Palace Cinema - 2013 Bestseller?

Jabba_the_Taff

I've just had a Lego email suggesting I buy the bestselling set of 2013 - the Palace Cinema. That can't be true can it? But there were no asterisks saying 'bestselling Creator set' etc. If that is true Lego must be in for a record breaking year. Anybody had an email giving a different set as bestselling?

drdavewatford

I thought exactly the same when the e-mail arrived - it's nonsense. There's no way Palace Cinema is anywhere near the top spot, or even the top 50. Top seller will probably be the latest iteration of the police station, as per usual.

Basta

It just marketing fluff, I'm sure it was the best seller of Lego cinemas or Corner buildings with a red roof or some other made up on the spot category.

It's probably actually been a bad seller compared to what TLG expected, hence the email telling us how good it is and that we should buy it.

Would be interesting to see the "real" top selling sets though. I imaging it would be a smaller city set assuming your not counting CMF's.

Jabba_the_Taff

Thought so, but thought it might be an attempt at targeted advertising that didn't work as I've already got it. You would've thought they'd have used the info from my VIP account to do that.

Paperballpark

I think the clue comes lower down in the email: 'check out other best selling sets!'

In other words, it's a good seller - a 'best' seller, but not the TOP seller...

Paperballpark

Jabba_the_Taff said:

Thought so, but thought it might be an attempt at targeted advertising that didn't work as I've already got it. You would've thought they'd have used the info from my VIP account to do that.

You might want another one :)

Jabba_the_Taff

Paperballpark said:

I think the clue comes lower down in the email: 'check out other best selling sets!'

In other words, it's a good seller - a 'best' seller, but not the TOP seller...

But 'THE bestseller' suggests it is the top seller. I think the marketing department had their Xmas do last night!

binaryeye

Similarly, the main LEGO site currently has a blurb about the "Most Popular Set" of 2013, apparently based on page views. The set? #70400 Forest Ambush. I don't understand how this is possible.

Paperballpark

Unless there's a famous adult movie star called Forest Am, and people have been googling...?

Maybe not :)

CCC

When thinking about books, Best Seller doesn't mean the best seller. It just means it is on a top selling list, published by someone. Number One Best Seller means it got to position 1 on one of the lists at some time.

Maybe on the day it was released it was in the top 10 for current modulars, and hence a top seller.

Xefan

Yeah, it's like CCC says, best selling has long been an abused marketing term. It doesn't mean "the best selling" it means "one of our best selling", where best may simply mean top 90% of sets and they define the bottom 10% as being their not the best selling.

It's a classic case of weasel words, you instantly assume when you hear it that best selling means "the best" when in fact it means their arbitrary definition of "best". That's why as CCC pointed to, you'll find far more books with best seller written on them than could ever be possible if it meant best seller of all time, of the year, or even of the month.

This is also how you can have the likes of The Daily Mail, The Sun and so forth all claim to be the UK's best selling newspaper too even though it doesn't make sense that they could all be the best seller consistently through time. It's because they were the best selling on one particular day of the year or whatever (hint: that's why they do Lego promotions, so that they can cherry pick that day for their best selling claim because us muggins are buying multiple copies for the lego). They don't mean they're consistently the best selling newspaper, they just want you to think that when in fact they're only referring to the fact they were the best selling at some arbitrarily defined point in time.

jasor

Every book that ever comes out in the history of the world seems like it's on the NY Times bestseller list here in US. That's pretty much what I took from the email.

Xefan

When I was a kid (like, 5 or whatever) I thought for a while that bestseller said best teller. I thought it was a story that was really good for telling to other people.

Looking back now I think my childhood misunderstanding might actually make more sense than best sellers that most of the time, aren't.

BTHodgeman

jasor said:

Every book that ever comes out in the history of the world seems like it's on the NY Times bestseller list here in US. That's pretty much what I took from the email.

Kind of like the movie industry, they time releases so that pretty much every author/book can claim to be a best seller.

Other than this time of year, you never see two big movies come out the same week. They all waint to claim "The #1 movie in America! You must see it now!!!!"

TheLoneTensor

BTHodgeman said:

jasor said:

Every book that ever comes out in the history of the world seems like it's on the NY Times bestseller list here in US. That's pretty much what I took from the email.

Kind of like the movie industry, they time releases so that pretty much every author/book can claim to be a best seller.

Other than this time of year, you never see two big movies come out the same week. They all waint to claim "The #1 movie in America! You must see it now!!!!"

Right, and I love when they throw in qualifiers like "THE #1 comedy MOVIE IN AMERICA!"

NeilCrosby

My favourite one for qualifiers was a couple of years ago in January in the UK there was a trailer that proclaimed the movie it was advertising was "the best British horror comedy this year"!

To bring this back kind of on topic though, I loved the Palace Cinema. It's probably my favourite set of the year.

Crowkillers

Best Selling = We need to move these

I actually just ordered that set yesterday for my wife for Christmas... :)