You can order cheap IC’s (74HC595 and …165) at www.em.avnet.com
They are about 0.18 and 0.16 euro. But the minimum you have to buy is 50. If you build some MIDIO128’s (1 MIDIO= 2x 16 IC’s) this can be a cheap solution.
Other IC’s can be ordered as well.
I don’t know anything about transfer costs though.