Shipping is insane these days too - it's so expensive shipping larger/bulkier items these days compared to before. You really have to focus on finding/selling smaller higher-value items that will fit in a mailer envelope, Priority mail padded envelope, or small box at largest, otherwise it's not worth it.
Yes. True. I just sold something & used ebay's calculator to see what shipping would be. It said $7.20, which is what I charged when I listed it.
When I went to mail it, it wound up costing over $12 (on an item I sold for $10).
From now on, I'm going to stick to things under 1 lb or else use the USPS web site to calculate shipping before I list.
I offer free shipping on all eBay items and price the shipping into the cost of the item. Also, I only do Buy It Now listings and base my price on similar sold items from a search on eBay. Free shipping catches the buyer's eye, and eBay rewards (e.g. no listing fees, priority search listings, etc) seller offerings like free shipping, return policies (i.e. accepting returns within 14-days), and 1 business day handling times.
I sold an old pair of New Balance running shoes and a used t-shirt recently. I've also sold failed hard drives (listed as not working, for parts only), furniture parts that I no longer need (e.g. legs of a couch or chair I was going to discard), etc. Anything goes on eBay and you'd be surprised how quickly the most trivial stuff sells. Most of the trivial/useless stuff I've sold has been motivated by my curiosity of "will this sell?", and it ALWAYS does.
One of the BEST places to find items to sell on eBay are Goodwill Outlet Stores. These stores contain large, blue bins of unsorted goods that are brought out in 30min intervals. People wait for the bins to be aligned in a row and then converge to sort through them (mostly in a cordial and methodical way). I've found some incredible books that were $.50 (e.g. 1st edition Mark Twain Huck Finn in excellent condition, autographed Annie Liebovitz in mint condition, etc). I found an Atari t-shirt for $1.50 that I turned around and sold for $40. The sorting takes some patience, and you'll need to have some understanding of the value of things they offer (have your cell phone on hand for reference) but you're guaranteed to find some gems in the bins.
Here's some more info on these outlet stores...
http://www.gwoutletstorelocator.com