You're effectively asking for the government to legislate screwing over customers.
Yes, shipping can be used as an opportunity to milk customers for a few extra dollars. Let's flip it and build it into the price of the item. You buy two of these items. The seller ships them together; there's a few cents in cost due to extra weight, but otherwise, they're pocketing that extra $X the 2nd item had set aside for shipping.
Upfront priced shipping literally only and exclusively benefits the consumer when you buy one thing (or, if the seller is an idiot and ships one item per box, which never happens). And even then, it doesn't benefit the customer more than backside-calculated shipping, its just slightly more convenient.
My Etsy shop makes hundreds of dollars just on this oddity in consumer behavior; that they're more likely to buy something if it has free shipping, so we'll just tack on $4 to the price of each item. A consumer comes along and buys three things; they just paid $12 for "shipping". We put them all in one box, pay USPS $3.50, and pocket the remaining ~$8.
Yes, shipping can be used as an opportunity to milk customers for a few extra dollars. Let's flip it and build it into the price of the item. You buy two of these items. The seller ships them together; there's a few cents in cost due to extra weight, but otherwise, they're pocketing that extra $X the 2nd item had set aside for shipping.
Upfront priced shipping literally only and exclusively benefits the consumer when you buy one thing (or, if the seller is an idiot and ships one item per box, which never happens). And even then, it doesn't benefit the customer more than backside-calculated shipping, its just slightly more convenient.
My Etsy shop makes hundreds of dollars just on this oddity in consumer behavior; that they're more likely to buy something if it has free shipping, so we'll just tack on $4 to the price of each item. A consumer comes along and buys three things; they just paid $12 for "shipping". We put them all in one box, pay USPS $3.50, and pocket the remaining ~$8.