How much will you pay for an exotic cartridge....


I noticed on another forum that there is an interesting point brought up by a US distributor/dealer about his perception that one of his potential customers bought a top end cartridge ( that he reps) from an off-shore dealer/source...and how he intends to try and stop the practice of ’grey market’ sales. ( At least for the lines that he carries).
This gent seems to believe that because he signed some paperwork somewhere that may ( or may not) give him exclusive rights to distribute the gear in the US, that he has the right to try and prevent anyone abroad from selling to US customers! To that, he wants to have the manufacturer try and enforce his right to do the above. Now, one could ask, what’s the issue with this, right? And here’s the rub, the dear distributor is adding over $8K to this product for the simple task of ordering and having shipped a cartridge from Japan ( Yes, i know the shipping of such a large and heavy item is expensive...and the dealer has to stand by the product...whatever that means when we are talking of a cartridge!) The profit motive is high here, and the opportunity to fleece some of the US consumers is also...so i get that, but to come on an open forum and complain about the practice that one of his potential customers did such a thing....is an interesting marketing tactic, IMO.
So, my question is this..how much will you pay for that exotic cartridge to insure that you are buying it from a "legit" US rep, and not from a grey market...or in this case out of area dealer....what’s fair to you...a few $$s- or the sky’s the limit??
128x128daveyf
@mijostyn. Is there anywhere in my OP that I stated that this distributor is a brick and mortar dealer?
Dave, it was your previous post about your problem with the distributors and you start it again now. 

What's your problem? 
Cartridges have in general the best profit. They raise with marketing.
No marketing, unknown und also no idea about its abilities:
$1000.00 max
When dipped in holy water: +50%
With a pic Pope listens with it: +200%

 @chakster  Actually what’s your problem? My prior thread...not post, has nothing to do with this thread. Read my OP again, this time without your preconceived idea.
Most audio dealers are like most car dealers or real estate agents. Completely useless and the buyer knows more than they do. Long gone are the days where an “expert” is needed to tell you about the product. Today’s audio buyer spends far more time researching than a dealer does.  If manufacturers offered buy direct I imagine 99% of the people would do that, even without the huge discount.  Why have two other parties (distributor/dealer) in the middle when you could work with one?  These dealers today aren’t maintaining store fronts or doing advertising. They send an email to someone when you want a product and that’s their “hard work”. I’ve asked dealers in the past about products they represent and they’ve never even heard it!