Could LEGO remake Fright Knights?

[CallMeCarbiz]

5 hours ago, Horation said:

I don't understand the hate people have for resellers, to me a scalper is someone buying more copies than they are allowed (using bots and fake accounts) or buying a lot to create a fake scarcity or buying a lot of a limited production item (ex: tickets to a play) and then reselling them for a high markup.

Meanwhile a reseller like you are describing is someone who is

a) buying the figures legitimately

b) opening and organising every single one based on its type

c) dealing with storage and shipping of all of these

d) saving a lot of money by charging a small markup (ex 6-10$ per fig vs 5$ to buy a random one, your luck would have to be immense to outdo that price for a whole series).

It's because locally, the stores that I can shop at don't tend to restock CMFs. Once the first box or two is gone, that's it. So when the local buyers buy them all, they're gone. Also, up until LEGO moved to boxes, I could feel them myself. I didn't have to pay the markup. I could go to the store soon after they were released, spend a few minutes in the LEGO isle and leave with the ones that I wanted.

If I'm buying them online, I'm the one paying for the shipping. A popular $5 CMF is now$10 and would become closer to $15 after including the shipping and handling fees. And if I'm buying from Bricklink I have to hit the store minimum as well. If the resellers were buying straight from LEGO and not competing for the local stock, then I wouldn't have so much hate for them.

I can tell locally when LEGO sets become available and where they are on sale buy watching my local Facebook Marketplace. Someone posts online that a LEGO set is on sale for 30% off, all the sudden that same set is being sold for 20% below retail on Facebook Marketplace. It's the same with new sets. Someone in the town next to me must have an in. He always has sets a week or so before they are in the stores.

[MAB]

9 hours ago, Sir Dano said:

Resellers who charge double(sometimes triple or even more) for something are just as scummy as scalpers.

So if you buy two or more random ones and you get duplicates, what do you do with the spares? Especially if you have popular ones and you don't want them. Do you sell them at cost price or do you become a scummy scalper and sell them at the going rate that other people are willing to pay for them? 

Nobody is forced to pay 2x or 3x RRP. They can continue to buy random boxes (the product that lego sells) at RRP and hope. 

[Sir Dano]

4 hours ago, MAB said:

So if you buy two or more random ones and you get duplicates, what do you do with the spares? Especially if you have popular ones and you don't want them. Do you sell them at cost price or do you become a scummy scalper and sell them at the going rate that other people are willing to pay for them? 

Nobody is forced to pay 2x or 3x RRP. They can continue to buy random boxes (the product that lego sells) at RRP and hope. 

I either give them away to friends or sell them at cost because I'm not a jerk.

[Yperio_Bricks]

13 minutes ago, Sir Dano said:

I either give them away to friends or sell them at cost because I'm not a jerk.

[Horation]

7 hours ago, MAB said:

So if you buy two or more random ones and you get duplicates, what do you do with the spares? Especially if you have popular ones and you don't want them. Do you sell them at cost price or do you become a scummy scalper and sell them at the going rate that other people are willing to pay for them? 

Nobody is forced to pay 2x or 3x RRP. They can continue to buy random boxes (the product that lego sells) at RRP and hope. 

2 hours ago, Sir Dano said:

I either give them away to friends or sell them at cost because I'm not a jerk.

So I'm a jerk if I resell a product (which people don't need to live) I legitimately purchased at a price others are willing to pay? Why? Would it be fair if I purchased an item for say 10$ and resold it for 20$. That would make me a jerk right? Well that's retail for you...

Most resellers are either a) regular fans who had a few extra copies or b) people making a living from resale of stuff, you can't reasonably expect these people to sell at cost, now can you? Oh reselling isn't an honest job? Again that's retail for you : providing items at a cost to people who want them, nothing dishonest to me...

11 hours ago, CallMeCarbiz said:

It's because locally, the stores that I can shop at don't tend to restock CMFs. Once the first box or two is gone, that's it. So when the local buyers buy them all, they're gone. Also, up until LEGO moved to boxes, I could feel them myself. I didn't have to pay the markup. I could go to the store soon after they were released, spend a few minutes in the LEGO isle and leave with the ones that I wanted.

If I'm buying them online, I'm the one paying for the shipping. A popular $5 CMF is now$10 and would become closer to $15 after including the shipping and handling fees. And if I'm buying from Bricklink I have to hit the store minimum as well. If the resellers were buying straight from LEGO and not competing for the local stock, then I wouldn't have so much hate for them.

