Aussie sales! Share the news of LOCAL sales!

[Clone-Trooper]

Hey All,

For anyone considering on ordering the UCS Obi-Wans Jedi Starfighter 10215, Australian Lego.com has slashed the price to $122.49 (30% off from it's extremely high price of $174.99 RRP).

Even though the price still isn't close to the US $74.99 special price, it's better then nothing.

No further specials have appeared yet on Lego.com, not unlike in 2008 and 2009 clearance specials/discontinued themes but I guess there is still time till the end of the year.

Or perhaps Lego.com is just offering huge discounts on sets to the US and has forgotten about everyone else.

[slopemodified]

Has anyone seen the Target stocktake catalogue? There's no mention of Lego! First TRU, now Target.

Have to keep watching Myer and DJs then, as people are saying.

Edited December 22, 2010 by slopemodified

[KartoffelViking]

Has anyone seen the Target stocktake catalogue? There's no mention of Lego! First TRU, now Target.

Have to keep watching Myer and DJs then, as people are saying.

Hm, and is it just me, or have Target/Kmart/Big W been preparing less shelf space for LEGO lately? Could be just the recent sales and yule sales, but they don't seem to replenish much LEGO stock, if at all

[lightningtiger]

Hm, and is it just me, or have Target/Kmart/Big W been preparing less shelf space for LEGO lately? Could be just the recent sales and yule sales, but they don't seem to replenish much LEGO stock, if at all

Let's all hope it's not the repeat of another year where shelves were so empty Kmart was dragging out even crushed battle packs from years passed so they could fill ten cm's of space but still leave two metres bare !

They all could be getting ready for Ninjago and the new SW/City sets !

Keep on wishing !

[guy montag]

Let's all hope it's not the repeat of another year where shelves were so empty Kmart was dragging out even crushed battle packs from years passed so they could fill ten cm's of space but still leave two metres bare !

They all could be getting ready for Ninjago and the new SW/City sets !

Keep on wishing !

last year Kmart cleared Lego very cheaply. I remember they had Lego on clearance then they had a buy 2 get 1 free deal going. It was very good, and there was a lot there. Didn't some of you guys score very cheap star wars sets and Indiana jones sets?

Now we just get catalogue special prices this year. Some of them have been nice but nothing out of this world. Perhaps Kmarts getting like the others?.

I also believe people are really buying more Lego. It's not just our skewed AFOL opinions.

http://www.smh.com.au/national/retro-fun-has-adults-in-pieces-20101218-191c1.html\

[MicroM]

My local Target (Carindale, Brisbane) had the smaller Ninjango sets on stock tonight. After picking up a Cole, Zane, Chopov and Krazi along with a starter kit I thought I should check pricing. The individual packs are $16, while the starter kit is $29. I was shocked, so left them all there apart from the starter kit, which i thought might be good fun on Christmas day.

Also, anyone in Brisbane hunting a Grand Emporium, DJ's Carindale had a few in stock, and the Myer at the same complex also had at least 3 Imperial Flagships (tempting with that B2G1F offer).

Edited December 23, 2010 by MicroM

[darkhorse]

My local Target (Carindale, Brisbane) had the smaller Ninjango sets on stock tonight. After picking up a Cane, Chopov and Krazi along with a starter kit I thought I should check pricing. The individual packs are $16, while the starter kit is $29. I was shocked, so left them all there apart from the starter kit, which i thought might be good fun on Christmas day.

Also, anyone in Brisbane hunting a Grand Emporium, DJ's Carindale had a few in stock, and the Myer at the same complex also had at least 3 Imperial Flagships (tempting with that B2G1F offer).

Myer got the Flagship back in? Didn't know that, hopefully that will be in the sales.

For the SW folk - don't know if it's been posted previously (my search skills are naff), don't know if it's better than the K-Mart / Big W sale prices, but the Clone Turbo Tank is $162 on Fishpond with free shipping.

[asharerin]

Hi all,

I am an expat aussie now living in Oregon, USA. I took my family back to Sydney for a holiday last month and the price of legos in Oz made my jaw drop (well the price of everything really!). Super expensive compared to the prices I can buy legos for here in the USA. My son asked for star wars lego set Palpatine's Shuttle for Xmas from grandpa and he paid $109 AUD for this set while I was able to get it for $39 US at the time.

Long story short if any of you guys are interested in purchasing sets for a discount in the US I am more than happy to ship them back to you in Australia. I am not looking to make a huge profit but if you are willing to cover shipping costs and some of my time and I am happy to provide this service. If I get enough replies of interest I will start posting some prices of sets shipped to Australia. My son and I are huge Star Wars fans but we will try and post deals of other sets as well as they arise.

I normally wait for some good sales throughout the year (20-30% off retail US prices) but regular US prices may still be a very good deal for aussie buyers (checkout the official US lego site, amazon, target, walmart etc). At any time if you are interested in a set let me know.

