ok, the recently opened Legoland Malaysia might indicate some hope on this. i'm actulally quite grateful that they chose Southeast Asia as Asia is so big.

but Lego is a succesful company and old, but i can't understand why they havent opened official stores and production warehouses in Asia. heck there are first world countries in Asia like Japan, Singaopre, the Middle East just to name a few. as an AFOL based in Asia, the Philippines specifically, this quite frustrates me. it's no secret that Lego if ever available on this region is very expensive, aside from that we have very limited selection, always the small sets. and these sets are usually the "kiddie" sets, no technic theme, no sculpture theme, no landmark theme, no architecture theme, limited licensed theme, and ridiculously expensive UCS theme once in a while. basically no sets that target the AFOLs.

not that i'm annoyed but sometimes i find it wierd when people from Europe and USA complain about the price, when that price if converted to my country's currency is considered cheap. oh well.

it frustrates me the fact that i can afford but the availability hinders me from getting what i want. the shipping cost is often 50-70% the actual price of the package especially the large boxed sets.

anyway, i hope you wouldnt see this as a rant even if it seems to be. i just wanted to be enlightened.

And actually, i wanted to know if there are other Asians here and wanna know how they satisfy their lego cravings and how they purchase elusive sets.

I know your pain, here in the shops in Beijing the prices are about exactly double of the price in the US. Are you sure it's a case of Lego not wanting to invest in Asia? It's not BMW or something, it's just a toy company. It probably makes better business sense to them to work thru distributors and middle-men. China in particular is a very tricky place to do business, for example.

Here in China we have Taobao, which is China's eBay. You can get just about any Lego item there for about 20% less than in the shops (still kind of expensive). You don't have something similar?

I hear Hong Kong is a good place to score, especially in the markets but, of course, if you spend the money to go to Hong Kong you're not saving much if anything.

i know that feel bro, except we still get technic themes here. and since i'm a Hero Factory fan, i have no complaint about availibility. we always get a full sets here. but yeah, matter about higher price. they're expensive already, even without the tax. and they always coming late in the Asia (or in Indonesia, at least).

It's frustrating, but I know for Japan, it's improved a lot in the last five years. Japan is now getting about 90% of things released here, and the prices have mostly dropped. In 2008 they were often double, and now they're about 20% higher.

Lego has also opened a Japanese language web site, and opened the first Lego amusement park in Tokyo. It's not a Legoland, but it's a start.

Ideally, Lego would like to have stores in every country in the world, but they need to go step by step. I imagine the economy of the Philipines is small enough that it's a lower priority, after Japan, China, and Korea. But it'll come one day. Just stay strong.

And as said, eBay, or whatever online auction is popular there, is a good alternative. And in 2008, I was able to make a few orders a year off of Bricklink and save 30-40%, even with shipping. The collectible minifigs are still half price on Bricklink. There are ways.

I believe LEGO's marketed to Japan for quite a while-- they've also got LEGO retail stores (ClickBrick), which feature a variety of LEGO-themed things that you can't find anywhere else in the world (that I'm aware of).

In the past, I heard rumors from LEGO that copyright/trademark/patent issues in Asian markets (China in particular) also made it a less desireable place for LEGO to want to do business. Additionally, I think there's been a culture and language barrier for some markets, like Asian and Arab countries. That's not to say that those countries don't have a sufficiently profitable middle/upper class, but that the culture for buying LEGO isn't as established there, and creates less of a market for LEGO. But as that changes (and it seems to be changing in Asia, at least), we may see a broader focus from LEGO. The word from LEGO that I've heard is that LEGO is just beginning to start catering to more Asian markets, since the growth there in recent years has supposedly been very strong.

DaveE

I wonder who makes most of the strategy decisions for the Asian markets. Is it Lego or is their distributor.

I see a lot of space that lego is given in department stores here (Korea) taken up by themes that aren't very popular here (Star Wars and LOTR) and there always seems only a small section for Ninjago.

Ninjago isn't my thing but I see people buying it all the time.

There seems a lot of room for improvement in the way they do business here.

Asia is one of, if not the, highest priority markets for LEGO. Just because you don't see Brand Retail stores does not mean there isn't an investment. Different markets call for different strategies.

