[notpachet]

> So the actual effect of this is just to force people to buy their shipping labels through etsy directly. I presume etsy gets a bulk discount and keeps the difference.

Yes. A lot of ecommerce companies (Etsy, Amazon, eBay, Shopify, etc) have a labels side-business that works in this way. Volume-based discounts from carriers.

[atrus]

I don't think so actually. The prices of the labels on Etsy match the USPS prices for volume labels exactly.

[mike_d]

That is how retail works. You go and buy a hundred thousand of something from a company (in this case USPS) and then sell it to consumers. Your profit is the discount you were able to negotiate by making a bulk order.

[traverseda]

I presume they get the best volume rate, and then whatever the difference is between that and your volume rate is they keep.

[notpachet]

Correct. The USPS has what are called "published" rates, which is the set of prices that can be shown to consumers. Labels marketplaces (like Etsy) get an unpublished discount on top of those base rates and that's where the profit comes from. Those contract rates are not disclosed.