Cheers.

[AussieJimbo]

That's a kind offer, asharerin.

It really has got a bit ridiculous. We are being ripped off down here, there is no other way to put it.

LEGO must do something about it, from what I've seen our RRPs are at least 75% higher than the US, and often higher as your example shows.

What can be done about it?

:classic:

[razo999]

hi all~

i have recently rediscovered the joy of lego and quite taken back from the price difference between Aus and US.

i would definitely be interested in such services.

cheers all~

[Clone-Trooper]

Hello asharerin,

Certainly is a generous offer, at the moment people are unable to send you Private Messages but if you can post an alternative

E-mail address we can all communicate/correspond with you on, that would be fantastic.

Cheers, Mike

Edited December 24, 2010 by Clone-Trooper

[BrettBrick]

Please contact me at brickbrett@gmail.com so I can comunicate with you about purchaing some sets, as you can not use the PM service as yet.

Hi all,

I am an expat aussie now living in Oregon, USA. I took my family back to Sydney for a holiday last month and the price of legos in Oz made my jaw drop (well the price of everything really!). Super expensive compared to the prices I can buy legos for here in the USA. My son asked for star wars lego set Palpatine's Shuttle for Xmas from grandpa and he paid $109 AUD for this set while I was able to get it for $39 US at the time.

Long story short if any of you guys are interested in purchasing sets for a discount in the US I am more than happy to ship them back to you in Australia. I am not looking to make a huge profit but if you are willing to cover shipping costs and some of my time and I am happy to provide this service. If I get enough replies of interest I will start posting some prices of sets shipped to Australia. My son and I are huge Star Wars fans but we will try and post deals of other sets as well as they arise.

I normally wait for some good sales throughout the year (20-30% off retail US prices) but regular US prices may still be a very good deal for aussie buyers (checkout the official US lego site, amazon, target, walmart etc). At any time if you are interested in a set let me know.

Cheers.

[YG-49]

I was looking forward to the New Diagon Alley, hoping LEGO would be nice and put it around $190-$210, but no. They put it at $270. That's really too bad, It was my most anticipated set of 2011.

[dotmike]

It really has got a bit ridiculous. We are being ripped off down here, there is no other way to put it.

LEGO must do something about it, from what I've seen our RRPs are at least 75% higher than the US, and often higher as your example shows.

What can be done about it?

First, in partial defence of the pricing structure (which I'm going to demolish below), many manufacturers get accused of price gouging when, over time, the exchange rate moves away from where they set the RRP. For example, an iPod introduced in September when the AUD dollar vs USD was around 0.88, looks overpriced when in January the Aussie dollar hits parity or above at 1.01.

It's difficult for the manufacturer to continually adjust pricing based on fluctuating exchange rates, as it would mean setting a new RRP almost every week, which is difficult in the face of retailers' ordering schedules, catalogue print times, etc. For iPods, the price is generally adjusted when the model itself is revamped. If a new iPod appeared in January, it would most likely be priced at the current exchange rate.

Now, for LEGO, a similar thing applies, they can't alter RRP every week. However, in setting the RRP for the next year or so for a set, they either use grossly outdated and unadjusted exchange rates, say 0.60 from June 2008, or are pure and simply price gouging based on what they perceive the local market will bear.

I believe it is the latter. The materials and freight cost to get shipments of LEGO to Australia are not different from the US, where it can be sold for half the price and still presumably supply LEGO with a healthy profit margin. We are a much smaller market, but in per capita terms LEGO occupies a larger proportion of toy shelves here. LEGO observes they can sell at a higher price in the local market and therefore does.

The only thing that can be done is to not let the perception that Australians are happy to pay inflated prices persist. That could include doing things like:

1. Only buy LEGO on sale.

If retailers get the idea that people only buy LEGO when the price is reduced, they may put pressure on the supplier to lower the wholesale price so they can drop the price for out of sale periods. I can imagine if Big W / Kmart / Target / Myer reduced its orders substantially, LEGO Australia might rethink its pricing structure.

Tell your families, friends, neighbours. Alert them to the sales, and use the mantra "never buy LEGO at retail".

2. Take advantage of grey market importing where possible.

There is no real need for a warranty on LEGO, so importing carries little of the (slight) risk of importing consumer electronics. Use Bricklink to find sellers in favourably priced countries (especially the US), or order from the online arms of retailers such as Barnes & Noble.

3. Hope that the Australian economy goes down the gurgler.

Okay, don't really hope that, but relatively speaking, toys are finding it tough in the current US economic climate, and manufacturers have adjusted pricing to suit. Having weathered the global financial crisis much better, there is more discretionary cash in Australian toy buyers' hands. Unfortunately, LEGO knows this.

4. If you see someone in a black shirt stocking department store shelves, give him or her a tongue lashing, and/or a good beating.

