Unpopular Opinions about LEGO

[Yperio_Bricks]

I know some people react allergic when other companies are mentioned or, god forbid, pictures are shown, so i am not gonna do that. But please allow me say that other companies sell battlepack of history themed minifigures. Imagine a Lego battlepack with 8 knights, soldiers, pirates or even civilians [sic!] minifigures with lots of accessories for 12€ Just saw a video from even an other company that announced knights and orcs battlepacks. Aliexpress is full of history themed minifigures, etc....

But Lego wants to sell 450€ sets with a luxury good profit and i hate the company for this. I can only hope Lego will prove me wrong and we see some battlepacks next year!

[MAB]

9 hours ago, sporadic said:

Nope, the best way to defeat scalpers is no blindness or artificial limitations at all.  The only thing scalpers trade on is rarity and difficulty of obtaining.  It's only when something is 'hot' and limited that profiteering occurs.  If the CMF collections weren't limited time and limited quantity and 'random', then scalpers would have nothing.  For a commonly available commodity, there is no scalping.  Only when there's a restriction, such as holidays (must have by Christmas!) or a set retires (there will be no more!) or there is a perceived scarcity (the run on toilet paper at the start of the pandemic) do the vultures swoop in to extract money from the situation.

 

Unlimited production of CMF is very unlikely. Unlimited production of individual CMF based on their past sales is even less likely. LEGO doesn't have records of which CMFs are disappearing from the shelves faster than others, especially those sold by other retailers. And then to evaluate the market, produce, package and ship individual CMFs isn't going to happen in a short time frame. So they'd have to go to long shelf time sets, each CMF with its own SKU and say 1 or 2 year lifetime. Then it is no longer a CMF it becomes essentially a regular set, especially if the additional costs of processing them means they have to include extra parts and increase the price.

Of course, they could try to work out which they could produce based on aftermarket prices but even that defeats itself. If people know LEGO will reproduce those that go above a certain price, they don't pay that price and wait. And if they don't hit that price, they don't get produced.

 

Personally,  I don't see a problem for those that want a complete series. There are enough sellers that buy boxes and sell them as sets. It is harder for the army builders than set collectors these days.

[DonQuixote]

14 hours ago, Space Coyote said:

You know I don't hate them either. It's kind of thrilling, you really only get one shot at application (maybe more than 1 if you're super careful) and when I nail it dead-center it's super satisfying.

I was sarcastic 

I really hate stickers 

[JohnTPT17]

4 hours ago, MAB said:

Unlimited production of CMF is very unlikely. Unlimited production of individual CMF based on their past sales is even less likely. LEGO doesn't have records of which CMFs are disappearing from the shelves faster than others, especially those sold by other retailers. And then to evaluate the market, produce, package and ship individual CMFs isn't going to happen in a short time frame. So they'd have to go to long shelf time sets, each CMF with its own SKU and say 1 or 2 year lifetime. Then it is no longer a CMF it becomes essentially a regular set, especially if the additional costs of processing them means they have to include extra parts and increase the price.

Of course, they could try to work out which they could produce based on aftermarket prices but even that defeats itself. If people know LEGO will reproduce those that go above a certain price, they don't pay that price and wait. And if they don't hit that price, they don't get produced.

I think the closest Lego has ever gotten to something like that was the "VIP Top 5" set, which brought back some popular picks from pervious series due to a fan vote (though there were also some odd inclusions in there). That was well over a decade ago, though, but Lego could always have some other "allstars" pack again if they wanted to, at least in theory.

4 hours ago, MAB said:

Personally,  I don't see a problem for those that want a complete series. There are enough sellers that buy boxes and sell them as sets. It is harder for the army builders than set collectors these days.

Agreed. There's several sellers on eBay, and even a few on Bricklink, that sell full sets for MSRP - sometimes even with free shipping. It's a lot easier to do that than the old series, which had uneven numbers of minifigs in each box, so I imagine that's why it's a lot more common nowadays. It is trickier to army build or get in-demand individuals, though.

[JesseNight]

16 hours ago, sporadic said:

It's really easy to get rid of scalpers.  Just keep making the thing until supply equals demand.  Problem with that is, the product has ceased to be a 'collectible' at that point.  It's just another commodity.

