Ok been dong a bit of ebay shopping. Yep I knew it was a Chinese seller - nowadays they just have to be
However I just ordered 4 items from 1 seller allegedly in the UK. In other words I browsed their shop and made 4 separate purchases all of them priced in sterling.
What a surprise to find that paypal had to inform me to pay for each item separately because there were different currencies involved. Hong Kong $, Australian $, US $, and good old UK£
In total the parts only came to just over a tenner so it wasn't the cost, its the delivery time, the one priced in aussie dollars is a 6 week window!