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I don't know for sure that LEGO's product line is composed of proportionately more $100 than ever before. Afterall, CMFs are a huge market, and there are more polybags than ever before, also.
But anyhow, let's just say that it is. The retail landscape of LEGO has also changed vastly over the past decade:
1. With all the LEGO brand retail stores, LEGO is now selling directly to the customer more than they ever were before, and so they now have retail channels for bigger sets whereas previously (and to this day) traditional B&M stores eschew slower-moving large sets for quicker-moving, broader appealing smaller sets.
2. The rise of e-commerce means it's cheaper to store large inventory in warehouses. This paves the way for offering larger sets. Walmart, Target, TRU, etc offer the large LEGO sets through their online stores, but not in stores.
I see it all the time in my local Lego store, they are selling the Death Star every day, mostly to parents buying it for little Timmy.
Now granted, this is perhaps a biased view, since I live in a rather well-to-do city, but still, there really are lots and lots and lots of parents who just buy this sort of stuff for their kids.
A client of mine has 6 kids, age range from 11 to 16 including two sets of twins... All have smart phones... yes, they have 8 smart phones in the house!
There are not 50 million such people, but there are apparently enough of them.
Now I'm being lazy but I think that list is in this thread, albeit about 130 pages ago...lol
Then at the till, cashier told them they can get three lots of three pick-a-minifig as they spent $300. Man: "How does that work?". Cashier: "You have to choose the parts of three minifigs and put them in here". Man "I have to choose them myself?". Cashier: "Yes". Man: "I don't want to do that". Cashier: "They are free with your purchase". Man: "Can you select them?". Cashier: "No, you have to choose them yourself". Man: "We don't want to do that". And they paid and left.
And there was I thinking that many kids would have been happy with one pack of three minifigs as a an extra little gift sometime during the year.
And the cashier said no to my obvious question, they had to be rung up at the time of the purchase.
Death Star ($400): 3169 (12.6 cents)
Millenium Falcon ($140): 1191 (11.8 cents)
Fire Temple ($120): 1080 (11.1 cents)
Police Station ($100): 1152 (8.7 cents)
Ice Dragon Attack ($20): 206 (9.7 cents)
Large sets have slightly higher efficiency, but if you measure your efficiency by inventory turns, like most retailers do (Amazon is a star example here), probably still come out less attractive.
I can breathe easier, sorry if I caused any panic, not that this list is guaranteed accurate, but it makes sense if GE will be around for another year.
Interesting analysis, however.
My question is if TB is going this Xmas season? Still no replacement for it, not even rumors.
http://www.google.com/search?q=lego+2013+calendar+tower+bridge&hl=en&client=safari&tbo=u&tbm=isch&source=univ&sa=X&ei=uvp6UMXcLIOY8gTXoIGYDg&ved=0CDwQsAQ&biw=1024&bih=690#biv=i|0;d|uXo0Ir1lTHd9SM:
Dino should do ok once gone, but given that it hasn't been noticed much and hasn't had any promotion, it might be one of those themes that just quietly goes away with no one remembering it.
Dino likely has slightly better potential because of the dinosaurs, where those other lines had no such universal "hook" to them. Still, I don't see a lot of big money there to be honest. Not helping matters is that there isn't really any "must have" set in the lot that could be a potential winner later.
I think on that basis, Earth Defense HQ might do well, long term. City of Atlantis might also fit... The other thing about non-licensed sets that could boost their value, longer-term, is that they're seen largely as more kid-oriented. As a result, they are often overlooked by resellers for investment purposes who target short to medium term returns, and the AFOL market, and they are often the sets that are gifted to kids, so not many survive NISB, which also increases their scarcity for collectors in the long term... Just a thought. :-)
I picked up a bunch of them, ended up with dozens of them. I'm struggling to sell them for RRP now, and it has been retired for months.
If I wait until next Christmas, could I get more? Maybe... or maybe not. The challenge with that set is it could go up, or it could be forgotten. Right now people can still find AC in the stores, here and there, a set or three is on the shelf, which tells people it exists.
So a parent and kid walk into B&N or TRU and find a Tri-pod, or the helicopter, or the Alien Mothership, buy it, enjoy it, then decide to go buy more.
Fine, that drives demand. What happens when they are well and truly gone from all store shelves? What drives demand at that point? A few kids and parents who see it on old product catalogs? Sure. A few who bought one or two and waited too long to buy more? Sure.
If you have 1 or 2 of them, sure, toss them in the closet and wait until next Christmas. What if you have 10 of them?
I think this is something we don't discuss much here and probably should. Some sets make a great long term investment, if you have 1 or 2 of them, but terrible investments if you have 20 of them.
You are correct, a few Agent sets have done well, but how many move at those prices? If they only sell 1 or 2 copies per month at those prices, what would you do with 20 of them? :)
Just food for thought.
Notable missing sets included Fire Brigade (at least the second catalog in a row that it has not been mentioned), Imperial Shuttle, and the Super Star Destroyer.
If a set is not a "10" I won't load up unless there is a huge AFOL fanbase (think Star Wars and Potter, but even Star Wars I am shying away from the non "10" sets nowdays). You are correct that we should all be calculating opportunity cost to determine the best investments.
It is fine for awhile, until it isn't, then it becomes obvious.
Maybe this isn't one of those times, but it is worth keeping mind.
When amazon had their sale on Modular Building a few weeks ago, Grand Emporium was the only one not on sale. Does Amazon know something that we don't? Is this a trend we should be looking out for?