Sweden, and I believe Finland, have double price compared to the US, but thanks to Bricklink and germany that problem is easy solved

I'm kind of surprised that they don't have some Lego store presence in Japan? It honestly may be as basic as cost of real estate vs working with existing partners for distribution. China I can easily see why they do not have a huge retail footprint. Doing that kind of business in China can be a nightmare.

I have found buying LEGO in Indonesia very hard going. It does seem to be available in the retail department stores although seemingly about a year or behind what we get in the West. useful for if you have missed something that is now out of production but not good in that it is almost if not more than double the UK price.

I have family in Indonesia and when over there I have gone shopping for LEGO with my nephew and bought a couple of little sets (For the price of quite large sets back home.) It does make me wonder who actually buys the stuff at that price over there? I know how low the wages are looking at what my brother in law brings in and what my wife used to earn compared to her wages in the UK. Basically one weeks wage in the UK at twenty hours weekly is more than she used to earn in a month in Jakarta for a fifty hours a week job. I'd like to know the sort of families over there who can afford to buy it as nobody i know there can possibly do so?

In most Asian countries, people are very unlikely to spend that much on something which are just "toys".

There may be exceptions (like Japan etc.) but it is true for most part of Asia due to socio economic scenario (same for Africa too).

It is only the developed countries where people have time AND money to invest into hobbies.

If TLG is serious about Asia, they need to reduce production cost by setting up manufacturing in China/India or similar.

In most Asian countries, people are very unlikely to spend that much on something which are just "toys".

There may be exceptions (like Japan etc.) but it is true for most part of Asia due to socio economic scenario (same for Africa too).

It is only the developed countries where people have time AND money to invest into hobbies.

If TLG is serious about Asia, they need to reduce production cost by setting up manufacturing in China/India or similar.

I disagree with this. There are plenty of rich people and talented enthusiasts in Asia. There are more rich people in China than the UK, for example. And populations are getting quite nucleated so distribution is becoming easier. As far as I can tell, machines and plastics are the same price the world over and TLG production is highly automated so I don't buy the low-cost labour story. Lego makes 70% gross margin, cost is not really an issue.

Edited January 10, 201312 yr by robuko

There are more rich people in China than the UK[/Quote]

Very true and I'm not arguing over it. But how many of those rich people are going to buy Lego?

Those who are interested are already buying them anyway.

Unless TLG can capture a critical mass in a country, it may not make business sense to enter to that country.

Also entering in Asia, say Chinese market for example can lead to hard-to-differentiate counterfeit product which would affect Lego's reputation (which will do more harm that good to TLG in long run). I'm sure people in TLG are quite clever - so if they have not entered outside Europe/N.America/Australia there must be a reason for that.

I would say that LEGO market in China is just starting to boom.

Most of families in China only have 1 child. The parents even won't think twice if there are some good Educational toys out there.

there are many middle-class families' kids are attending so-call 'LEGO classes' , which membership is about $1500 for 100 hours!

and after these kids grow up, and maybe go thru the 'Dark Age' , they will spend a lot. maybe..

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Very true and I'm not arguing over it. But how many of those rich people are going to buy Lego?

Those who are interested are already buying them anyway.

Unless TLG can capture a critical mass in a country, it may not make business sense to enter to that country.

Also entering in Asia, say Chinese market for example can lead to hard-to-differentiate counterfeit product which would affect Lego's reputation (which will do more harm that good to TLG in long run). I'm sure people in TLG are quite clever - so if they have not entered outside Europe/N.America/Australia there must be a reason for that.

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.. But how many of those rich people are going to buy Lego?

Those who are interested are already buying them anyway.

I'm sure people in TLG are quite clever - so if they have not entered outside Europe/N.America/Australia there must be a reason for that.

If you say people who are interested in Lego are buying it anyway, that's an argument that always applies to any country at any point in time. But sales have gone up, so it hasn't been a valid argument. As articulated by several in this topic, distribution and pricing is clearly an issue in Asia that is holding back sales. Lego should look to develop a customer base, and develop sales per customer through time, in any territory.

I think the reason they have not really made a big push in Asia is partly your point on IP protection. As I noted in this topic, IP theft is a real issue and the copycat quality is good and improving. But also, they just don't need to bother with Asia while the developed country territories are quite simply on fire, revenue wise. Asia is just harder. I actually think the strategy is to put Asian growth on the back burner and save it for for a rainy day. After all, the CMF boomlet won't last forever and Star Wars will have weak years.