I can tell locally when LEGO sets become available and where they are on sale buy watching my local Facebook Marketplace. Someone posts online that a LEGO set is on sale for 30% off, all the sudden that same set is being sold for 20% below retail on Facebook Marketplace. It's the same with new sets. Someone in the town next to me must have an in. He always has sets a week or so before they are in the stores.

Well, you can always contact your local stores to know when they will have stock, otherwise you can do it like everyone else and order online from LEGO (free shipping on decently small orders) and resell/exchange the rest. For the record the bags didn't really fix the problem (ex: see the thousands of stories of people feeling all of the bags containing figure x and reselling it at 2 to 3 times RPP...). 

How do you know said resellers are buying in local stores? It is much easier to purchase 100 boxes from LEGO and getting some VIP points for further purchases than it is to go in a local store and resell them later (where there are limited quantities of stuff).

Now as for the last point, sounds like some effective free market capitalism to me : you buy at a discount, and resell for more, what's the issue? You didn't get any? Well sounds more like you are jealous than anything else...

But yeah someone selling items weeks before release day is not only breaking the law but also scummy, report that person if you can.

[jodawill]

The real problem isn't resellers. It's the stores but carrying enough minifigures. They're hard to find because the stores don't keep them in stock. But if they're going to he random anyway, you can buy as many as you want directly from Lego, or you could buy them by the case for less on Bricklink.

It's just supply and demand. If everyone sold their tournament knights at $5, there would be NO supply. Everyone would build armies of them. The only way for any stock to remain anywhere is for the cost to reach a point where demand cools off. Yes, this prices some people out of the market. That's how economics works. The only solution is for Lego to make more.

[Sir Dano]

5 minutes ago, jodawill said:

The real problem isn't resellers.

You're right, it's the buyers who are dumb enough to pay the idiotic prices scummy resellers want.

[MAB]

4 hours ago, Sir Dano said:

I either give them away to friends or sell them at cost because I'm not a jerk.

The person you sell them to must love that they can sell them on for a higher price, if you leave money on the table as you don't realise what they are worth.

8 minutes ago, jodawill said:

It's just supply and demand. If everyone sold their tournament knights at $5, there would be NO supply. Everyone would build armies of them. The only way for any stock to remain anywhere is for the cost to reach a point where demand cools off. Yes, this prices some people out of the market. That's how economics works. The only solution is for Lego to make more.

No only would they have no stock of $5 tournament knights, they would be left with large stocks of the less popular figures at $5 as they are in less demand. I used to sell figures from S1-S15, and if I had sold them at RRP then I'd have probably made a loss overall as some figures simply do not sell at RRP once opened. They would just sit for a long time unless discounted. The higher prices for popular figures offsets the lower prices for unpopular ones. I also used to swap them, and typically would receive fewer popular ones when trading larger numbers of unpopular ones. Few people would have traded a Spartan for a Traffic Cop, for example.

Supply and demand soon settles prices to what people are willing to pay. Last week on BL someone parted out many of the advent calendars and the price they were offering for one of the minifigures at seemed very good to me whereas other figures were overpriced even though they were the same price. So I snapped up the ones I think are undervalued and left the overpriced ones. 

[Shroffy123]

8 hours ago, Sir Dano said:

You're right, it's the buyers who are dumb enough to pay the idiotic prices scummy resellers want.

Agreed. And it fosters that behavior, including Lego theft. In the USA lego theft is on the rise this holiday season. People steal, and resell them online for thousands of dollars because there are people out there willing to pay it 😪

[Robert8]

On 12/1/2023 at 9:27 PM, CallMeCarbiz said:

 Basil is one beautiful Bat Lord.

I wish his face would look more imposing and majestic, like this

 

[zoth33]

24 minutes ago, Robert8 said:

I wish his face would look more imposing and majestic, like this

 

Yes if they just added a pointy goatee that would be great.  I will probably just use the morbius head for the a replacement for now.  

[Follows Closely]

On 12/8/2023 at 12:56 PM, Sir Dano said:

You're right, it's the buyers who are dumb enough to pay the idiotic prices scummy resellers want.

No. LEGO is to blame for this mess. 

#noMoreBlindBox

[Black Falcon]

4 minutes ago, Follows Closely said:

No. LEGO is to blame for this mess. 

Uhm. Kinda, wasn´t it like that already before, when they still had the foilbags?

[Horation]

2 hours ago, Follows Closely said:

No. LEGO is to blame for this mess. 

#noMoreBlindBox

Why are the blind boxes responsible? You know people were paying silly amounts for these even while they were being produced, in fact the bags made it worse; a single person could simply buy all of the copies of X by feeling the bags and this would create artificial scarcity, inflating the prices even more, now that's scummy, but boxes make it fair again (especially if they make them truly random by adjusting the weights so they all weigh the same), the resale market is generally OK if you just want a complete set (say 100$ for all 12 or maybe 30$ for the 2-3 you didn't have-which can be offset by reselling the ones you don't want).