And with being common instead of rare or limited, it loses value (for TLG too). Value is determined by supply and demand both.

Would it solve everything? Probably not. Scalpers also make use of items no longer in production that still have a decent but limited supply. Some buy up all there is to create a fake scarcity, reselling them one at a time as if there's no others left in the world (and if one appears for a lower price, they buy it instantly).

I honestly HATE it, but as long as there's demand >> supply, this will always be a thing.

[MAB]

1 hour ago, JesseNight said:

And with being common instead of rare or limited, it loses value (for TLG too). Value is determined by supply and demand both.

Would it solve everything? Probably not. Scalpers also make use of items no longer in production that still have a decent but limited supply. Some buy up all there is to create a fake scarcity, reselling them one at a time as if there's no others left in the world (and if one appears for a lower price, they buy it instantly).

I honestly HATE it, but as long as there's demand >> supply, this will always be a thing.

Why do you hate it? If a reseller hadn't bought those items, they would not be available to buy after retirement. 

[sporadic]

10 hours ago, MAB said:

Unlimited production of CMF is very unlikely. Unlimited production of individual CMF based on their past sales is even less likely. LEGO doesn't have records of which CMFs are disappearing from the shelves faster than others, especially those sold by other retailers. And then to evaluate the market, produce, package and ship individual CMFs isn't going to happen in a short time frame. So they'd have to go to long shelf time sets, each CMF with its own SKU and say 1 or 2 year lifetime. Then it is no longer a CMF it becomes essentially a regular set, especially if the additional costs of processing them means they have to include extra parts and increase the price.

Of course, they could try to work out which they could produce based on aftermarket prices but even that defeats itself. If people know LEGO will reproduce those that go above a certain price, they don't pay that price and wait. And if they don't hit that price, they don't get produced.

 

Personally,  I don't see a problem for those that want a complete series. There are enough sellers that buy boxes and sell them as sets. It is harder for the army builders than set collectors these days.

So, I disagree that it's infeasible.  Lego could make CMFs to be more like sets and that would, at least while in current production, eliminate or at least greatly reduce, the aftermarket.  There are certainly logistic challenges, but those challenges are taken on for every non 'collectible' set Lego makes.  And it's possible for small sets as well as large ones.  Polybags are, after all, a thing.  They produce many small sets that, if they sell, they make more.  Certainly they have whole teams working out how many they think they can sell, and predicting what the public will buy.  They don't always get it right, but they do make educated guessed.  That's just standard operating procedure for the bigger sets.  And no one sells those above MSRP until there's an issue in distribution, or a production delay, or the set is retired.  I have no doubt they could do it, if they wanted.

I do agree that it's extremely unlikely though.  It's not a lack of ability, it's a lack of desire.  It is not a problem that needs solving as far as they are concerned.  In fact, quite the opposite.  It's an advantage to be exploited.  They don't want the CMFs to be unlimited because having them limited allows them to sell more units and know they're not going to have overstocks, etc.

Honestly, I wasn't trying to offer a way to solve the problem or suggesting something that I thought would happen or should happen.  I was objecting to those who were saying that scalping should be combatted by adding more limits such as putting them behind the counter or eliminating the ability to figure out what's in the package completely.  Such tactics just make the system more exploitable, not less.  You can't stop people taking advantage of limited availability by adding more restrictions.  That just feeds the beast.  The fact that Lego has no interest in doing so is irrelevant.  Blind buys in toys (all toys, not just Lego) are a thing because it works economically.  And it's not going away.  Which only means we're stuck with the scalpers.

[MAB]

8 hours ago, sporadic said:

So, I disagree that it's infeasible.  Lego could make CMFs to be more like sets and that would, at least while in current production, eliminate or at least greatly reduce, the aftermarket.  There are certainly logistic challenges, but those challenges are taken on for every non 'collectible' set Lego makes.  And it's possible for small sets as well as large ones.  Polybags are, after all, a thing.  They produce many small sets that, if they sell, they make more.  Certainly they have whole teams working out how many they think they can sell, and predicting what the public will buy.  They don't always get it right, but they do make educated guessed.  That's just standard operating procedure for the bigger sets.  And no one sells those above MSRP until there's an issue in distribution, or a production delay, or the set is retired.  I have no doubt they could do it, if they wanted.

