Holy Rubber Carpet Protectors, Batman!

I have to share my cool new Batman floormats. Krista gave them to me for Christmas. They were bought on-line and I just got them this week. eBay - the gift that keeps on giving.

On the subject of eBay - I bought a book from eBay for Krista called The Mom Inventor's Handbook. Krista is extremely smart, and she's always coming up with great ideas, so I thought she'd enjoy it. Anyway, I saw it at Barnes & Noble; cover price was $16.95 (you can save 10% in their on-line store, so it's only $15.25, but that doesn't include shipping). I had the bright idea to get it on eBay for much cheaper - and lo and behold, I was able to pick it up for $6.89 + $4.99 shipping. Not too bad, I thought: $11.88. I was hoping to get it for a little less, but saving 5 bucks off the cover price wasn't bad. Until I got my invoice. I, of course, forgot to read the fine print.

Shipping Insurance Required: $1.79.

Seller charges sales tax in multiple states. (AL rate of 4%: $.48 - don't worry, sales tax isn't that cheap here when you include city and county, our sales tax in Florence is 8.5%.)

Sales tax on eBay? Good grief. Next time, I'll be sure not to be in such a hurry.

Suddenly my $5 savings drops to not much more than $2 when you bump my total cost to $14.15. I was annoyed by it all, but it was my fault for not reading all the shipping information.
The real kicker was, when I received it (a few days after Christmas, of course - but then I only paid for it on the 17th, and was just hoping I'd get it by then), it had a return address of WalMart. WalMart?? I just bought this from WalMart?

Interesting scam. Well not really a scam, but it seems like it. You don't even have to have any inventory. Just sell something on eBay that you can get your return on if you purchase it at the same time and have it shipped from another store. I checked to see the cost if I would have bought this directly from WalMart: Book: $10.84, Shipping: $2.47, Sales Tax .$48.

Total: $13.79.

Well, unless they got some other Walmart discounts, they didn't break even since they would have had to pay all the ever-increasing eBay fees. Hmmm...they still have one in their store, but that one has a $7.89 price on it. I wonder if they do have a retailer discount...