Predictions on Discontinuing Sets and their Secondary Market Value

Brixy

it seems that at the targets near me no longer have the orc forge, and its currently unavailable on their website. do you think this is temporary or will it only be available at s@h ?

Pitfall69

^RRP was 59.99 USD. I don't use Bricklink as a gauge on how well a set is selling. As mentioned before, sets can sit there for months without selling. Also, the shipping is not included in the price on Bricklink. The fees are less and there is minimal protection for the buyer. A set selling on Bricklink for $100 may cost $115 with shipping. As a consumer, I will pay a premium for buyer protection. Factor in shipping and fees and I can see the average price of the Toy Shop being around $125-40 on Ebay.

Hardrada

Pitfall69 said:

^RRP was 59.99 USD.
(...)
The fees are less and there is minimal protection for the buyer.
(...)
Factor in shipping and fees and I can see the average price of the Toy Shop being around $125-40 on Ebay.

1. I said "in my country".
2. Pay with PayPal and you are essentially fully protected.
3. It wasn't mentioned before that it's at 150 USD on eBay with free shipping so I assumed that figure was without shipping.

Pitfall69

^Yes, I know you said in your country. I just assumed he was talking about Ebay US. This seems to be a constant problem. Someone says "DA is sold out on S@H" and everyone scrambles to see and they fail to mention it was the UK site...LOL.

Renny

I think a small flag icon next to everyone's handle would solve that issue :)

Basta

Renny said:

I think a small flag icon next to everyone's handle would solve that issue :)

This still raises an issue, as I buy most of my Lego from the US, and as a lot people on here are from the US I am generally talking about US prices.

Unless I specifically specify AUD or AU RRP.

I agree it is confusing though.

prevere

Pitfall69 said:

^Yes, I know you said in your country. I just assumed he was talking about Ebay US. This seems to be a constant problem. Someone says "DA is sold out on S@H" and everyone scrambles to see and they fail to mention it was the UK site...LOL.

Correct. Sorry. I was talking about eBay and the U.S. for WTS. But that said, with conversion we're talking about $100-$110 in USD for EU anyways, right?

bri4jenn

@dragonhawk You cannot use the 10% off coupon for an item that is not in stock at your Lego store but want to ship it to your house with free shipping. I tried it.

LegobrandonCP

So yea... I decided to wait for #10231, and now it looks like its gone for good. I thought TRU would not deplete its stock so quickly, I guess I was wrong.

I can only blame myself for this. :(

tk79

Interesting, I thought Amazon was showing quite a bit of stock left for DA earlier today (700+), but now it's out and down to 3rd party sellers.

y2josh

I could have sworn that, in the US, RRP on the Winter Village Toy Shop was actually $49.99, but I can't find any evidence to support that, so maybe I just got mine on sale. At any rate it was easily selling for $150+ just a few weeks ago and I had no problem selling one in a completely smashed box for $135+shipping, so I'd say it will continue to do well, especially now that it's evident it isn't coming back.

Basta

Amazon now only has 374 IS #10212 left.
I also notice that TRU is now out of MMV #10193

doriansdad

WTS was $59.99 RRP in the USA although it was easily available in large quantity for $45 on clearance at S&H and in Lego stores. One of my best performers for 2012.

LegobrandonCP

Basta said:

Amazon now only has 374 IS #10212 left.
I also notice that TRU is now out of MMV #10193

Woah, MMV was in stock when I posted my message about the SE above. That was quick.

RichB

doriansdad said:

WTS was $59.99 RRP in the USA although it was easily available in large quantity for $45 on clearance at S&H and in Lego stores. One of my best performers for 2012.

These numbers are correct. RRP in the USA for 10199 was $59.99. I still have 2 sealed, but I'm in no rush to sell them yet. Hoping they will slowly continue to increase. I am wondering if I should be selling my 10216's since they're going for around $100 here in the U.S. right now. I'll be mad if they return next winter since that will in turn drop the price right back to around $55-60.

Farmer_John

I ended up purchasing 4 of each Winter set and opened one of each to build at Christmas with the family. When the kids are old enough, we plan to give them unopened sets for their own households...unless the prices rise enough to pay for their college tuition of course. :-)

TLG had a nice sale on them last Christmas (2011).

Basta

LegobrandonCP said:

Basta said:

Amazon now only has 374 IS #10212 left.
I also notice that TRU is now out of MMV #10193

Woah, MMV was in stock when I posted my message about the SE above. That was quick.

