There is yet another problem i ran into a while back when mailing to Australia. What happened is the guy wanted to pay in Australian dollars and it was only about 10 dollars total, but for me to cash it (yes, just to cash it into USA dollars) would have costed me 50 dollars! I mailed it anyway and told him it was a freebee
Many years ago (when I first started with PIC's) I ordered some PCB's. from Dontronics - this was way back when, before Paypal or anything, and before Don took credit cards.
Like you I looked into the various different ways, and ALL cost many times more than the amount I was spending.
In the end I went to the bank and purchased some Australian bank notes, put them in an AirMail envelope, and posted him the cash!
It could have gone missing, but it wasn't much cash, and spending $50 to send $10 is crazy.
I had a similar problem more recently with Abacom in Germany, they didn't take Credit Cards or PayPal at the time either. I ordered the item on line, and they just sent it me - along with a bill for the cost.
Despite the fact we're both in the EU the UK didn't accept the Euro and still uses Pounds - so I couldn't just send them a cheque without massive bank charges to both sides. I discussed this with my bank at length, but then happily remembered my boss has a Spanish bank account (who use Euros), so I gave him pounds, and he gave me a cheque in Euros
This is the 21st Century - what's wrong with the banks?.