All babylocks are like that. None are allowed to be sold online, must go through a dealer unless someone is selling them used. I can understand why though because a with a high end machine getting it from a dealer matters if you have problems with it, whereas a cheap machine is easily replaced by another cheap machine and you are not likely to go to a dealer to fix it. I do wish they would list prices online though instead of just info on machines, than you can have some idea what they are being sold for in case a dealer is too high in price. With no knowledge, what can you compare it to