LEGO Price Policy

[Corran]

Hi everybody,

I hope this topic hadn't been discussed earlier, so:

I really like the LEGO Star Wars sets. Recently I bought a new Y-Wing Starfighter at ebay for about 90

[Legoman]

lego does this a lot.no reason why.just more expensive.it really suck fo us New Zealanders. :'-(

[gylman]

It's been discussed aplenty, but I never mind an opportunity to whine about why I, in Toronto, Canada, have to pay 30-50% more for my Lego than those who live a couple of hundred miles south of me, within less than 2 hours driving distance.

It was not so 3 years ago. It used to be that prices between Canada and the US were +/- 10% allowing for currency valuation differences.

I've significantly curtailed my purchase of any retail Lego in Canada. I either buy fromS@H on sales (very limited selection of course), or get my Lego on eBay or through special arrangements with US friends. In general, I buy less new Lego than I used to.

[Legoman]

It's been discussed aplenty, but I never mind an opportunity to whine about why I, in Toronto, Canada, have to pay 30-50% more for my Lego than those who live a couple of hundred miles south of me, within less than 2 hours driving distance.

It was not so 3 years ago. It used to be that prices between Canada and the US were +/- 10% allowing for currency valuation differences.

I've significantly curtailed my purchase of any retail Lego in Canada. I either buy fromS@H on sales (very limited selection of course), or get my Lego on eBay or through special arrangements with US friends. In general, I buy less new Lego than I used to.

same, i used to buy all my lego from streight toyshops :-X but now i buy secound hand from trademe or ebay *y* .

Sorry Lego, but you have left me no choice *alien* >:-(

[captaintau]

Welcome, Corran. Given that you like SW LEGO, I guess you've taken your name from Corran Horn? Oh for a set with him in.

Please tell us a bit more about yourself in the New Members section.

[DoubleT]

I live 50 km from the plant In Billund and here its very exspensive..

But taxes are to blame..... here the sale tax is 25% of the final price... to that the Lego's cut will be taken.... wich they have to use to by resouce... and the Sellers cut also that many times are 40-50 %

And Leog have bin Smart with ShopAtHome they can sell the toy and get a much bigger cut

[Corran]

@captaintau: Yeah, my name is taken from Corran Horn. I'm reading "I, Jedi" at the moment, so it's obvious (though not very innovative ;-) ). I loved the X-Wing-series from Anderson & Allston, so I bought this book, too. Actually it's not bad. I will introduce myself tomorrow in the member section (it's getting too late and I have to recover from the silvester-party) ...

@DoubleT: Hmm, my uncle is from Denmark, so I thought I could get some LEGO models cheaper than here in Germany, but unfortunately we have nearly the same prices as you. My uncle told me recently that the living costs in Denmark are overall higher than in Germany. And I have no relatives in the US, what a shame... :'-(

[Capn Frank]

oh my goodness!!!!

i had no idea!

X-O

that sucks royally

i feel so sad for fellow Lego fans abroad :-(

i wonder if it has to do with supply and demand

i've heard it quoted on EB that lego has 60% of business done in Europe compared to 40% in the US.

but i don't know anything about the rest of the world.

so the demand is higher in europe than the US therefore the price is higher :-(

that still sux if that's true

it seems to cost about 20-25 USD to ship from Wisconsin, USA to Germany. So it probably is worth it for europeans to have their legos shipped from the US. (if you know someone here that is)

[Corran]

oh my goodness!!!!

i had no idea!

X-O

that sucks royally

Nice expression :-D

it seems to cost about 20-25 USD to ship from Wisconsin, USA to Germany. So it probably is worth it for europeans to have their legos shipped from the US. (if you know someone here that is)

Yes, if you know someone and the custom do not open the packet. Otherwise you have to pay so much additional taxes, that it isn't much cheaper anymore :'-(

[Hobbes]

It's been discussed here, for example.

And here's an interesting discussion at Jake McKee's old blog:

Price differences between countries

Continued here:

Pricing Comments

Still "fun" to read, especially Christian Treczoks' comments >:-)

Generally, I noticed the pricing's become a taaaaad bit better. At l(e)ast some sets are priced the same "unit-wise" (i.e. USD 9.99 = EUR 9.99) which is OK since the currency exchange rate is not TLC's "fault".

[Jipay]

you can't blame the taxes, the difference between Canadian prices and US prices prooves it, as stated by gylman.

And Christian Treczoks' comment about business masters are mainly right. The guys usually can't do basic maths. They always refer to non logical stuff to explain things in a way that pleases them.

I think this guy also got a point, the real thing is not "why is it more epensive", it's more "what can I do to make it less expensive". One of the logical area of improvment would be logistics, obvioulsy. This is where everyone mainly agree : TLC's logistics absolutely sucks. In a world where some company deliver products in less than 48 hours, TLC is at shame.

[Hobbes]

To me it's pretty simple:

I am a customer. I don't have a degree in business maths or anything. I go into a store, see the price, and decide solely on that number if I like it or not.

