That's what I was told some time ago. Those prices reflect full retail, which is what you pay if you order direct from Alembic. They do this to protect their dealers from direct sales as competition.
I believe, and it's just my guess, that Alembic builds instruments for three reasons. First, individual customer orders. Second, dealer orders for stock instruments. Third, instruments with no order where they are trying something new or building some stock to more rapidly service dealer requests.
You'll notice that some of the instruments that appear in the Showroom have a dealer name associated with them. This is Alembic helping to advertise some of the stock instruments ordered by those dealers.
