Brickset ForumHome›
Shopping at LEGO or Amazon?
Please use our links: LEGO.com • Amazon
As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases.
Please use our links: LEGO.com • Amazon
As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases.
Banned from buying from LEGO S@H
Shopping at LEGO.com or Amazon?
Please use our links: LEGO.com • Amazon
Recent discussions • Categories • Privacy Policy • Brickset.com
Howdy, Stranger!
Categories
- All Categories
- 16.2K General
- 3 Announcements
- 3.1K Collecting
- 3.7K Everything else LEGO
- 1.7K Building and Techniques
- 2.3K Brickset
- 14 Ambassador
- 1K Introduce yourself
- 385 The Database
- 438 Brickset.com
- 316 Forum Operation
- 15 FAQs
- 13.9K Shopping
- 1.7K Shopping USA/Canada
- 337 Shopping Elsewhere
- 11K Marketplace
- 1.2K Other
- 571 Community and Events
- 262 Photography/Video
Brickset.com is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, the Amazon.com.ca, Inc. Associates Program and the Amazon EU Associates Programme, which are affiliate advertising programs designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.
As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases.
Comments
Lego: Banning people from buying our product instead of fixing our lazy and inaccurate production estimates.
When you see the RRP in some countries, you could make a decent profit sending a container of Lego to Australia.
When a retailer enters into a wholesale agreement, they must commit to buying broadly from all themes to present the entire LEGO line. There are also other standards LEGO can control and enforce.
Despite the great job that they do with customer service, some of their other decisions are fairly counterproductive to that effort.
It also happens most years with some toy or other whether it be a teletubby, stretch armstrong or cabbage patch doll.
How can you possibly accurately measure demand on a new set?
There must be another reason for this policy...
It would take coordination and an immense effort for resellers to create a LEGO resell market on their own. So, that doesn't happen. Resellers take advantage of a situation created by LEGO. You see resellers profiting from low supply with all kinds of things. Not just LEGOS.
For extreme examples like Minecraft and Lloyd, resellers could not have created that on their own if LEGO had supplied the demand. If enough Minecrafts are not produced there are kids that won't get one when they want one. Resellers didn't cause that to happen. Sure, resellers buy some up and profit off of that, but there are still a lot of kids that don't get the set and that's due to no supply. The root cause.
About the LEGO business model. What if LEGO stated when sets would retire? And, I don't mean a 'retiring soon' label weeks before. I mean a list, published months ahead. How much would that change things?
What if LEGO didn't have figures like Mr Gold?
What if LEGO continued making ANY set as long as there was demand? They do that with some sets, FB and DS, but not with all sets. Some sets are flashes in the pan. Remember Zombies?
What if LEGO didn't retire sets until years later? The supply slowly trickles down over years and years.
But, thing is.... LEGO will probably never change that business model. Course, if LEGOS gradually cease to be popular and collectible that will hurt reselling a lot, but will most likely hurt LEGO even more.
There are no easy solutions. I personally don't think banning resellers is a solution to anything. It is just a bandaid on a symtom. It doesn't address the root causes.
I don't think many resellers have stocked up on Monster Fighters LEGO, other than possibly the Zombies, hence why it is going away so quickly.
Who knows what LEGO are trying to do, however they do what they feel they have to. We just have to abide by the rules and play nicely. :)
I have always been honest with Lego. I stick with the limits. I have one account. They know I am a reseller because when I fill out the survey about what I do with Lego, I have always told them my kids play with it, education , and resell. :o) I am in about the same spending bracket as you LFT with Shop at Home. I think I have returned 1 item. I am an easy customer. I did get a letter. I called them and wanted to know what I did wrong. The guy I spoke to felt awful, but he stated that they could not change the decision as this was a change the company was making. It is o.k. if they don't want me to purchase to resell, but what about my kids.....nope. I can only go to the store. Yes, they can do whatever they want, but I do think this is an extreme and dumb decision. I have supported and promoted Lego for 14 years and they make a quick and rash decision without looking at each case. The guy on the phone did agree that they should look at the banned people case by case. As someone else stated, I could see if I had gone past limits, had done something fraudulent, had multiple returns, demanded promos, ect. However, I did do not one of those things. I was just a happy customer and spent a ton of $$$$ with them.
