I'm assuming this was for a card or something light that the usual shipping cost wouldn't approach that?
If so, I can think of a couple of reasons, but not any good ones.
1) They're hoping that someone would be just a little quicker on the trigger than you were and go ahead and click BIN before looking at the shipping price. They also aren't concerned about repeat customers, and are looking to get their maximum return on the single transaction they will have with you before you discover the inflated shipping price.
2) They take consignments and pay their consignors based on the selling price alone. In this case, the item price itself might actually be a really good deal, and with the shipping factored in may still be a decent price, so you go ahead and buy. Since the consignor's payout is based on the selling price alone, they get less, but the seller makes his money on the shipping. In this case, they aren't concerned about repeat consignors.
So there's a couple of possible scenarios, but to answer your original question, I've never heard a GOOD reason for grossly overinflated shipping costs.
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