Price of scale figures on Ebay ???

Cheap labor and not having to worry about trademark/copyright violations.

I've also heard that the Chinese government basicly helps foot the bill for postage.

Because in China or Greece a house costs about $ 5,000.00.

I buy $ 4.00 items from Ukraine, get free shipping and am treated like a serious customer.

Frankly, sellers in the US just have to make more money. A lot more money.

Sellers in China also make pirated copies of other companies' figures. Much cheaper to sell that way. Often if a figure kit is sold bagged not boxed or was originally done in white metal but being sold in resin, these are often signs of a pirated copy.

Where you buy, and from whom, is entirely up to you.

The problem from buying from these places is that you run a good chance of getting a recast of an item, mostly figure kits. recast copies are not as good as the original and lack the fine detail also it's stealing the work of the original sculptor or artist and should be avoided  and to anyone knowingly selling recast copies should be turned into e bay and made to stop. it hurts the model building community, visit the clubhouse web site to get the overall story on recasters.   Karl    

Amen to what Karl said. If it's being sold very cheaply compared to the list and the seller has a boatload of other types of kits and there is no original box, you can bet it's a pirated copy. As the original pirates stole from anyone with no regard to livelihood, so these modern copyright  pirates steal from companies often working on a shoestring budget to the detriment of the company and the  hobbyist. Ask the Doog about  how he feels about intellectual property theft. Sure it's up to you where you buy, but you know if you're buying speakers from the back of a van in a parking lot,, you know you're buying hot goods.

To the original poster and your comment about buying sets of 1/72 figures--did you mean to say that you've seen unidentified sets of 1/72 figures that are advertised as made in the PRC, or did you mean that you've seen brands like Airfix, ESCI/ERTL, Italeri, and so forth, that are companies from countries other than the US?  If you meant that you don't see any US brands, I don't think there ever were any US makers of 1/72 figures, except maybe Marx.