Yes, polybags are a thing but they are nowhere near as widely available as CMF. I also don't believe they make more based on whether a particular polybag is selling well. At least near me, the few retailers that have polybags get them in mixed boxes. So even though each polybag is identifiable, they cannot just buy in the popular bags and not get the less popular ones.

[JesseNight]

22 hours ago, MAB said:

Why do you hate it? If a reseller hadn't bought those items, they would not be available to buy after retirement. 

The point is paying someone 2x to 10x msrp (depending what it is) just for making a smart business decision.
Idk about you, but my budget to spend on a hobby is not unlimited. For example there's still something I really want that once cost 70 and now cost 500 from people who made such a smart business decision to invest in, and who created scarcity while sitting on the leftover stock that exists in the world. Sadly I just missed the initial run, and now find myself stuck between making some sacrifices to feed someone's greed to still get it, or let it go. I'm not even talking about boxed/sealed stuff here, just limited run stuff.

[Kit Figsto]

12 hours ago, MAB said:

Yes, polybags are a thing but they are nowhere near as widely available as CMF. I also don't believe they make more based on whether a particular polybag is selling well. At least near me, the few retailers that have polybags get them in mixed boxes. So even though each polybag is identifiable, they cannot just buy in the popular bags and not get the less popular ones.

What's interesting is that, at least here in the US, I have a way easier time finding polybags than I do CMFs.  The last two series (25 and 26), my Target stores would get an initial stock of them (and for whatever reason, they're in places that don't make sense.  With S25, I'd find one store that has them in the checkout lane, one store that has them on a random endcap, one store that has them shoved in a box on the LEGO aisle, and one store where I'll find a single CMF in a random aisle without any others to be found anywhere), and once they were gone, they're gone.  Oddly, I didn't have that problem with S24 at all.

On the other hand, Target always has like 4-5 different polybags at a given time and they're pretty much always plentiful.  

If I want CMFs, my best bet is either toy stores, the LEGO store, Barnes and Noble, or Kohl's, because major retailers can't keep them on the shelves at all, and I honestly don't think it's people buying them all up, I think they're just not ordering more once they sell out, which is really frustrating.

 

To the point about releasing CMFs in a non-blind scenario, the only way in which that would work is if they weren't an exclusive or produced in limited quantities.  Need I remind people of the fiasco that was the Clone Command Station minifigure pack...

[MAB]

13 hours ago, JesseNight said:

The point is paying someone 2x to 10x msrp (depending what it is) just for making a smart business decision.
Idk about you, but my budget to spend on a hobby is not unlimited. For example there's still something I really want that once cost 70 and now cost 500 from people who made such a smart business decision to invest in, and who created scarcity while sitting on the leftover stock that exists in the world. Sadly I just missed the initial run, and now find myself stuck between making some sacrifices to feed someone's greed to still get it, or let it go. I'm not even talking about boxed/sealed stuff here, just limited run stuff.

For whatever reason, if you did not buy a set while it was out, you have two choices: buy it from someone that did buy it, or go without. If resellers had not bought stock to save, you'd get one choice: go without.

Secondary market pricing is not really down to greed. It is down to what buyers will pay for the stock available. If there is limited stock available and demand is high and some buyers are willing to pay 10x RRP, why would a seller sell for 2x RRP. Chances are the buyer will just flip it at 10x RRP.

The reseller did not create scarcity by buying up all the leftover stock. If it was leftover, it suggests it had sat on shelves for its run, and needed to be sold off. If resellers had not bought it, it would have been sold, probably to consumers, then opened, mixed up with other sets, and disappeared into bulk on a kid's floor.

If your budget is limited and you cannot afford no longer current items on the secondary market, then choose from the 100s of sets currently on shelves.

[Yperio_Bricks]

2 minutes ago, MAB said:

For whatever reason, if you did not buy a set while it was out, you have two choices: buy it from someone that did buy it, or go without. If resellers had not bought stock to save, you'd get one choice: go without.

