[raymo]

Price pressure, [competition] including freight charges, is immense on ebay,
so they are forced to suck up some of the delivery costs in order to make a sale. In the world of bricks and mortar [especially Australia] competition is
much less, even sometimes non existent, so they can pass on the full freight cost, which is fair enough. They can of course offer to pay some of the freight
in order to sweeten a deal.
Hi Astro 744, I had forgotten that Bintel now sell SW gear, and was referring to their GSO Dobs.
raymo