[Artanis I]

It will be "fair again" when they stop using blind packaging altogether, and go back to selling cheap "impulse" polybags or boxes with pictures of what is inside. What they did for decades before 2011.

The prices should come right back down.

Just put a limit of 3 of each per customer per day to prevent hoarders from buying them all at once.

[MAB]

2 hours ago, Artanis I said:

It will be "fair again" when they stop using blind packaging altogether, and go back to selling cheap "impulse" polybags or boxes with pictures of what is inside. What they did for decades before 2011.

The prices should come right back down.

Just put a limit of 3 of each per customer per day to prevent hoarders from buying them all at once.

The vast majority of LEGO sets are not in blind packaging. Putting CMF in clear packaging would probably increase prices further. If someone can identify all the in demand figures in a box in maybe 20 seconds, then they can clear out all the popular ones in the store very quickly. At least having to feel them slows it down.

It would be impossible for LEGO to impose a limit per day, given how many other companies sell the CMF. Most companies want to sell their stock, not put barriers in the way of customers or get into arguments with them.

[Black Falcon]

2 hours ago, MAB said:

The vast majority of LEGO sets are not in blind packaging. Putting CMF in clear packaging would probably increase prices further. If someone can identify all the in demand figures in a box in maybe 20 seconds, then they can clear out all the popular ones in the store very quickly. At least having to feel them slows it down.

It would be impossible for LEGO to impose a limit per day, given how many other companies sell the CMF. Most companies want to sell their stock, not put barriers in the way of customers or get into arguments with them.

I agree completely here. I think there is no good way to stop certain figures from beeing taken out without making it hard for everyone to guess what is inside. In the end when we had the foil bags you needed a lot luck to still get the minifigures that got high demand. And the more figures where missing the less people really bought the rest, because the less desireable figures were left only.

The only real way to solve this would be to only order the figures online and produce the amount that were ordered afterwards - but that would have nothing to do with the system of ot those figures anymore.

[Horation]

10 hours ago, Artanis I said:

It will be "fair again" when they stop using blind packaging altogether, and go back to selling cheap "impulse" polybags or boxes with pictures of what is inside. What they did for decades before 2011.

The prices should come right back down.

Just put a limit of 3 of each per customer per day to prevent hoarders from buying them all at once.

How does this stop anything? Now instead of making things fair it makes them truly unfair; people who show up first get the figs they want, and that stops everyone else. Say if I want to get a bunch of knights, I show up and buy all the knights. Then the next person shows up and they can't have any, instead of random luck it is speed that determines who gets what. 

Now I hear you say, but this will still drive down the price, right? WRONG, the prices will go UP, not down, since now even fewer people will have them (and many will have gotten them for army building), so the remaining copies will sell for even more.

Fine, you say, but the limit of 3 will stop people, right? WRONG AGAIN, this will create an artificial limit on the numbers available, now instead of buying in bulk to make it more affordable, people have to buy them 2-3 at a time, so the supply is lower. hence the price goes UP, not down.

In conclusion, the best solution is a bunch of blind boxes.

[Artanis I]

14 hours ago, Horation said:

How does this stop anything? Now instead of making things fair it makes them truly unfair; people who show up first get the figs they want, and that stops everyone else.

That only happens if they produce & release all of the copies in one go, and never stock up. Why would they do that? Are other non-exclusive sets sold out on day one, never to return? I'd think not often.

[Yoggington]

19 hours ago, Horation said:

How does this stop anything? Now instead of making things fair it makes them truly unfair; people who show up first get the figs they want, and that stops everyone else. Say if I want to get a bunch of knights, I show up and buy all the knights. Then the next person shows up and they can't have any, instead of random luck it is speed that determines who gets what.

Sounds like a supply & demand issue. Lego can make more of a high-demand figure easily enough.

If they find the knight fig is selling as much as the rest combined, they can increase the amount produced. These aren't a one-&-done production batch.

Sell them direct from Lego.com too. Good luck buying 'all the knights' on there.

[Horation]

1 hour ago, Yoggington said:

Sounds like a supply & demand issue. Lego can make more of a high-demand figure easily enough.

If they find the knight fig is selling as much as the rest combined, they can increase the amount produced. These aren't a one-&-done production batch.

Sell them direct from Lego.com too. Good luck buying 'all the knights' on there.

You see, Lego is often surprised by which ones sell better (according to the designers). So they can't just guess which ones will sell better. 

