Shipping fees for international orders

As an eBay seller I am sending valuable items such as lenses and cameras all over the world (from the UK, home of expensive postal services). I insist on using loads of packing and using a recorded and insured service, however on the past few months I have attempted to order some items myself from the US, but more often than not have had to cancel at that point due to wildly inflated shipping charges arriving on my screen. This is a shame as the order is lost and I go instead to another source - when I would ideally like to deal with the US.

What causes this? Are the shipping fees really this high or is there some other unseen influence on the price or P&P? Look at this - for a $100 light and from a respected US company.

https://www.dropbox.com/l/s/txfTSRubc3Mu2nB4mRERkp

Just not sure what to make of it really.

I just bought some lights from the US. Paid $23.00ish for usps international shipping. The quotes youve had seem ridiculous

P.s the lights took just 2 weeks to come and this was over the Christmas period to

There may have been a weight issue (not the issue now that I have looked at link). Once you are above 2.2 Kg with the post office it has to go priority. My wife went to mail a package to Canada and USPS wanted ~$40, I was traveling to Canada the next week so I mailed it from there. Note that Canada has expensive postage - a letter is twice as expensive to mail in Canada vs US. It only cost me ~$12 USD to mail it in Canada, and the heavy package was only a little more than the second package which was fairly light.

The crazy thing about your link (UPS, so I shouldn't have disparaged the USPS that much) is that it's $118, $124 & $128 for the 3 different services. Looks like they really did not want to ship it.

Agreed I to have had the same problem, to such an extent that I seldom import anything from The States anymore.
There are exemptions, suppliers like Unique Titanium and others display their charges and are reasonable.
The much derided USPS does a cheapish standard international small package rate and first class international mail for little money. I have received packages from USPS without problems in the past.
I suspect that the shippers, understandably, want proof of delivery to avoid fraud, all too common since the rise of eBay, and this adds a lot to the cost.
I now source things from Europe-Fenix GmBH are excellent as are Neolumen, the pound/euro rate is good at the moment which helps. I have also bought quite a few items from HK Equipment in Hong Kong who are very competitive and there is a discount code somewhere on this forum (or try BLF). HKE also sell on eBay and will accept a best offer if you are not to greedy. Also try S. Korea, Gooddigitalshop or air jaeho I just got a Claymore lantern in the post from there, postage is reasonable. Finally China, I use the dreaded GearBest but always pay the extra for express post, tracking and insurance. Yodel deliver the items using this method and it usually only takes 7-10 days, costs about £6.