I looked yesterday and they had them, I have been stopping myself from getting it, as although I think it is a cool set (I like the Lego buildings) I have some other sets higher on my want list.

I suppose I can move on now.

wagnerml2

I also called S@H to try and get a few Winter Bakeries. They had none left. They did sell me two post offices. INterestingly, they said that none of the winter sets will be back in stock until October and that they expect all, even bakery, to be back. Probably worthless info, but thought I'd pass it along.

Pitfall69

^We shall see, but I'm "banking" on the Bakery not being back.

Pitfall69

@wagnerml2

You need to put a disclaimer on your post if you are going to pass along information like that :P

Basta

Pitfall69 said:

^We shall see, but I'm "baking" on the Bakery not being back.

FYP lol :>

Pitfall69

^Ha

RichB

Haha yeah it will be interesting to see if the Bakery takes the same 3 seasons and out route that the WTS did. The more I think about it, the more I think that Lego will bring it back. As stated before, TLG seems to be keeping popular sets on the shelf a lot longer these days........sigh FB and DS :(

Basta

@RichB I suppose TLG needs to balance the amount of sets available in the series.

We expect the Cottage and Post Office to come back later in the year, now the question is are they going to bring the Bakery back or have a brand new Winter Village themed set to replace it, or maybe nothing new this year and they will keep the current 3 sets? Of course this means all those who have all three will have nothing new to buy, TLG potentially misses out on some sales.

I suppose the other option is they continue with all 3 current plus a new one, but then there is issues with production and shelf space etc.

dougts

^ shelf space isn't an issue if they sell it online only like they did the Bakery this year. they could sell bakery and Post Office online only, and cottage plus the new one in stores and online.

one thing you can definitely bake on is a new set in the series

doriansdad

Well the big clue was 10216 was not tagged as retiring soon or as retired product. Obviously the bean counters at TLG were not satisfied by destroying the collectibility of the modulars so they moved on to the Winter line. All they need to do now is make the next UCS set another X-Wing and the trifecta will be complete. No points for guessing what the sculpture is going to be once they get enough sand green in production. Yawn.

jturnbull65

Pacific493 said:

You're really having to do some contortions to keep your argument going. If you really do have an Amazon storefront and also sell on Ebay, then you're well aware of how much easier it is to move sets on Amazon than Ebay. If you're really going to contend that the number of sets sold on Ebay is a reasonable indicator of how many sell on Amazon, then I would conclude based on my own personal experience that you're talking out of your a**.

I have no doubt that there were far more battlepacks sold on Ebay than the two that I sold that way...the point of my example was that it was far easier for me to sell the battlepacks on Amazon than it was on Ebay.

It's all opinion, but I still believe that it would have been relatively easy to sell out huge volumes of Minecraft before X-Mas at 2x RRP given the demand that was out there, but since you were selling them for more than 2x RRP and I wasn't selling any, I guess we'll never know for sure.

I haven't contorted my argument at all. I never said that Amazon was off limits for someone to try to make moving 2800 sets a reality. LFT could go door to door for all I care.

My point this entire time was that we have concrete data from two large marketplaces that suggest people simply were not buying the Minecraft sets at the stated price point at the stated rate. In an effort to fill in your purported straw man fallacy (which my argument really isnt) I've presented the following comparisons to guess Amazon's volume: my own experience of selling on both platforms; the fact that there are on average 3x more eBay listings than Amazon listings for any given set; the similar website traffic rankings; the similar amount of active registered users on both sites. All this points to their volume being at least in the same ballpark. But again, for the sake of argument, I'm willing to just allow you to assume Amazon marketplace volume is double, even triple, of eBay. Yet that's not enough! It needs to be eight times the volume to move what LFT was claiming.

It's fairly obvious to me that LFT was shooting off the cuff when he threw that number out there. Doing so was careless, but if people truly are taking it with a grain of salt, then no harm was done. But immediately after people were thanking him for being so refreshingly honest. That indicates to me that people were being misguided. The fact that you are still incredulous to the absurdity of the claim is altogether stupefying, and I don't think any more reason, logic, and educated guessing will do any good.

So pardon me for "beating a dead horse". Although I don't think my posts were preventing the typical endless repetition of counting down the same handful of sets interspersed with inane drivel of Star Wars quotes, I understand now that people want the drivel continuous and uninterrupted.

Basta

dougts said:

^ shelf space isn't an issue if they sell it online only like they did the Bakery this year. they could sell bakery and Post Office online only, and cottage plus the new one in stores and online.

one thing you can definitely bake on is a new set in the series

haha,

I suppose shelf space is not as big an issue as it use to be with the likes of Amazon etc. I just hope TLG don't saturate the market with to many sets at once. I'm looking forward to a new Winter Village set, I think TLG should stick to the current formula and have a 3 season run on each.

