. And guess how much did I pay for shipping? Less than USD10. Plus the label stated that it was EMS shipping. Compare that with the flat shipping rate from Amazon.com for manga purchase which is USD 12.49 per book. My mangas came between 2-4 weeks previously. Comparing the size of a manga vs of a scale 1/8 action figure as well as the duration taken for shipping, the shipping fees just do not make any sense..

When I bought a few action figures from eBay, I paid about USD 15 for a Final Fantasy VIII scale 1/6 action figure (this was honest as I could see the shipping cost on the stamp by USPS). Clearly Amazon.com is just being ridiculous to derive USD 12.49 per manga right? Jeez.. Anyway, interestingly, the USD 15 shipping from eBay took me about 2 weeks to arrive, not 1 week EMS shipping like Amazon.com. I know USA is a damn huge country but will international shipping rate really differ that much?

There are also occasions when sellers are only shipping to US address (and I have to utilise the super duper expensive and unreasonably-priced vPost service) with shipping costs which boggle my mind too. Take for example the Final Fantasy VIII scale 1/6 figures, there are sellers which ask for USD 10 fee for domestic shipping. I am really scratching my head..

Anyway so far I think USPS are reliable. Regardless of the size of the package, on average it takes 2 weeks for the item to arrive. Of course I had experience of lost packages too: 2 Gundam Wing mangas which I ordered from the same seller. Perhaps there was a problem with that seller (no idea which part of US the seller is) but I am not too bothered about it because I got my refund. Heh!