I also remember another variant on the shipping practice back when there used to be other auction sites competing with eBay. It was standard practice for the site to take a percentage of the sale price, but some sites didn't include the shipping price in that calculation. Thus, the seller made more money off selling a Playstation for $1 with $190 in shipping than they would off selling it for $200 with free shipping. I even remember someone setting up a shipping company that would generate the invoices to "prove" that these were the actual shipping prices. They'd then subcontract the actual shipping out to the USPS and pay an $195 "affiliate loyalty comission" back to the original seller.