I bought a Viking Sapphire 870 3 years ago. Local dealer proudly advertised his was the lowest price anywhere - $2300, and he was so sure, he would "beat" any other price. When I went to the Viking website I had to give my address to get a Viking dealer and I was only given this one dealer so of course there was no way to compare prices.
I had to use my father's address in San Francisco for the website to give me additional dealers.
Then I began calling around. I found a place in the San Francisco Bay area that would sell the machine to me for $1699. I returned to my local dealer and to his credit, he did meet the price. But he was not at all pleased about it and implied that I had somehow cheated.
I hadn't cheated. This is called competition but the sewing machine manufactures and dealers manage to keep price competition very difficult and it seems that we all become cowed by this and go along with the secrecy by not quoting prices on list serves etc.
I've known a few people to be really "taken" in sewing machine purchases because it is so difficult to find what they usually sell for.