A seller from Hong Kong is advertising USB GPS boards on ebay for $5.00 (Buy It Now), but the shipping is about $30. To see the ads, just type GPS DIY into the ebay search box.
They seem to work well, and one enterprising hardware hacker has built it into the tiny Eee PC, see:
I could use several of the GPS boards, but the high per item shipping cost is offputting. The advertiser offers volume discounts to purchasers, but I haven’t investigated… Would anyone (i.e. Sparkfun) be interested in a bulk purchase?
On ebay, it’s a common practice for sellers to list a very low sale price, but list a high shipping charge which makes the total cost more realistic. Ebay charges sellers a percentage of the sale price whenever they sell an item, but they don’t charge a percentage of the shipping cost. Sellers often list items this way so they only have to pay commission on a $5 sale, instead of, say, a $33 sale. It never hurts to ask, but this sounds like one of those times when the bulk purchase will lower the total cost per unit a few dollars, but it probably won’t get you anywhere near $5 each.