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That's actually how much it costs to ship stuff when it's not being exceptionally heavily subsidized by the utterly broken Universal Postal Treaty.

Orders with DHL across the EU are pretty much $4, without any other company ever handling it. Deliveries don't have to be that expensive.

Going further, if I'm in Germany, and order from a local place (e.g. a local ebay seller), I pay like $0.80 for postage on a delivery.

If I order from a reputable store... it's like 2 weeks waiting time with $15 on delivery.

In the past there used to be small stores everywhere selling every tiny part, but nowadays...

Digikey would be charging more then $5, but competition forces them to not charge outlandish shipping rates!

It didn't used to be that way -- mail order suppliers used to charge high fake "Shipping & Handling" fees.

That's why Amazon introduced 'free' shipping.