Is Walmart gouging military dependents for shipping?

[richlevy]

From here

It looks as if Walmart has allegedly been caught with their hand in the cookie jar. How is shipping an APO to New York different than shipping to a house? If anything, it should be cheaper since there are probably truckloads going to the same address.

On a $120 purchase, Walmart.com charged $10.35 to ship to an APO address, compared with $2.10 to a stateside address. For most items, Amazon.com charged the same to ship to an APO address as a stateside address. And Target offered shipping on a $120 purchase to an APO address for less than to a stateside address.
Wal-Mart Inc. officials did not return calls requesting an interview. However, in an e-mailed response, spokesman Ravi Jariwala said: “In your shopping cart during the checkout process, we show an estimated shipping cost, based on our lowest-price shipping method and assuming all items in your cart are going to a single address within the contiguous United States. If you select a different shipping method, a military APO/FPO address or an address outside the contiguous United States, your actual shipping cost may be higher. We continue to work with carriers to negotiate favorable shipping rates.”

But Earl Small, the postmaster at Wiesbaden Army Airfield, said that the shipping and handling charges have nothing to do with the military postal system or the U.S. Postal Service.

According to Small, when companies ship to APO addresses in Europe, the order is shipped to New York, after which the Department of Defense picks up the tab to get the package to an APO address.