Seems pretty straight forward. I take it you have some experience sending goods around the world?

I wouldn't be surprised if you could tie into some of the online tools provided by FedEx and UPS.

I'd sure love it, although calculating alone is not enough.
You could think of worldwide contracts (with discount for ebayers) maybe with a pick-up service as wel...
Tommy

There are web service interfaces available for calculating shipping for Fedex, UPS, etc. Would your service act as middleware to provide a single entry point to all of those?

Run with it, it's a good idea and will likely evolve with suggestions.

Well how are you going to make money. Clearly the shipping company's are looking to make a profit.

Thanks for your comments, guys.
This only the first iteration of this idea, and I have concentrated on the benefits for users of the service, rather than the features. I will add some more detail on how this works and how it makes money.

Please think of a solution where we need less transportation at all!

Yes, more transportation is more pollution. Find out how it can be taken around by bike!

But seriously, good idea that makes people's lives easier. Face it, we're all slackers.

Most ebay users want to put in a fake shipping price to take the extra off the top. If it seems to high that is because they are deliberately over charging.

Ebay all ready has shipping calculators. What makes this better then Ebays existing apps?

It seems like adding a middle man will cost more and add an extra step that will take longer.

Sounds like a very useful idea. I've often thought this is something that's missing from the standard eBay interface - which is otherwise so helpful.

I agrees with Sir Philiph!