Secondary market pricing is not really down to greed. It is down to what buyers will pay for the stock available. If there is limited stock available and demand is high and some buyers are willing to pay 10x RRP, why would a seller sell for 2x RRP. Chances are the buyer will just flip it at 10x RRP.

The reseller did not create scarcity by buying up all the leftover stock. If it was leftover, it suggests it had sat on shelves for its run, and needed to be sold off. If resellers had not bought it, it would have been sold, probably to consumers, then opened, mixed up with other sets, and disappeared into bulk on a kid's floor.

If your budget is limited and you cannot afford no longer current items on the secondary market, then choose from the 100s of sets currently on shelves.

Just to put this into perspective, you are a reseller yourself, aren't you?

[MAB]

54 minutes ago, Yperio_Bricks said:

Just to put this into perspective, you are a reseller yourself, aren't you?

Yes. Builder, collector, reseller, buyer.

Edited May 21, 2024 by MAB

[Peppermint_M]

Unfortunately, unless you live in an area where you witness someone walking in and picking up all the stock off shelves, there is no proof that resellers are creating local scarcity. 

The fact is, it sucks to miss a good deal, but there's no reason to blame others if you have. 

Also, I think it is time the community gets over itself and identifies as Adult Fans of Construction Bricks, TLG is not as shiny and good as they market themselves... 

[SpacePolice89]

57 minutes ago, Peppermint_M said:

Also, I think it is time the community gets over itself and identifies as Adult Fans of Construction Bricks, TLG is not as shiny and good as they market themselves

Ain't gonna happen. Most people like specific things for various reasons whether it's Lego, Star Wars or Ford Mustangs. And Lego is one of the few toy/model manufacturers that have most of it's manufacturing outside of China, that's important to me.

[Yperio_Bricks]

Since the Great Brick War we have AFOLs and AFOBs in Germany

[Black Falcon]

5 hours ago, MAB said:

For whatever reason, if you did not buy a set while it was out, you have two choices: buy it from someone that did buy it, or go without. If resellers had not bought stock to save, you'd get one choice: go without.

Or buy used one from other people ;).

5 hours ago, MAB said:

The reseller did not create scarcity by buying up all the leftover stock. If it was leftover, it suggests it had sat on shelves for its run, and needed to be sold off. If resellers had not bought it, it would have been sold, probably to consumers, then opened, mixed up with other sets, and disappeared into bulk on a kid's floor.

It isn´t really like resellers would only buy leftovers. Especially for good offers resellers buy several, and yes, it can be hard for normal costumers to get sets from that offer then. That beeing said, surely they would still have their chance to buy them, but likely for a higher price.

2 hours ago, SpacePolice89 said:

Ain't gonna happen. Most people like specific things for various reasons whether it's Lego, Star Wars or Ford Mustangs. And Lego is one of the few toy/model manufacturers that have most of it's manufacturing outside of China, that's important to me.

Yeah. I am not a fan of that everything is produced in china nowadays, though I see why. Other countrys, especially western ones can´t keep up for the prices. Anyways, at least for Lego I can be sure that those are produced by people that are paid for their work. That aside, Lego has a quite unique style which other companys don´t match, even if some of them try.

1 hour ago, Yperio_Bricks said:

Since the Great Brick War we have AFOLs and AFOBs in Germany

You might get a letter from a lawyer for the second part ;).

Edited May 21, 2024 by Black Falcon

[Yperio_Bricks]

7 minutes ago, Black Falcon said:

You might get a letter from a lawyer for the second part ;).

Letter from a lawyer eh?! That's how it all started few years ago

[Black Falcon]

Just now, Yperio_Bricks said:

Letter from a lawyer eh?! That's how it all started few years ago

What makes it even more funny that Klaus complains about it but sends those letters out himself. 

[Lyichir]

3 hours ago, Peppermint_M said:

Unfortunately, unless you live in an area where you witness someone walking in and picking up all the stock off shelves, there is no proof that resellers are creating local scarcity. 

The fact is, it sucks to miss a good deal, but there's no reason to blame others if you have. 