I don't give a rat's megablocks about the economics behind that number, that's simply not my problem and I don't see why I should care about it. There are highly qualified (are they?) people in charge of that, it's their problem, they're supposed to solve it.

Period.

[Jipay]

May I remind you that TLC's dream marketing team made the studies that prooved all the worst selling lego themes would sell well ? They might likely also put an arbitrary price tag on the sets based on studies. They might also make bigger boxes, half empty with 100% AIR, doubling the space requiered for transportation, dramatically increasing the related costs.

[Hobbes]

I have an e-mail from LEGO Direct from when I complained about their pricing policy once.

After I had inquired a second time they answered that "Customer Service can't or isn't allowed to explain the pricing policy, and we hope you understand[1]."

And then they continued with:

Die Preisunterschiede ergeben sich, wie bei jeder anderen Firma auch, aus den jeweiligen Beschaffenheiten des Marktes, Produktionskosten sowie dem Kaufverhalten der Kunden.

This translates to:

As with every other company, price differences result from the different markets and conditions, production costs as well as customers' buying behavior.

Now, one could interpret the bold part as "If they (are used to) pay(ing) more, we can ask for more."

Of course, that's a very generous interpretation on my part. I just found the wording interesting...

[1] Is it just me or does this happen a lot lately with companies? I mean their "asking for understanding". Whenever they have to justify something they don't really explain it but "hope we understand" (increasing gas prices come to my mind). Well, I said it before, it's not my business to understand or care!

[Lord David]

I don't worry much about Lego prices. Sure it may seem expensive, but so long as you purchase the sets you want when there is a sale and such or when on vacation and see that it's cheaper elsewhere... you should be able to get what you want for a reasonable price without spending too much.

Remember... this is quality stuff here, even if a set is on sale it's still quality stuff, but if you can't or don't want to purchase a set cause it's too expensive at first... wait... shop around... you might find it cheaper elsewhere... but don't start going for them cheap knockoffs like Shifty! >:-( :-/

[Jipay]

Well the problem is that products get on sales cause they didn't match the selling expectations. So it's not a viable solution for the future of a company.

[Norro]

Well, one point: Pretty much everything costs more in Europe than America. Food, clothing, housing, etc. If european prices were charged for Lego in America I doubt people would touch it, because it would seem unreasonable compared to everything around it.

Also when we say Europe 60%, America 40% (for ease) you have to consider the costs/logistics involved in each. The 40% is contained in one country and involves massive shipments to TRUS, Target, WalMart etc. The Europe quota is shipped to many individual retailers, in many different markets, at different prices, in a very diverse (marketing wise) landscape...

2 Bricks.

God Bless,

Nathan

[Jipay]

Well I dunno about your place Norro, but here small toy shops are long gone.

[hewkii9]

Also when we say Europe 60%, America 40% (for ease) you have to consider the costs/logistics involved in each. The 40% is contained in one country and involves massive shipments to TRUS, Target, WalMart etc. The Europe quota is shipped to many individual retailers, in many different markets, at different prices, in a very diverse (marketing wise) landscape...

What about Canada?

And with what you're saying, one could come to the conclusion that with different prices, America could actually sell more sets, but that be cancelled out by Europe's varying and higher prices. So the balance would be about 50/50.

Get my drift?

[Kishin]

What about Canada?

With the exception of Quebec, Most of the stores in Canada are US owned and the culture is the almost the same, so marketing is pretty much the same as well. There is also NAFTA allowing free trade between the US and Canada.

[natelite]

i still remember back when the almighty dollar used to be stronger than the euro. it was like $1 to EUR0.85 or something. :-/ of course, times have changed... what with mr bush spending all the taxpayers' monies on tax rebates for the rich and the iraq war. :-P

my take on the pricing issue is...maybe the policy was set a while ago (like an index was set back in 2001 or something) and a year-over-year pricing point was set annually. say if 7264 was $50 (or $70 cad), then a new set with roughly the same parts and pieces would be priced similarly. what you have then is a disparity when the exchange rates fluctuate. if you look carefully, the biggest discrepancies seem to be from currencies that have strengthened the most against the dollar in the past 5 years or so.

[blueandwhite]

With the exception of Quebec, Most of the stores in Canada are US owned and the culture is the almost the same, so marketing is pretty much the same as well. There is also NAFTA allowing free trade between the US and Canada.

I think he was referring to the fact that Canadian prices are far higher than their American counterparts, despite a similar cost and standard of living. Allthough Canadians prices generally aren't as high as European, New Zealand or Australian prices (there are exceptions of course), they are far higher than those found in the US.

Honestly, I suspect that LEGO's pricing scheme is far more complex than we realize. It probably takes countless variables into consideration. For example, in North America, clone bricks are extremely common. Higher prices would undoubtedly reduce sales to those competitors. This may not be the case in Europe. Surely there are other factors that are generally unaccounted for by most consumers, because, lets face it, if LEGO could double or triple the price without cutting into its bottom line, they undoubtedly would.