My parent's owned a John Deere store and my grandpa was the president of John Deere for some time. Also, my in-laws owned a Garden Center. All of them think this is a ridiculous decision for a company to make. They could not even give me a good explanation after talking to 2 different people. They were nice, but could not answer my ?'s. It was as if they did not understand why I was banned either. Like LFT, I was pulling away from Lego reselling also, but my kids still collect like crazy. It would be interesting to know how many people are banned and the logic behind it. Thanks for listening to my story and I appreciate everyone who purchased from me.
So they ban all known resellers. Could they let you have one (or two or five) of a product for personal use? Probably. But how would they know that one (or two or five) is for personal use? An outright ban stops you from buying bulk for resale from S@H while still letting you purchase from a store for personal use (or for resale use, unless they recognize you and question number of items being bought).
Is it the only way to go about stopping resellers? No, clearly not. Will it work? Probably not, as there are ways around it. Is it a short term fix so that the company feels they are doing something about the (unidentified) problem? Yes.
You may get all of these fluffed statements from Lego but it has always been painfully obvious. Resellers are cutting into Lego's share just like used video games to developers and publishers.
I really don't think that this policy was made by TLG itself. I think some events or companies "forced" it to do so.
If you don't have a store where LEGO competes with other toy brands you are nothing but a hindrance to LEGO S@H and their major retailers. In pseudo macro-economic terms there is only so much money to be spent on LEGO and if you're making money from it (and unless you're a very stupid reseller you surely are) then that's less money for LEGO. The only case against that is where LEGO competes for sales with other brands - toysrus, amazon etc.
With the nature of LEGO and LEGO fans, even out of production resellers are almost certainly taking away from LEGO sales. If someone can't get an Emerald Night from a reseller for 3xRRP (that was probably bought for less than RRP from LEGO) then there's a good chance they'll spend that money (or at least a good chunk of it) on other LEGO, hence LEGO loose out on a good proportion of EOL resales.
@momof2boys99 If you and your family can't understand LEGO's reasoning then let me try - resellers may spend alot of $$$s at LEGO, but not one of them is a genuine new sale, just a sale brought forward by a smart shopper getting the best deal or promo and using the VIP account to the full. Its not good business for LEGO. You aren't marketing, you aren't advertising, you're not at the basic level creating a single new sale (any more than any other fan of LEGO that introduces it to friends, neighbours etc). So, there's almost no upside to LEGO. What about the downside? Well, you're shrewdness in maximising deals/promos and VIP points probably does reduce profitability compared to the average Joe - but not by much, but its there (and especially the $2,500 + VIP redeemed on a $50k annual spend probably doesn't look too good). The whole minecraft thing undoubtedly caused LEGO a massive headache with complaints firstly about lack of stock and then their sale on ebay for 3-4x RRP. Perhaps more importantly it almost certainly reduced their sales with people having to spend $130 instead of $30 on a minecraft, where did that $100 spend get diverted from, most likely more LEGO sales and the same is probably true of almost every LEGO resale. Finally there's a good chance that LEGO legally have to do something if their retail arm is (unwittingly) providing exclusive sets to retailers when they have an exclusivity agreement with another retailer for that set.
Aside from the last point LEGO could do nothing, they could just carry on as normal and take the crap that comes next time there's a minecraft or next time someone complains that they can only get a recently retired set for 2xRRP on ebay. (Sure LEGO aren't blameless in either of those, but that's basically irrelevant). Or they can ban you, LFT and any other big time resellers. You provide them with zero benefit anyway and they can now say they are doing something, next time someone complains. More importantly, from the last point, they have legally covered their ass. Which ever way you look at it, from a business case it makes 100% sense.
People seem to have missed the point with minecraft, i understand it was an exlcusive and also at Amazon. It wasn't available in all stores for everyone to buy.
Lego have customers beyond end users but also the toy sellers, they couldn't get 100 Minecraft to sell, etc. Its not fair on their legitimate sellers.
you also don't know the deal they had with minecraft, they may have sold it as a one-off in limited shops, not limited shops and every ebay store.
R
Also those who got 100 Minecraft to resell were surely cheating the system. Wasn't there a limit of 1 or 2 on it per account? Those with multiple accounts should be banned without regret, I think there's no disagreement on that here.
The fact remains, I haven't heard 1 good business reason not to ban them - sure its not very fair, and it may not achieve much (apart from with legal issues surrounding exclusives) but weighing up the business case, ban ban ban.
1. Do nothing
2. Ban resellers outright
There is actually a third choice in the middle.