Also, I think it is time the community gets over itself and identifies as Adult Fans of Construction Bricks, TLG is not as shiny and good as they market themselves... 

An issue for me is that as a fan of mostly Lego-original story themes, there’s scarcely any competitor brands that appeal to me on that level. Mega these days is mostly just Mattel franchises and licenses, and other clone brands similarly tend to be based on either real-world subjects or licensed stuff. The actual creative, original subjects I get from themes like Ninjago or Monkie Kid just isn’t being satisfied by other manufacturers.

[JesseNight]

6 hours ago, MAB said:

Secondary market pricing is not really down to greed. It is down to what buyers will pay for the stock available. If there is limited stock available and demand is high and some buyers are willing to pay 10x RRP, why would a seller sell for 2x RRP. Chances are the buyer will just flip it at 10x RRP.

This attitude to just flip it for profit is exactly what I call greed, but that's my opinion. I'm not here to offend anyone and I'm not fully blaming the sellers, I'm honestly more surprised how many buyers are willing to pay crazy prices in times of life itself already being really expensive, although that's probably a bigger thing here in EU than in some other parts of the world. I can't complain about my income, but to spend 500 on something used is just crazy to me. But yeah, that's just my opinion.
 

6 hours ago, MAB said:

The reseller did not create scarcity by buying up all the leftover stock. If it was leftover, it suggests it had sat on shelves for its run, and needed to be sold off. If resellers had not bought it, it would have been sold, probably to consumers, then opened, mixed up with other sets, and disappeared into bulk on a kid's floor.

The creating scarcity kinda was a different story. It's a well known that resellers for profit use tricks to play the market to their advantage. Call it creating business opportunities by doing research and studying the market, sometimes knowing or even gambling on an item to become more wanted in times to come.
Buying up something that's limited (say it has like 20 offers up and you know for a fact that chances are fairly low that many more show up), then selling it 1 at a time to make it appear even more rare, is what I meant by creating scarcity.

Edited May 21, 2024 by JesseNight

[SpacePolice89]

3 hours ago, Black Falcon said:

That aside, Lego has a quite unique style which other companys don´t match, even if some of them try.

Yes, that's true and also one of the main reasons I only buy genuine Lego products. It's also important that they invented most of the pieces and the minifig and the other companies are just stealing their work.

Edited May 21, 2024 by SpacePolice89

[Yperio_Bricks]

13 minutes ago, SpacePolice89 said:

Yes, that's true and also one of the main reasons I only buy genuine Lego products. It's also important that they invented most of the pieces and the minifig and the other companies are just stealing their work.

I too only buy Lego. That being said, do you know the story how lego came to the brick? Surely you will also call that 'stealing' right?

[SpacePolice89]

10 minutes ago, Yperio_Bricks said:

I too only buy Lego. That being said, do you know the story how lego came to the brick? Surely you will also call that 'stealing' right?

They (Lego) state that they got permission to manufacture the Kiddicraft bricks. They even bought the same machines and studied the Kiddicraft manufacturing process. It is even written somewhere on their website. If I remember correctly I've linked that page on some other thread here on Eurobricks.

[Yperio_Bricks]

24 minutes ago, SpacePolice89 said:

They (Lego) state that they got permission to manufacture the Kiddicraft bricks. They even bought the same machines and studied the Kiddicraft manufacturing process. It is even written somewhere on their website. If I remember correctly I've linked that page on some other thread here on Eurobricks.

Here's an other story:

When Lego bought molding machines in the UK in 1947 they were presented Kiddicraft bricks and probably documents by the manufacturer of said machines. Only god knows what they took with them back to Denmark. Surely it is a just a coincidence that the Lego bricks share the exact size with the Kiddicraft bricks. And it is just a coincidence that the Lego brick is in scale with a British standard brick (used to build real houses). Oh and Kiddicraft had bigger bricks too. The size Duplo uses.... another coincidence.

Lego writes that they contacted Kiddicraft in the late 50s. Probably after Hilary Page's suicide in 1957 because of financial and business struggles. His wife and daughters later stated that he did not know about Lego bricks.

I guess we will never find out what exactly happened in the 1940s and 1950s