FedEx and DHL Disadvantaged on Some eBay Searches

Ina Steiner
Auctionbytes.com

eBay has replaced the feature that allows shoppers to sort by price with one that sorts by "price plus shipping." But eBay only supports UPS and USPS in its shipping calculator (and not every service from these providers). For sellers who use FedEx, DHL and other carriers and don't specify flat-rate shipping, their items will show up at the bottom of search results when sorted by price.

You can test it yourself by doing a search on eBay (try to be specific with your search terms so you only get a page or two of search results). The default sort is still Time Ending Soonest, which as of this writing appears to put all core listings on a level playing field. But if you choose to sort your results by Price + Shipping: Lowest First or Price + Shipping: Highest First, you'll see that the items in which the seller has failed to specify a shipping rate appear at the very bottom of the results, even if they put the shipping rate in the listing description.

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