You fellas evidently do a good deal of reading and therefore it occurs to me that many of you, esp those on a fixed income or other thrifty souls such as I, might have experienced this same roadblock. In connection with an earlier post Nev kindly suggested

"I found Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind a good introduction to Zen Buddhism."

Apparently many others were disappointed in Osho's work as I found a large number of used offerings in Amazon starting at $2. Nonetheless I was put off by shipping of $4, making its cost in effect $6

But, I wondered, what if I were to place it in a cart with a number of unrelated items I had found I needed in the meantime; wouldn't the shipping cost be diminished accordingly

Or as usually the case, isn't there a Catch 22

Amazon says, "...sellers can choose to make partial refunds on combined
orders as a kind of 'rebate' for ordering multiple items...," which however doen't clarify this particular instance

I am reminded of an item offered on Ebay, a PC hard drive for $3 where the shipping cost was given as $26. Is the world crazy or is it just me

Thanks all

This message has been edited. Last edited by: dalehileman,

Well, I can only tell you that I know someone who goes to Target and Walmart, buys tschoskes, and then offers them on eBay. He brags that he makes his money by charging huge shipping costs. Perhaps others do this as well.

I guess one can't really blame anyone for doing this because everyone knows what they're paying when the click "buy." Nobody is forcing anyone to buy.

Shipping costs have become significantly greater over the years. Whereas a postage stamp was once an insignificant cost, it is now a major part of any project.

I suspect that this is due in part to the increase in labour costs (and shipping is very labour-intensive) and in part due to the very real loss in traffic that has resulted from email. How interesting is most people's post delivery these days? Letters are rarely sent by post - all that one tends to get is promotional material (and most of that junk).