To be fair, I know it costs something to ship stuff. Companies that offer "free shipping" generally have just built that cost into their pricing. I don't mind paying a reasonable amount to get an item of a given size or weight mailed to me. A vendor that calculates shipping costs case by case is fine, I just don't like it when the shipping is obviously out of line. I'll give a couple of examples;

I recently ordered a $29 bonnet from Sportkilt that weighs in at under a pound, shipping was $7.60 via UPS which is in line with what I am used to, so SK is good in my book!

I also recently 'almost' ordered a simple leather ring belt for my wife from a popular Renfaire vendor. They state this item weighed 1 pound, and I'm sure it could have used the same size UPS box as the SK bonnet. But this vendor adds a $5.95 Handling fee and $10 "standard shipping" to each order, so the $10 belt would have ended up running $25.95 ! I called and griped, but they said that was their minimum fee, "shipping stuff is expensive ya' know"! The sad thing is, if the shipping had only been 7 or 8 bucks, I wouldn't have given a second thought to paying 14 or 15 dollars for the damn belt!

I made one myself for about 12 bucks!