Kiseki and Lyra Cartridge Dealers in Japan and Taiwan

I wholeheartedly second trying 2juki on eBay.  He's a very reputable seller with great prices, generally among the lowest you'll find anywhere, as well as excellent customer service.  I've bought numerous tonearms, cartridges and headshells fom him throught the years and have never had the slightest complaint.

By reputable I meant that 2juki has excellent customer service, as mentioned, and will make thing right with no fuss if the product received is not as described.  I can vouch for that myself, as can many of my friends and it'll only take a minute or two of googling to confirm it on a plethora of audio forums.

In 30+ years I've only once made use of a cartridge manufacturer's factory retip service, something I will likely never do again.  Hence I'm more than fine with grey imports (be it cartridges or most other things) and with putting the considerable amount of money saved towards other things or letting it remain in the bank.

In my opinion it is better to buy a demo unit from official distributor or used sample from another audiophile, those carts are under warranty and can be upgraded by the manufacturer easily.

I think it's better to do both, if you want to do both.  I've bought new units, second hand units, vintage units, demo units and review units and have been equally happy with either.

The markup from distributor to dealer to consumer is ridiculous considering they’re often just dropping an 8 oz package in the post.

Indeed.  Hence almost all of my new cartridges have come from 2juki over the last seven or eight years.