I believe Horizon struck a deal with the hobby shops to enable the ECX line to be sold exclusively by them and not be undercut by the web channel.
This was probably an experiment to see what would happen with the gamble that ECX could take away market share from Traxxas.
The unfortunate fact...
I see this as a tell tale sign of the domino effect they have already created for themselves by isolating themselves from the rest of the industry by creating proprietary designs around their electronics that are not compatible with anyone else and the slough of frivolous lawsuits...