price increase in Europe

[Maple]

49 minutes ago, MAB said:

They do have different prices in different regions of the US, after applying different sales tax rates. Which is why consistent pricing across the EU is odd, as VAT rates are different. Equal prices in Germany and Portugal means that lego gets less per set when sold in Portugal and more in Germany.

Sales taxes are different, but LEGO prices are the same set prices. I didn't know VAT taxes were different. This whole thing is very odd to me.

[MAB]

14 hours ago, TeriXeri said:

2% VAT difference wasn't enough to explain the €5-10 price difference ,which often was over 10% difference in most cases between Benelux and Germany on many sets. For example €170 vs €150  Blacksmith, and even on smaller sets, €5 difference on a €35 set is a lot more then 2%.

And the prices are all over the place , even cases where a set was more expensive in Germany , 31105: Townhouse Toy Store was €40 in NL , €50 in Germany .

And then there were cases sets being more expensive in Spain or France etc.

Overall , it's so "random" , it can't be explained by something simple as a VAT difference.

I'll leave out sweden/denmark/norway out of the equation as they use different currencies.

Yes, I know. There will be many other unequal costs too after averaging over customers in a particular nation, such as warehousing and distribution, customer support, website and translations, and so on. I was pointing out equal prices across the EU after (unequal) tax was included is not the same as equal prices across the USA before (unequal) tax is added.

[Kim-Kwang-Seok]

 

Well even the normal toy stores have updated their prices pretty fast. So they didn't even wait until selling their old boxes from the old year.

Funny thing: so far all sets on all stores I've seen so far maintained the old price through being on sale. The "normal" price is just written anyway. So I guess the higher prices for sets like from Ninjago doesn't matter so much as you get them for the cheaper price some weeks/months later anyway.

[TeriXeri]

Instead of making new topic, it's September 1st now, and the next big adjustment of price changes hit Europe.

In this case it's all increases, some which reverted some of the decreases that happened january 1st.

This list seems fairly accurate to what I see at LEGO.com :

https://www.stonewars.de/news/lego-preiserhoehung-september-2022/

Edited August 31, 2022 by TeriXeri

[icm]

https://www.brickfanatics.com/lego-survey-opinions-on-prices-for-huge-sets/

According to Brick Fanatics, Lego has put out a survey asking for people's opinions on whether the really big sets are priced right. The specific examples are the UCS Hogwarts Express, the Motorized Lighthouse, and the Lion Knights Castle. When I responded to the survey earlier today, I said that the Hogwarts Express is way too expensive for the play value and isn't what Trains fans wanted, that the Motorized Lighthouse is too expensive for the parts count and shouldn't be more than $220 (which should be doable, by comparison with the Airbus helicopter), and that the Lion Knights Castle is priced about right for the number of minifigures.

[MAB]

It is interesting that there is no free comments box at the end. Almost like they don't want to hear feedback.

[Kim-Kwang-Seok]

I've just checked out some retailers out of curiosity. So the "better" retailers mostly have the updated UVP price, but the sets are now simply put on sale for the exact same price as before. Therefore the gap between UVP and the offered price has simply risen. Only in a few cases I saw the price on sale was between 2-5€ higher (I didn't look at any UCS style sets though).

Some sets were even cheaper. An extreme example was the SW Cad Bane ship for 110-125€ - meaning 45-60€ on sale.

Other retailers, that reduced their space for Lego sets within the last years significantly and mostly offer small sales or only UVP, indeed now show the higher prices. I would assume Lego sets and especially specific sets that don't run as well in Europe (as compared to the US) will disappear and limit the reach of the brand even further in retailers (online shopping is another story of course). Retailers that mainly sell other things like groceries but have lots of Lego simply because of their size will be fine anyway. I fear small toy shops will take the hardest blow in this (as they always have been in the last 15 years).