I just noticed #10217 Diagon Alley is back in stock at TRU for actual RRP.

BlueMoonUSA

Amazon IS stock down to 354. They're all out of MMV's and Shuttle Expeditions. None of the winter sets are there either, and Diagon Alley seems to have disappeared too.
I have 2,857 Death Stars if anyone would like one. Soon to be EOL, don't you know.

LegobrandonCP

I'd hate to ask this myself, but where am I able to get the Shuttle Expedition at MSRP?

If no online retailer has any, I'm going to post a wanted thread on forums. lol

LegoFanTexas

^ Bluntly, you're not... there are a few copies in Canada for $140 on Bricklink. That might be your best bet at this point.

This will be $200 by Christmas, don't wait if you want a copy.*

*disclaimer - the above is just my opinion, I don't have a crystal ball to know that for a fact, anyone using that opinion to go spend real money does so at their own risk

:)

flyingpig

LegoFanTexas said:

flyingpig said:

LFT, why continue to buy FB when you know (tens of) thousands are already stockpiled?

That is a great question. Because even with that many copies out there, being able to buy them for $120 is still not a bad deal, I'll still double that in 1-2 years after it EOLs.

I would not pay full retail at this point, I have too many of them to do that, but every copy I buy at $120 dollar cost averages the whole pile a little bit lower.

The old saying, "in for a penny, in for a pound", applies at this point. If I could hand back 30 copies for full retail price, I would do so.

Interesting. Do you not think you can do better with your money than doubling in 3 years (conservative estimate of 1 more year till EOL and a full 2 years till sales date).

nkx1

^I can't answer for LFT obviously, but I would assert in reality, for the vast, vast majority of people, investing in Lego in any serious capacity (such as retirement savings) is generally infeasible and perhaps even unwise. I would guess many of us "invest" a few thousand here, a few thousand there to supplement the cost of our hobby. I'm no investment advisor, but retirement and various other savings would probably be better invested elsewhere.

That being said, why only double your money in three years? You can do much better than that. For instance, if you can make 50% profit on a set (instead of 100%), and you can do that eight times in three years, you will quadruple your money instead of just doubling it. I realize everyone has different preferences, but that's effectively the approach I've been taking, and it's worked out well. It seems less risky as well, since it's less time for Lego to release a new set that will lessen interest in an older set.

Basta

LegobrandonCP said:

I'd hate to ask this myself, but where am I able to get the Shuttle Expedition at MSRP?

If no online retailer has any, I'm going to post a wanted thread on forums. lol

These are $123AUD at KMart in Australia, I saw a bunch at two different stores in the last week. Obviously this probably does not help you if your not in Australia.

I was waiting until they have a 20% or 25% sale to grab some for resale as I have one for my own collection. I suppose I'll have to see if they have any left by then.

monkeyhanger

@nkx1: Right on the money! Fast turnaround for a smaller profit per sale is more work but can also be far more profitable over a given time period and turning over stock faster makes you feel less insecure about tying your money up, but I find that those kind of opportunities only come around a few times a year where you can double or triple your money almost instantly - mainly due to staggered EOLs worldwide. I never plan on keeping anything more than 2 months, I don't have the storage space nor the will to tie up my money for ages. Admittedly, at my scale of doing things, I am only supplementing my hobby. When I buy something for "x", and everyone is selling them on ebay for "3x" or "4x", i'd rather get them sold quickly at "2.5x" than having them languish on ebay for months with repeat listings etc. I shifted 96 Darth Maul polys in 9 days on ebay this way (I realise this is very small potatoes for serious resellers, but it made my 2012 personal Lego purchases free). This works well for an in-demand item that you've managed to get cheap.

Of course the above dosn't work whilst you're waiting for something (usually EOL) to appreciate in the aftermarket, then you need to hang onto them for a year or 2, but that's not really for me from both a money and storage point of view.

Basta

@nkx1 I agree with you about flipping things quickly, which is what I do. But being able to double you money in 2-3 years is still a great return for any investment.

tom4086

Does anyone think the Lord Of The Rings Elrond Exclusive Minifigure #5000202 will continue to do well?

Pacific493

jturnbull65 said:

Pacific493 said:

You're really having to do some contortions to keep your argument going. If you really do have an Amazon storefront and also sell on Ebay, then you're well aware of how much easier it is to move sets on Amazon than Ebay. If you're really going to contend that the number of sets sold on Ebay is a reasonable indicator of how many sell on Amazon, then I would conclude based on my own personal experience that you're talking out of your a**.

