[dc90]

IMHO it's not an advantage for the buyer: buying two items results would now result in you implicitly paying the shipping cost twice (I'm unfamiliar on if it was calculated like that etsy, but from my experience it's standard business practice in other e-shops to make you pay shipping only once for all items, if they can fit in the box).

[mikeash]

In theory, it may not be. In practice, lots of sites that split out shipping make it hard to find out just what shipping will cost until you’re very deep in the checkout process, and then charge insane rates.