3. Restrict resellers and monitor
Put a 5x lifetime limit per sku on each item on S@H, send a letter out to resellers saying, "we appreciate your enthusiasm, but we need to limit qtys to allow all our fans a chance to buy our items".
If someone is having multiple orders and multiple accounts, it is pretty easy to find, people have only so many credit cards and so many billing addresses, if you catch someone going around the limits, then yes, ban them. That is completely TLG's fault. They had months of warning that would happen, they released Minecraft in the summer and it sold out instantly, they had months to ramp up production and they blew it.
If they released it for the first time in October, then I'd better understand, but they released in the summer so they had plenty of warning. I said last summer they needed to make hundreds of thousands, perhaps a million of them and that they could sell every one of them.
Some people on this site derided me and insulted me, saying I was crazy and that I didn't know what I was talking about. Clearly I did, and if I saw it, then it should have been clear as sunshine to TLG. We provide them with zero benefit? Really? Tell that to @momof2boys99 who clearly is a huge fan and promotes the brand to everyone in her circle.
If you doubt the value of that, consider Mary Kay, a brand that exists because people promoting it within their circles. Don't underestimate the value and power of personal promotion, it is worth 10 times as much in direct advertising.
Word of mouth is not something to be scoffed at, and all TLG has done here is create a lot of bitterness and ill-will among some of its biggest and most diehard fans.
I've been in business now for almost 20 years, I've run 3 different companies in that time and learned a lot of lessons (mostly the hard way). One lesson is that you need to play well with others and let other people succeed along with you, or you'll find yourself alone at the table and no one wants to play with you.
If TLG wants to squeeze all the profit out of everything and keep all sales for itself, fine, it is welcome to try, but it might just find that some of the success during the past 5 years is partly due to people like myself and @momof2boys99, and if you cut us out of the pie, the effect is larger than TLG will expect.
LEGO is a toy, first and foremost, so they need "new" customers every year to continue business. Most people do not go right into being AFOLs, most people have a dark ages, so they need the 2-3 year olds every year to get into it.
Many a company has taken that future for granted and paid the price, I hope TLG doesn't look back 5-10 years from now and regret pissing in their biggest fan's Cheerios...
From Amazon? 5
From other sources? About 300
So this ban accomplishes nothing, because the "hard to find" stock they are trying to protect? I wasn't buying from them anyway.
Same with Lloyd ZX spinner, I bought 5 from S@H, another 10 from my local LEGO store, another 10 from Amazon, and over 300 from other sources.
So again, the ban doesn't do a darn thing, except piss off long-time loyal customers.
If you could get 300 from 'other sources' why did you not just get 305 from them?
You would then, not be on their radar surely.
What WOULD work would be to WORK WITH ME... Continue to do business with me with rules and restrictions... The only way to have any affect over my business is to do business with me, telling me to go away just removes all control TLG might have had. Telling me that I can't have a ITD account just means you have no control whatsoever over me.
Even last year when Lloyd was hard to find, in October, I was able to buy 325 of them.
If TLG would give me a dealer account, then I could live within their purchase restrictions. I could also help them with production planning.
How?
By placing orders in advance and not disrupting the supply chain.
1. Publish the retirement list
2. Allow resellers such as myself to order sets 6 months before retirement, for delivery at retirement.
3. Use the various orders from resellers to plan production and make those sets for those orders in addition to whatever production was planned.
4. Profit!
It would allow TLG to plan out production better if they were just getting these orders directly and in advance.
Right now, I have about 100 copies of Fire Brigade stored for retirement. Most of these copies were purchased at discount from Walmart/TRU/Amazon. This is stupid and inefficient, but it is my only option.
What if, instead of disrupting sales, TLG just publishes that Fire Brigade is going to retire 12/31/2013. Then take orders from me for 100 of them 6 months before that date for delivery on a pallet the month of retirement.
Lets say 100 other resellers also want to buy 100 each, that is 10,000 Fire Brigade sets, but TLG now has 6 months to make them, in addition to the orders from Amazon, TRU, Walmart, etc.
Now we are not disrupting the supply chain, now we are a part of it.
----------------
Ok, I know what you're thinking, every dollar spent on a retirement set for 2x RRP is a dollar that isn't going into TLG's pocket.
Yes, that is correct, and I understand that concern. But if that is really what TLG is trying to stop, then banning resellers from S@H isn't going to change it.
You know what would?