Again, don't do the last bit. But you could stand near the shelves, shaking your head sadly, saying things like, "if only LEGO wasn't so expensive, I could afford to get little Billy some Harry Potter LEGO. Oh well, Mega Blocks looks more reasonably priced." Perhaps word would get back to their masters? Perhaps not. There may be other ways to get the message to the company, anyone?

5. Be prepared for LEGO to pack up and go home rather than sacrifice their price gouging, after all, "we're only 1-2% of the world LEGO market, we barely deserve to be sold to".

But only if they were very silly, and ignoring smaller markets is not how commerce works. People weren't buying Blu-rays either. They didn't stop selling them, they reduced the price.

[darkhorse]

Has anyone seen the Target stocktake catalogue? There's no mention of Lego! First TRU, now Target.

Have to keep watching Myer and DJs then, as people are saying.

Checked Lasoo, and between Target, TRU, Big W and Myer, there's nary a mention of the L word.

So... either they're coming later, or Lego sales are going to be situational sorts of things (x% off for 1 day only). In the case of K-Mart & Big W, they probably won't bother with a catalog, it will be yellow stickers (if anything). Myer / DJs might release another one once they realise how many of what type of toy is left over.

[darkhorse]

First, in partial defence of the pricing structure (which I'm going to demolish below), many manufacturers get accused of price gouging when, over time, the exchange rate moves away from where they set the RRP. For example, an iPod introduced in September when the AUD dollar vs USD was around 0.88, looks overpriced when in January the Aussie dollar hits parity or above at 1.01.

It's difficult for the manufacturer to continually adjust pricing based on fluctuating exchange rates, as it would mean setting a new RRP almost every week, which is difficult in the face of retailers' ordering schedules, catalogue print times, etc. For iPods, the price is generally adjusted when the model itself is revamped. If a new iPod appeared in January, it would most likely be priced at the current exchange rate.

Now, for LEGO, a similar thing applies, they can't alter RRP every week. However, in setting the RRP for the next year or so for a set, they either use grossly outdated and unadjusted exchange rates, say 0.60 from June 2008, or are pure and simply price gouging based on what they perceive the local market will bear.

I believe it is the latter. The materials and freight cost to get shipments of LEGO to Australia are not different from the US, where it can be sold for half the price and still presumably supply LEGO with a healthy profit margin. We are a much smaller market, but in per capita terms LEGO occupies a larger proportion of toy shelves here. LEGO observes they can sell at a higher price in the local market and therefore does.

I'd agree with that. As you noted, other companies set prices for a year - IKEA for example. But at least they revise the prices after the year. Green Grocer, for example, was 100 UK / 150 US / 250 AU, and that ratio hasn't existed in those currencies for at least 2 years. Picking a recent release - Winter Bakery is 50 UK / 55 US / 95 AU. UK -> AU has been around 1.6 for most of this year, and US -> AU has been pretty close for a while now, so currency isn't coming into it. It isn't tax either, because UK had 17.5% vs our 10%.

(I used the S@H prices for hard to get items to illustrate the price setting point. It's not quite so bad with popular sets and the major stores)

I'd argue that shipping does cost more - witness the difference in shipping rates on Bricklink - but... S@H prices don't include shipping, they whack that on after. It really is what they think the market will bear, and Lego is alone there. PC & console games have been like this for a while, for a product that's little more than a disc inside a plastic case.

I suspect that the problem is distribution, not retail. Much like the book retailers can't import from OS if it's available locally via the distributors, I imagine there's an Australian based distributor setting the price points. I'm not in wholesale / retail so I can't say that's definitely the case, it's just a guess.

The only thing that can be done is to not let the perception that Australians are happy to pay inflated prices persist. That could include doing things like:

1. Only buy LEGO on sale.

If retailers get the idea that people only buy LEGO when the price is reduced, they may put pressure on the supplier to lower the wholesale price so they can drop the price for out of sale periods. I can imagine if Big W / Kmart / Target / Myer reduced its orders substantially, LEGO Australia might rethink its pricing structure.

Tell your families, friends, neighbours. Alert them to the sales, and use the mantra "never buy LEGO at retail".

Again, another guess, I think this is going to get a little tougher. Shoppers have got savvy with sales in the past few years (witness the 300+ page thread ), the retailers know this and are trying to swing it back. K-mart has changed from the "% off this Thursday" model to the "low everyday price" model that Big W use, and Myer's have come out stating a few times they'd like to cut back on sales (haven't succeeded yet). There will still be sales, but I don't think they'll be as good as the past couple of years. It will be worse if they all get their stock / ordering levels under control, and the number of clearances reduce.

But yes, hammer home to any prospective Lego buyers that sales and clearances are the way to go. It's got to get back up the line eventually.

