If you contact ebay - you may find that the seller has to pay for ALL of the shipping. This is not very clear in most of the literature - but I've found that it is the case many times. Of course the seller isn't going to volunteer the information. And the seller may not even know - eBay rules aren't the easiest thing to figure out. Does not help that eBay periodically changes things too . . .
It's different if you simply decide you don't want an item - then you pay for ALL of the shipping.
eBay no longer "lets" you contact the seller without going through the resolution center. I've had several sellers get upset with me - but most of them now realize it's eBay that requires it. I'm sure it saves a lot of hassle later if everything is documented from the start.
I know it may sound like I'm a difficult buyer, but it's just that I'm a very frequent buyer - usually several items a week. I've only had a few "misrepresentations" but have had several "damaged in transit" and only one "lost in shipping". I'm still at 100% positive.
My last item that got broke in shipping - the shipping cost more than the item so there was no way I was going to ship it back. The seller was a bit reluctant -then out of the blue agreed to refund the cost of the item (I paid shipping). I'm sure they did some research and realized they could end up refunding the original cost plus shipping, and the cost to ship it back to them - only to have something broken they could not resell. It was a button holer with a plastic case and the case is what got broken- so I can still use the item. There was no doubt it was broke do to poor packing - they shipped it in a padded envelop with no stability. I've since bought a second one with a really nice box and a crappy buttonholer - and put the nice buttonholer in the nice box.