To some degree I am not terribly offended by these shipping charges as they are disclosed up front.

But I really hate specious arguments.

And he recites one which I have seen many times on the Ebay board.

He claims that the handling charge is paying for his time and compares that to a salary.

What these people who make this argument seem to forget is that they are presumably making a profit on the sale (and if they are not they need a new occupation). Essentially they are saying they are entitled to a wages plus profit, as opposed to considering their profit as their wages.

Although some shopowners may "pay themselves a salary" for accounting purposes most of them consider the earnings of the shop as their earnings and the salary to be a record keeping matter.

So those of us who suggest that these handling charges are inappropriate are not suggesting that the seller's labor has no value, just that they are business people not my employee and I have no obligation to pay them a salary.