1. Don't retire hot sets before demand is gone
2. Bring back hot sets that are doing well in the aftermarket
Example 1 - Zombies... Why was this retired so fast? It is selling for 3-4x RRP 6 months post retirement. That means TLG left a lot of money on the table.
Example 2 - Cafe Corner... No, it didn't sell all that great the first time around (but at the time there was nothing to attach to it), and it wouldn't be a huge seller again, but do a limited edition run of 5,000 of them, maybe do a special edition of Cafe Corner and Green Grocer in 1 box for $399, online only for VIPs, and number them.
Both of these actions would have two effects:
1. You'd bring down the aftermarket price on a lot of sets, not just the ones that you make more of, because you'd suck up a lot of the "retired set" demand.
2. You'd limit resellers interest in ALL retired sets because we would never know which ones you'd remake. The entire market would be massively affected by just a few re-issues.
Note: I'm not saying "remake and redesign", I mean reissue the exact same set.
Clearly there is demand for Zombies and Cafe Corner, so make more of them and THAT would affect the reseller market more than anything else.
At the time, the limit was 5, so I purchased 5, there were no published rules against it, so why not?
At the time, I was welcomed with open arms in my local store and S@H had nearly 2 years of purchase history that was clearly for resale, all on one account, so I wasn't hiding anything.
And for all the ill feeling that banning a few big time resellers might cause I suspect it will create just as much, if not more, good feeling.
And again, why bother giving you limits. Just ban. You are, after all, still a reseller so you really are giving LEGO no option. You can hardly blame them for not simply believing you, or any other reseller that they promise never to sell what they buy from S@H. Some might suggest that someone that buys 300+ Minecraft sets in order to screw 300+ families out of what, 30,60,90$ a piece in the run up to christmas is morally bankrupt and deserves all they get. Indeed they might also say that suffering the inconvenience of not being able to order through S@H is hardly a suitable punishment at all.
And then why should they work with you? You don't help LEGO in any way. You don't provide people with the choice of toys, you don't have a physical store. You don't drive LEGO sales at all. If someone doesn't buy from you, they buy from existing channels, be it LEGO stores, S@H, Amazon, ToysRUs.
If the ban had any affect whatsoever, then yea, I'd understand your point.
The problem is, it accomplishes nothing good, yet causes them harm. Have you ever done business with the big retailers? I have... I've sold directly to Amazon Retail (not selling ON Amazon, selling to them directly, to their buyers).
Let me tell you, they have the best customer service on Earth, but they treat their vendors like crap. Takes 120 days to get paid, only after you send reminders, they ask for lower prices each time, they expect you to jump through all the hoops they ask for, and in the end, they expect you to be grateful they are even talking to you.
Why on Earth would TLG want to put all their eggs in 4 retailers, "Amazon, Toys R Us, Walmart, and Target", which I suspect is the bulk of retail LEGO sales in the United States.
Why not have a thousand small mom and pop shops that actually care about LEGO? No one at the big 4 actually cares about LEGO as a brand or how it appears, except as far as it impacts their bottom line this quarter.
TLG has zero power over the big 4, but they could have power over the thousand small resellers if they would only work with them.
2. Be all "Soup Nazi" on resellers, more resellers get angry have no hesitation in doing whatever they can (multiple accounts etc) to buy Lego for resale as TLG won't play nice with them so why should they be nice to TLG.
3. Reasonable (non resellers) AFOL's read about how TLG has treated some resellers, think its a bit heavy handed lose a little respect for TLG.
Just three reasons I could think of, now granted its not like every one of these scenarios is guaranteed to happen as described.
A couple of other points I'd like to make, being a reseller isn't evil or against the law etc. If you were following TLG rules then it is perfectly fine (even if you don't like it), they decided that they wanted to stop it (also fine) they should have just done it in a more measured and reasonable way.
Lasty I do not think we need to keep going over why TLG wants to stop resellers, I think we all agree why they want to, it's the way they are going about it that is the issue.
But alas, there are many fools in the world, and for some reason we still let them vote, which explains why we have so many idiots in Congress (from both parties, not taking sides on that one).
I did well with Minecraft because TLG failed to produce to demand, the complaints should be directed to TLG, which clearly they were, and in response, rather than actually taking responsibility for their mistake, TLG is choosing to blame resellers rather than actually fix the problem.
When the next hot set comes along, I'll still be able to get a bunch of them, so the same thing will just happen again, because rather than fix the problem, TLG is playing the blame game.