Nobody has mentioned the fact that the irritation, time and labour involved in packing frames or, God forbid, whole bicycles, discourages private sellers from even considering sales outside their own country. Even carriage within the country's borders requires packing proof against the carelessness of carriers. This is not entirely a bad thing; one can make more money by stripping a bike down to its components and hoping that eBay customers will oblige by doubling the seller's profit, but selling the whole bike for less money gives you the satisfaction of seeing it kept in one piece as well as saving a lot of work. Less cash in your pocket but a warm moral glow to compensate. One of the problems of eBay as our most favoured marketplace is that it encourages we amateurs to fantasise that we are dealers. My Easter resolution is to forgo the profit of bike breaking and to keep bikes whole.
Mind you, I am still after a few bits so will scour eBay and will thus be encouraging stripping. It is so hard to be virtuous.
Stuart Tallack in West Sussex