Alright, you say, but they can make more, easily! Yes, but this takes a lot of time and resources (which won't be available for making other sets, ex: when they made the barracuda, it took them several months to get it back in stock after an unexpectedly good sale, and making a whole batch of figures that sell poorly is not a good business decision, and then you end up with a number of problems : you might overproduce a certain figure ( a lot of people buy the knight, but once they've purchased it, they don't want any others, but the company thinks that they do, so they make more than necessary and now they have a bunch of unsold figures lying around), or you might have a bunch of unsold figures awaiting their sale while already being out of stock for another (ex: the ballerina stays in stock for a while after the sale of all the knights), and now what are you supposed to do? Sell it at a reduced margin? Nonsense! 

So then you say "they can limit sales on their website", as if resellers can't purchase from other places that have stock, or don't have various tricks to get around the limits (asking friends to purchase them for you, having multiple accounts, using bots, etc...).

7 hours ago, Artanis I said:

That only happens if they produce & release all of the copies in one go, and never stock up. Why would they do that? Are other non-exclusive sets sold out on day one, never to return? I'd think not often.

 They do stock up, why do you people keep on saying that I think they don't stock up????

But stocking up takes time, and unsold figures take space.

Edited December 11, 2023 by Horation
small mistaek

[Yperio_Bricks]

16 minutes ago, Horation said:

You see, Lego is often surprised by which ones sell better (according to the designers). So they can't just guess which ones will sell better.

It's funny how the designers do not know that basically all history themed minfigs sell better. Like the Falcon archer, or the upcomming goat herder or bat lord.

EDIT: The thing is, is a CMF series made for AFOL army builders or children? They could easily sell a Black Falcon battlepack in masses. Or a bat lord and his knights battlepack. Or a goat stable battlepack

[MAB]

1 hour ago, Yperio_Bricks said:

It's funny how the designers do not know that basically all history themed minfigs sell better. Like the Falcon archer, or the upcomming goat herder or bat lord.

It might have been true in the early days of CMF but now I imagine they know which ones will be in heavy demand these days. It might be difficult to decide which is more popular between two so-so figures such as the potter and the referee in the last series but compare either of those with the falconer or the brown spaceman and it should be quite clear which would be more popular. Whereas compare the falconer and the brown spaceman, that is presumably quite hard to predict. Whereas the brown spaceman vs the robot warrior, even though a similar futuristic type theme, it should be quite clear.

 

1 hour ago, Yperio_Bricks said:

EDIT: The thing is, is a CMF series made for AFOL army builders or children?

Both, and also (probably mainly adult) collectors that want one of each without army building. From what I have seen with my own kids, they often don't care too much which figure they get if they get just one as they will play with it anyway. Whereas if they get more than one then they often want different ones. I noticed my son preferred male figures and my daughter preferred female figures so the way Playmobil do it, where they split the series into blind packs where you know whether the contents is a male or female character, would have been ideal for them.

Edited December 11, 2023 by MAB

[jodawill]

Yeah, I think the comment about not knowing which ones will be popular applied to more random concepts. The costume minifigures used to be a lot more popular than they are now. I remember the hot dog one was selling for about 3x retail price as soon as it came out. Obviously, anything for army building will be in high demand. I wish they would put all of them on PAB.

I'm still frustrated with the BAM knights from a year or two ago. I was finally able to get some because I was in the right place at the right time. When I got there, a family was standing at the BAM table pulling out every single one for resale - many hundreds of them, if not over a thousand. Any time I drove to my "local" store (which was an hour away at the time), the employees would tell me that someone bought all of them as soon as they put them out.

I wouldn't be surprised if we do see more CMF parts on PAB. They've become much more generous with the parts selection recently. I can't wait to see what's listed next month.

[MAB]

2 hours ago, Yoggington said:

If they find the knight fig is selling as much as the rest combined, they can increase the amount produced. These aren't a one-&-done production batch.

They don't know which one is selling fastest, as these are blind packs (and single SKU code per pack). To find the in-demand ones, they'd have to monitor the prices on the secondary market. Even though the date codes on the old packets indicate that there were different packing dates, I'm not so sure they can easily increase the amount of one CMF from a current series. What they can do is do a "best of" type series like they did with the Top 5 VIP set back in 2012. Although there were claims that was rigged, as it missed out the Spartan from S2, yet included something similar to the Space Villain from S3 and was essentially just a rehash of 5x S3 characters as a way to get rid of excess production parts. Doing themed character packs after the series like the Halloween pack and the rock music pack, basing characters on those in the series but with subtle differences is another option.