Hi Plasma,.
It's not much of a sample size, but I got a really cheap deal on a Osborne 1 in fantastic collectors condition, fully working and tested with full history, software, receipts, original sales documentation, etc. and they claimed it couldn't be shipped according to their rules. Most of the computers I buy are rough, but this one clearly had exceptional value.
So I did the same thing twice more with less attractive (both faulty, not working) listing details and they got sent and shipped just fine... Both should arrive next week.
The difference? Two new ones are less likely to recover their resale value than the original listing.
Is it proof? No.
But is it evidence supporting the hypothesis? Absolutely.
It may not be the same as someone cherry picking what they want like a supreme overlord, but the description of the item seems to be a key element here, and there's anecdotal evidence that the closer an item is to an actually valuable item, the more likely it is to "go missing" at GSP... The computer I lost to GSP before - the seller had proof it made it to GSP, and said they didn't care - clearly they had already been told they weren't losing their money and said I'd get a refund. They also sent me the tracking showing it made it to GSP... It was an auction that went off at the wrong time, and I paid about 5-10% of what those items ( several collectors computers ) would have gone for at any other time so of course I had no problem with the shipping cost, but it all just disappearred once it hit the GSP.
Yes, I think they absolutely examine whether it's in their interests to ship an item. They already charge way in excess of what US POST charge to ship an item, and at the same time, gain the advantages of economy of scale and repackaging. I do think they examine each and every parcel and work out whether it's in their interests to send it, or to keep it. Sure, there's no pattern to this on every thing they clearly sell, so I think things simply go wrong and this is their solution, but they have access to the data for each sale and would likely have a database of previous sales, and they should be able to calculate their risk instantly and that would quickly tell them whether or not they should ship an item.
There's clearly more to the story - and it's quite likely not everything 8ten sells is from GSP failed shipments and there would be a lot of genuinely unshippable items too - but there's a pattern showing for the exceptions that we know they can ship. When it's commercially in their interests to ship, it ships. When it starts to swing the other way, and looks like the item might be resold based on bids and other historical indicators, it gets stopped with a vague excuse which you have already agreed to in advance.
And there's still a possibility that someone is cherry picking what they want, but there's not enough data to know if that's likely yet.
Regardless, it has been proven that they can, do and will ship the items they claim not to be able to ship. And there's a strong indication the description of the item is a key differentiator between shipping and not shipping.
The alternative explanation is that they just randomly don't ship items for vague undefined reasons, and then have to recover their costs by reselling the items. They know their business costs. It's not like shipping logistics is something that isn't extremely predictable. Believing that a company like Pitney Bowes has no idea what it will cost to ship something until they see it and try to repack it is even crazier - given that the exact dimensions, weight, packing conditions etc, are already absolute and already known and usually over-estimated by the seller. Sure there's the possibility they automatically assume they can't make the space savings they want, but they already charge way more than US POST to ship large items.... All they would need to do if they couldn't commercially ship those items profitably is to bulk-drop them off at the post office and they would still make a profit.
Given what does and doesn't ship, occam's razor definitely falls on the side of corporate greed, not corporate incompetence.