I have no doubt that there were far more battlepacks sold on Ebay than the two that I sold that way...the point of my example was that it was far easier for me to sell the battlepacks on Amazon than it was on Ebay.

It's all opinion, but I still believe that it would have been relatively easy to sell out huge volumes of Minecraft before X-Mas at 2x RRP given the demand that was out there, but since you were selling them for more than 2x RRP and I wasn't selling any, I guess we'll never know for sure.

I haven't contorted my argument at all. I never said that Amazon was off limits for someone to try to make moving 2800 sets a reality. LFT could go door to door for all I care.

My point this entire time was that we have concrete data from two large marketplaces that suggest people simply were not buying the Minecraft sets at the stated price point at the stated rate. In an effort to fill in your purported straw man fallacy (which my argument really isnt) I've presented the following comparisons to guess Amazon's volume: my own experience of selling on both platforms; the fact that there are on average 3x more eBay listings than Amazon listings for any given set; the similar website traffic rankings; the similar amount of active registered users on both sites. All this points to their volume being at least in the same ballpark. But again, for the sake of argument, I'm willing to just allow you to assume Amazon marketplace volume is double, even triple, of eBay. Yet that's not enough! It needs to be eight times the volume to move what LFT was claiming.

It's fairly obvious to me that LFT was shooting off the cuff when he threw that number out there. Doing so was careless, but if people truly are taking it with a grain of salt, then no harm was done. But immediately after people were thanking him for being so refreshingly honest. That indicates to me that people were being misguided. The fact that you are still incredulous to the absurdity of the claim is altogether stupefying, and I don't think any more reason, logic, and educated guessing will do any good.

So pardon me for "beating a dead horse". Although I don't think my posts were preventing the typical endless repetition of counting down the same handful of sets interspersed with inane drivel of Star Wars quotes, I understand now that people want the drivel continuous and uninterrupted.

Oh, you have most certainly contorted your argument. For example, you are now saying that your point all along has been that "we have concrete data from two large marketplaces that suggest people simply were not buying the Minecraft sets at the stated price point at the stated rate." However, none of your previous posts that cited data from Ebay and BL included any references to the prices at which the sets were selling in those fora. So, you are now going back and reshaping your argument once again to try and make it work. My favorite contortion was the one in your last post in which you stated quite authoritatively that when I referenced Amazon, I was specifically referencing Amazon retail and not Amazon marketplace when I had never made any such distinction.

The fact is that you based your entire argument on two data points that represent only a slice of the potential sales market. And I don't think that it is unreasonable to assume that the sales traffic on Amazon for a set like that would be many multiples greater on Amazon than it is on Ebay and BL. To go back to my example of the battlepacks that I sold, Brickpicker shows that 143 copies of the snowtrooper battlepack were sold on Ebay between September and November. I sold 1/3 of that amount in 3 days on Amazon and I am in no way, shape, or form a market leading reseller. So if a small reseller like myself is able to sell in 3 days 1/3 the amount that sold in 3 months on Ebay, it stands to reason that the sales potential on Amazon is far greater than you are assuming. The fact that you are remain incredulous about that simple fact tells me once again that you're talking out of your a** and your claim that you have bought and sold more Lego than LFT has ever seen in his life is a bunch of malarkey.

At the end of the day, I don't really care whether LFT's speculation was accurate or not and I don't think it was that big of a deal. If someone is going to run off and drop $100k+ into Minecraft on the basis of LFT's comment on this board, that's on them. What chaffed me was how big of an a** you were being and continue to be about what amounted to a fairly innocuous comment. And you'll never get any argument out of me about beating a dead horse...I do that for a living and am quite comfortable arguing points long past the point at which most people throw up their hands in frustration.

Pacific493

LegoFanTexas said:

^ Bluntly, you're not... there are a few copies in Canada for $140 on Bricklink. That might be your best bet at this point.

This will be $200 by Christmas, don't wait if you want a copy.*

*disclaimer - the above is just my opinion, I don't have a crystal ball to know that for a fact, anyone using that opinion to go spend real money does so at their own risk

:)

We're not letting you off that easy...if this set isn't selling for $200 by next Christmas, I'm sending you a bill for the difference.

Billybrown

Pacific493 said:

LegoFanTexas said:

^ Bluntly, you're not... there are a few copies in Canada for $140 on Bricklink. That might be your best bet at this point.