@Faefrost, Lego does have several direct consumer stores in Japan under the clickbrick brand, but I think it is run by a licensee.

I just posted this the other day on the "UNKNOWN LEGO SETS thread on this forum... but it bears repeating here....

Here's a 1400 Japanese set that I had never seen before, it's in none of the online LEGO databases, and the folk at the TLG Archives in Denmark were scratching their heads over it as well....

Well I found out some very interesting information on this set from the investigations of my Billund Archives contacts after a few days...

It seems that in Japan LEGO (sold there since 1962) was always mainly a department store item only found in big cities... not found in small town toy stores. So this really restricted the distribution of LEGO there (story sounds vaguely similar to the complaints of foreign auto companies).

What TLG did was to enlist the help of LEGO Dacta, which did have access to school classrooms across Japan... and here is the story behind this relatively obscure and unknown 1400 set....

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"1400" was the special product only for Japan with Japanese writing on the box in mid 1980s. It says "Special Set for Kindergarten child - LEGO bricks help stimulate unlimited creativity of the children".

In mid 1980s LEGO Brand was not yet well known (like it is today) in Japan, LEGO products were sold only at department stores in big cities. So LEGO Dacta team tried to sell this set "1400" through kindergarten all over Japan.

They prepared leaflets about this product and asked the kindergarten to distribute them to the parents. Parents ordered the products and get the delivery through kindergarten. The price was 2500 Japanese Yen at that time and sold very well.

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So in this instance TLG used the Dacta Educational Division as a sales tool (which it in a sense is anyway)... to sell a LEGO set that was otherwise unavailable to most rural or small town Japanese children, and get the parents interested in obtaining a toy that would further their educational development.

So this 1400 set was a LEGO Basic set/Dacta set hybrid that helped (where the distribution channels failed)... to make LEGO more of a household name in Japan... which it is today. So the 1400 set was a marketing tool of sorts that did pay dividends in getting LEGO a larger foothold into the Japanese market.

Looks like this is another "special set" to add to my already expanding Special Sets Chapter of my LEGO DVD/download next version (free to current owners/purchasers)....

I love finding the history behind some of the obscure and odd LEGO sets... keeps me searching for more....

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So the bottom line is this.... we may be blaming TLG for something that is out of their control... namely the trade policies of some of the Asian countries themselves. Living near Detroit, I know the severe frustration that the big 3 automakers have gone thru over the years with some of these foreign countries in selling our products in their countries...

So in some instances, the problem is not TLG but the restrictive trade/distribution policies of the country where the frustrated AFOLs themselves live....

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Edited January 11, 201312 yr by LEGO Historian

I think the reason they have not really made a big push in Asia is partly your point on IP protection. As I noted in this topic, IP theft is a real issue and the copycat quality is good and improving. But also, they just don't need to bother with Asia while the developed country territories are quite simply on fire, revenue wise. Asia is just harder. I actually think the strategy is to put Asian growth on the back burner and save it for for a rainy day. After all, the CMF boomlet won't last forever and Star Wars will have weak years.

@Faefrost, Lego does have several direct consumer stores in Japan under the clickbrick brand, but I think it is run by a licensee.

Lets talk about the elephant in the room. If we are talking about a push into Asia ultimately for a company Legos size that means one thing. China. Japan Korea and Taiwan are easily penetrated as a specialty import market. As you point out Lego has local licensees fulfills the role of the Lego branded store fronts in at least Japan. While they could bring those in house, there probably is not a huge driving reason to mess with something that is working.

Other Asian areas such as Singapore, Indonesia and Malaysia as business ventures would typically spawn from penetration into China. Their markets are good enough alone for sales, but for any push to be worth it probably need to be tied to a push into China.

And China is the problem. In order to make such a big push into China, it is a given that one of the requirements will be that everything gets manufactured via a split Chinese owned partner company or subsidiary. As many companies have discovered, 5 years later this Chinese company is suddenly heir biggest competitor, and is using their own tooling against them. It's one thing to be fighting IP theft and copycat clone brands. It's quite another when the price of doing business is you hand them the molds that form the core of that business.