Ok I'm going to attempt to keep this a bit on the short side if I can. First and formost this is an R/C forum. It is not a court of law. As such comments made are purely opinion. If you do not agree with any of my opinions that is your prerogative, I owe no further explanations. If I offer to add to any discussion it is because I have made that choice, not because you or anyone else is entitled to me explaining anything.


My views are based on both Horizon and Great Planes competing with the very hobby shops that they supplied. They also purchased mom and pop cottage industry suppliers and then cherry picked what products they would continue to have manufactured. As they continued to accumulate they grew to the point where each and every US hobby shop had to do business with both Horizon and Great Planes in order to offer a diversified inventory.

Neither Horizon or Great Planes started out selling coustomer direct. Horizon actually started out as Circus Hobbies owned by Bill Bennet ( Circus Circus Hotel, Sahara Hotel, Co founder of TOC ). They at the time were exclusive distributors for Webra Engines, JR radios, IM products kits, Kalt helicopters. They then sold out and became Hobby Dynamics and then Horizon Hobbies. Horizon was originally based in Paso Robles California. Great Planes started out as Great Planes Model Manufacturing. One fo their first accusation was Bridi Hobby Enterprises. They eventually formed Tower to sell customer direct. When Tower was formed I was managing the R/C Department at a hobby shop in Palo Alto California. While at the Chicago model show that year the shop owner and a few more of us decided to take a drive to Champagne and express our concerns about Tower. We were told that Tower would not affect our margins and that they would not undersell us. That held true for a couple years. Then they started offering free shipping, then volume discounts, then the Tower club. The end result was that they were in fact underselling the hobby shops ( their other customers ). The one that I hated the most is that I would have a customer that wanted me to place a special order for an item that I didn't normally stock. It could have been an OS Hanno Special, An OS Pegasus engine or even the Futaba PCM radio when it first came out. My order would come back as that item being out of stock but if the customer ordered direct from Tower the item was available. On many new items it was like that, my customers were able to purchase new items before I was. Then when the initial interest had died down I was suddenly available for wholesale purchase.

Horizon wasn't quite as bad but their customer direct pricing reduced margins and theynplaybthe same game with wanting to sell new products customer direct first then wholesale to shops secondly.

The bottom line is that IMO because of both companies competing with the hobby shops that relied on their products to survive, forced many shops to close their doors. Of course internet sales and Chinese products are in this mix as well. It's also my belief that the hobby shops helped keep the enthusiasm level of the hobby alive. Walking into a well stocked hobby shop is an amazing experience IMO. We Americans love to shop and impulse buy. A drive by your local shopping mall on a weekend is all the proof you would need of that. Car dealerships are another great example. All those nice new shiny cars parked on acres of parking lot. Think of how much it costs to maintain all that inventory. They do it because they know people want to see, touch, feel what they are buying. Sporting goods stores are another great example. Why would it be any different when buying hobby goods?

If you have had experience with Hobby King you will notice that their inventory has been shrinking as of late. Their website is horrible and many of the items are on backorder status. Very similar to what we saw with Tower their final year. There are also rumors that they are having issues paying their vendors.

Please do not come back and accuse me of presenting any of this as fact, there are factual examples presented to support my overall opinion, nothing more. Having said that my opinion is based on 43 years of R/C modeling, 15 of those years working in the industry.