Ho so they use GSP. Not sure why it's so expensive then.
Because you're paying for shipping twice, and for repacking whether they do it or not, plus a little extra vig for handling the oh-so-difficult business of handling the import duty fees which they charge you separately. 
mnem
In short: Because they can. 
From my perspective that's the one advantage to the GSP. I haven't gone and dissected it to be sure, but from the rough amounts quoted it looks like their fee for handling the customs paperwork is much more reasonable than the fee that you'll get slapped with if you just order something without pre-paying customs fees and duties and wait for your local carrier to slap on a hefty fee for doing it (often paying less actual taxation than the fee itself).
Well, no... I get that bit. But it ALL adds up.
Like my example scope; $65 for the scope with $66 shipping because you're paying for 2 shippings: From the vendor to them and then from them to you. And they roll in a repacking fee for everybody, whether they pack like Alltest or they pack like a moron, and from numerous reports here on eevBlog, what they pass on as "not needing repacking" is nearly criminally negligent.
And then they tack on the handling fee for customs, etc, which is generated by a program and requires zero man-hours per piece.
*grump-grump*I agree... they provide a valuable service; they give you a fixed cost UP FRONT to get your purchase from A to B to YOU so you can make an informed decision.
It's just that for most people, paying more in shipping than for the product is the
"Ehhhhhh... maybe not." point, no matter how many $$$ are involved.
When you apply that scenario to the Ferengi contingent lurking in THIS crowd... well, you're definitely going to hear a lot of "sour grapes" type noise about it.
mnem
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