2. Take advantage of grey market importing where possible.

There is no real need for a warranty on LEGO, so importing carries little of the (slight) risk of importing consumer electronics. Use Bricklink to find sellers in favourably priced countries (especially the US), or order from the online arms of retailers such as Barnes & Noble.

I think this is where the big win is, at least while the $AU is high and the US economy is struggling. The main obstacles are shipping (generally cheaper the more sets you get, so long as the total is under $1000), finding the best combinations of stuff on Bricklink or other sites if you want multiple items, and Gerry Harvey banging on about the lost GST. Get in now before the government eventually caves in. I'm assuming they'll cave in because the other alternative, allowing retailers to import directly, hasn't exactly gone well (see books).

(I don't think Harvey cares about GST, and probably knows that 10% won't make a difference to people buying stuff. But delays and extra customs charges for assessing all this stuff, which will be passed onto the purchaser, turns those easy overseas purchases into prolonged and not-so-cheap-and-easy ones.)

Overseas buying becomes better if:

a). there's overseas brokers / shipper, who can receive items from multiple sources and combines them into a single shipment. So you want three items, one is cheapest at US TRU, one is cheapest at Bricklink, and one is cheapest at US S@H. Individually, shipping would really hurt, but combined they're not too bad.

b). there's like-minded buyers in a similar location. So there's a half-dozen people all in the same city that want a particular set going cheap. Again, individually it might not work out, but combined I'd think it would be pretty good.

I'd love to think that the normal retail situation is going to improve to reflect the strong currency. I'm pessimistic this is going to happen, so... stock up in the next year. Good luck and good shopping.

[Whittleberry]

I was looking forward to the New Diagon Alley, hoping LEGO would be nice and put it around $190-$210, but no. They put it at $270. That's really too bad, It was my most anticipated set of 2011.

Oh god I just saw that. Well, that's it, I'm importing it from the states.

[dotmike]

I was looking forward to the New Diagon Alley, hoping LEGO would be nice and put it around $190-$210, but no. They put it at $270. That's really too bad, It was my most anticipated set of 2011.

At this morning's exchange rate, in US dollars that makes it $271.30 USD. The actual US retail price is $149.99 USD.

So we're being asked to pay a price which is 80.9% higher. That is breathtakingly bad. Even with a 20% sale somewhere locally, it's still going to be $216 ($217 USD), which is 44.7% higher than a non discounted US price (and they have sales too, after all).

Here was I thinking all the greedy children were in my house this Christmas morning! They're not, they're at LEGO Australia. Shame on you.

[asharerin]

Did not realize I am not setup for messaging. You can contact me at sweetpeandme@hotmail.com (my paypal email). I have been looking at shipping quotes to Australia from the USA and it may kill the deal....... for example at the moment I am able to ship down LEGO Star Wars Slave 1 (8097) for a total of

$115 US dollars.....it might be a better deal to ship 2 or 3 at once and then split the shipping with some friends although this is still a good deal cheaper than regular Australian retail prices.

Alternatively it may be cheaper still if you just want the instructions and sealed bags of pieces so I can ship them in a smaller box as well all know the Lego boxes are only 25% full. Email an order you would like priced and we will go from there. You can check my feedback at paypal or on ebay (US site of course)...ebay ID is sweetpeandme.

Merry Christmas all!

Edited December 25, 2010 by asharerin

[marvinblue]

Hi all!! Firstly, Merry Christmas!! Secondly, has anyone seen any Grand Emporium's in the Post Christmas sales? If so, how much are they going for? Reading the above emails, should I bother getting it at all in Oz, or would it be cheaper importing it?

Thanks!

[KartoffelViking]

Hi all!! Firstly, Merry Christmas!! Secondly, has anyone seen any Grand Emporium's in the Post Christmas sales? If so, how much are they going for? Reading the above emails, should I bother getting it at all in Oz, or would it be cheaper importing it?

Thanks!

On Friday I received a half year clearance email from David Jones saying "... save 30% or more on a great range of toys from LEGO, ...", so it might be worth ringing up or popping by to check for GEs.

[marvinblue]

Thanks for that. My local (Parramatta) has them listed on the pricing boards, but they don't stock any in the store. I've asked them to get a couple in, but I haven't seen any in there. I will admit, I'm not in there every week, so they may have stocked and sold them.

[Mainee]

If anyone is after the Tanative IV (10198) - Kmart (Chadstone) have reduced these further to $169!!

[Clone-Trooper]

If anyone is after the Tanative IV (10198) - Kmart (Chadstone) have reduced these further to $169!!

Brilliant, now I have to wait till Tuesday for them to open.......

Lets hope this is Australia wide :-)

Edited December 26, 2010 by Clone-Trooper

[YG-49]

It seems that Lego has priced the Fairytale minifig and Community minifig sets (227 pieces and 256 pieces) at $98.75 each.

Ouch.