This will be $200 by Christmas, don't wait if you want a copy.*

*disclaimer - the above is just my opinion, I don't have a crystal ball to know that for a fact, anyone using that opinion to go spend real money does so at their own risk

:)

We're not letting you off that easy...if this set isn't selling for $200 by next Christmas, I'm sending you a bill for the difference.

Its already reaching close to the equivalent of $200 in the UK. Albeit stocks depleted 2 weeks or so quicker than the US. So I would say the probability is high to reach $200 by Christmas is the US ;-)

leego76

Anyone have any thoughts on the 2012 super heroes line up? Due for EOL soon? The two face chase set is getting hard to find in the wild in the UK. Any sets in particular that stand out? Its all about the figs as I see it.

Note: It is understood that set values may go up or down and comments will not be used in a court of law..

mathew

LegoFanTexas said:

^ Bluntly, you're not... there are a few copies in Canada for $140 on Bricklink. That might be your best bet at this point.

This will be $200 by Christmas, don't wait if you want a copy.*

*disclaimer - the above is just my opinion, I don't have a crystal ball to know that for a fact, anyone using that opinion to go spend real money does so at their own risk

:)

I think you're actually correct for once ; )

The shutlle will do well long term. Lots of people grew up during the shuttle era and I think the set has a lot of cross over appeal with both women and non-collectors.

monkeyhanger

^^Billybrown: Get that disclaimer in quick before you get sued!

Bumblepants

Well thanks to this thread I finally ordered an Imperial Shuttle off Amazon. I realized it was either that or hate myself for the next couple years every time it is brought up on this site how great it is and how much it is selling for.

Billybrown

monkeyhanger said:

^^Billybrown: Get that disclaimer in quick before you get sued!

How about "billybrown is a fictional based character and any resemblance is purely coincidental. Any comments are to be taken as being subjective and therefore of the opinion of billybrown. Prices can go up and down and therefore you purchase at your own risk"

Farmer_John

Basta said:

@RichB I suppose TLG needs to balance the amount of sets available in the series.

We expect the Cottage and Post Office to come back later in the year, now the question is are they going to bring the Bakery back or have a brand new Winter Village themed set to replace it, or maybe nothing new this year and they will keep the current 3 sets? Of course this means all those who have all three will have nothing new to buy, TLG potentially misses out on some sales.

I suppose the other option is they continue with all 3 current plus a new one, but then there is issues with production and shelf space etc.

I only picked up a single Winter Cottage on the assumption TLG would have it available for a much longer period. Seems like they shortened the sale period substantially. My guess is that if they plan to release another Winter set, the Bakery is gone...at least that's what they've done the last couple years. Additionally, the Post Office doesn't seem to be doing as well as the TS and Bakery have done. Either way, I do really like this theme...

legoprods

Oh, and Tower Bridge is back in stock at amazon, with high quantities.

CCC

tom4086 said:

Does anyone think the Lord Of The Rings Elrond Exclusive Minifigure #5000202 will continue to do well?

If left in its packaging, as a collectable for someone that wants all the polys - yes.

As a collectable for someone that wants all variations of LOTR / Hobbit minfiigs - yes.

But with The Council of Elrond set coming out (and the assumption it contain Elrond), for people that want a version of every character, no. That version is from a better era for most LOTR fans, and it will be cheaper. So it is likely to produce a temporary drop in price (or just a drop in sales if prices are not dropped), as people wanting a version of Elrond go for the other one.

prevere

leego76 said:

Anyone have any thoughts on the 2012 super heroes line up? Due for EOL soon? The two face chase set is getting hard to find in the wild in the UK. Any sets in particular that stand out? Its all about the figs as I see it.

Note: It is understood that set values may go up or down and comments will not be used in a court of law..

I wanted to buy up retail copies of Two-Face for $50, but hesitated when I noticed that S@H plans to be in stock again later this month. So it'll be around for some of 2013 at least.

That said. This set is now in year 2, so I plan to buy a few per month, and not wait for it to just vanish. In the past, I would have waited for BF or retail clearance late in the year. But as it stands now, that strategy is highly risky.

kim43235

LegobrandonCP said:

I'd hate to ask this myself, but where am I able to get the Shuttle Expedition at MSRP?

If no online retailer has any, I'm going to post a wanted thread on forums. lol

I just came across Shuttle Expedition at toysrus ebay store at MSRP.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/LEGO-Creator-Shuttle-Expedition-10231-/350685085703

It's interesting that Toysrus website doesn't carry this anymore.