Look, I understand why they brought it in, HOWEVER, lately I've had buyers make a habit of buying multiple items under different guest accounts (eg: a buyer buys two items: one under fred-060 and one under fred-071)
Same name. Same address. Purchased two minutes apart.
Guess what? Due to eBay's policy, I can't put them in the same envelope because I need two separate tracking numbers (because the buyer used two different accounts).
Prior to the policy's introduction, I would've just put the tracking on one, marked the second item as sent, refunded excess postage, and notified the buyer that the second item was in with the first. Can't do that now, because simply marking the second item as sent lowers my percentage.
Spoke to eBay support about it and was told never to combine the postage in these cases, because it will lower my percentage (which I already knew).
Common sense dictates that if it's the SAME buyer at the SAME address in a short time frame, postage should be able to be combined. Not only is this inconvenient and (regardless of cost, it requires more packing materials, and I'm not trying to kill the environment any faster), but it's surely worse for the buyer, who now has to pay for 2 x postage (and track/collect 2 envelopes instead of one)? Can't wait 'til someone buys 6 or so items and does this ... looking forward ...
