Hobbico/Great Planes and even Horizon have a sort of monopoly where shops have to deal with them because they have exclusive lines. If it wouldn't be for these exclusive lines I'm sure shops would prefer buying from a distributor who isn't competing with the shops. I worked in a shop for 7 years in the early 90s. At that time Hobbico/Great Planes was the exclusive distributor for Futaba. A transmitter/receiver and servo combo would cost the shops 41.00 and Towers was selling the exact same for 39.00 when we would complain the answer we got was to buy them from Towers. Now 20+ years later they are the exclusive distributor for HPI and they prefer to sell the kits direct to make more money than to supply the shops. This is a very poor way of doing business but it's smart and they know they can get away with it. The companies who give these distributors exclusive distributorship of their brands are the ones to blame as they know how they do business.