In my humble opinion I cant get a read on Horison and Hobbico and the health of there business.This is my take (again opinion )
1)Hobby Lobby is hurting most of what they use to sell as there own is now avaiable at a much lower price via so many online outlets
2)Hobbico well all i know is that the more i advoid them , the more offers I get to buy , to me discount offers are not a sign of demand, as fact quite the opposite. I will give them cudos on the new Top Flight ARFs from the P40 to the Corsair ect , but oustide of that much of there intro are regeratated offers that have been imported into the USA already .
They just launched a small eflight Fw190 and its been in the states for 9 months via another online vender , yet they launched it as there own.
3)Horsion they seem to dance to there own beat , they have pulse on eletric but again they are getting knocked off by bad vendors that they must partner with in China ..Example , they probably did a ton of R & D on the new small eflight P47 , only to be knocked off by Hobby King . To me that means that the factory making the P47 , allowed another vendor (Hobby King ) to see and copy the design .Now we all know this is common in China but usually if a vender is doing high dollars , the factory trys to stay exclusive
4)Hobby People , I give them credit for there BH line , it was going strong but now seems to be very conservative with little news on NEW .
As Pere stated many trends are in eletric , I have been flying a lot of eflight and you can not believe the demand and threads on "whats new" "whats Next" ect .
Presales on planes that have not left the factory , pre orders , demand that exceed belief and common sence .
There is a new P40 coming at 78" in EPO with retracts and full house features , a corsair with Folding wings , ect ect , are they selling -beyond anything I see in fuel .
So as some have asked "why inventory things that are not selling" .
It difficult to tell but , a container of planes is expensive and if your not selling planes exclsuively then you have major competitors to deal with and if you are selling exclusive then you have major MOQs(minimum Order quantities ) to meet with the factory. Its all about the numbers .
I know when converting to eletric , I sold off my glow engines , many new in box 4 strokes , great deals ect , most were sold to oversea ebay buyers because I had zero interest from the USA rc community .
It seems interest is in Gas and Eletric as a trend .
Also as far as retracts , interesting trend as seen in some of the other post eletric is booming in retracts , small formats seem to really proving field equity , so its leaving more room for larger scale development .
In closing and on the original post , I know many will turn there heads up to this , but if you have ever flown a full house loaded warbird with fuel , heavy wing loading ect , its takes talent and skill , now you can fly something that looks the same (reall does ) and in some case better and mde from epo , and you can breath much easier and have higher chances of great success because the wing loading is nothing in comparision to a real RC warbird. However at the end of day , your chances of going home with your plane are much greater and this is definitly a trend that is sparking major demands and continued development in EPO Warbirds