Predictions on Discontinuing Sets and their Secondary Market Value

nkx1

^I don't know who this guy is, other than reading a bit on another forum (from which I believe he was banned for some lame reason). But from that reading, I believe he was allegedly buying 41999's at about $400 apiece. I'm unsure if that was before or after shipping. But, let's be generous and say he gets them for $400 shipped to him. If his goal is 1000 copies, that's $400,000 invested.

If he uses ebay to sell them, after fees and shipping, he's probably going to need to sell them for at least $600 or more to make a $100 profit each (25% profit). I just don't think there's sufficient demand for $600 Lego sets, particularly this one, for him to sell one copy a day. I'd be surprised if he sold one every two days. My guess is that it would take him 5+ years to sell everything (admittedly, a total guess). But if true, there are much easier and less risky ways to turn $400,000 into $500,000 in 5+ years.

If this guy is legitimate, he is a total gambler. And likely not a very good one!

Dad

^ And then he has to wait until all the other ones bought at rrp for resale have been sold as those people who have 5 or 6 sets bought at retail can undercut him all day long and still make good profit. I genuinely can't work out his game plan.

BrickDaddy

What if it's LEGO trying to smoke out all resellers big and small, and that's why they keep popping up at Brand Stores? :p

bricktuary

I just bought some Cool Cruisers at about half RRP. Not many but enough that I think I can keep one for effectively free I reckon!

doriansdad

I was very bullish on 41999 and was holding until a few different overseas buyers came knocking at my door offering to buy the lot for greater than ebay prices. I dumped them in a heartbeat. Alot of folks where buying on ebay and reselling to these buyers so that helped prop up the up market for a few months....then the buying stopped. I know these buyers are going to be disappointed but they are by no means hurting for money. A small drop in the bucket compared to their entire portfolios.

LegoFanTexas

Brickarmor said:

LegoFanTexas said:

I have enough inventory that I can't really get out of it this Christmas, but my goal is to have everything sold by next Christmas.

What about R2-D2 this... Wait, what?!

Why is that shocking? If the profits are no longer there, then it is time to find something else to sell.

Or something else to do. :)

It's ok, I've been on and off selling online since 1997, I won't miss it... My total company sales are up this year, but margins are down. I'm doing 30% more work for 20% less money than last year.

There comes a point where that is just a bad business plan. :)

If the business model no longer works, time for a new business model.

LegoFanTexas

prevere said:

Even at selling 1 per day at said market price, it would take him 2.73 years to clear it out. Yikes.

If he bought them all for $200 each, that is actually a good business to be in, if he didn't have to borrow the money to buy them.

Depends on what he paid for them...

Pacific493

gmpirate said:

FollowsClosely said:

@gmpirate contact ebay and get your limit raised.

Lol, tried. Also did some internet searches which turned up a lot of frustrated people in the same situation. Got through to someone who didn't know what to do, who then transferred me to another department to be put on hold. After 20 minutes I had other things to do. Thought I would try again this morning and I have been on hold for over 30 minutes now . . .

What is the story with these limits? I have never heard of these before. Has Ebay set an arbitrary limit on the amount you can sell in a day/month/year?

Pacific493

doriansdad said:

I was very bullish on 41999 and was holding until a few different overseas buyers came knocking at my door offering to buy the lot for greater than ebay prices. I dumped them in a heartbeat. Alot of folks where buying on ebay and reselling to these buyers so that helped prop up the up market for a few months....then the buying stopped. I know these buyers are going to be disappointed but they are by no means hurting for money. A small drop in the bucket compared to their entire portfolios.

It was pretty stunning how quickly the price fell on these. One week, I was able to sell them for $425-450, the next week, they had fallen to the $360-375 range.

CCC

Compare to another 20,000 release set. The Stig was 10,000 followed by apparently another 10K, albeit a few months later. That £2.50 set was selling for £25 after the first batch, now down to about £8 after the second batch release.

I sold a few to resellers for £16-18 after the first batch. Glad I did now.

Different price scale but similar effect. Possibly.

roxio

LegoFanTexas said:

prevere said:

Even at selling 1 per day at said market price, it would take him 2.73 years to clear it out. Yikes.

If he bought them all for $200 each, that is actually a good business to be in, if he didn't have to borrow the money to buy them.

Depends on what he paid for them...

£400 got him mine :)

pharmjod

Someone mind PM'ing me this guy's user name on eBay? Or a way to get in touch with him? I wouldn't mind contacting him to see if he wanted to buy mine.

LegoFanTexas

roxio said:

£400 got him mine :)

Nuts! More power to you! :)

I actually wanted to build one, but just couldn't justify it. Maybe if the price drops to $300, I'll buy one to build, since I actually do want to build one. $400 is too much IMHO.

FollowsClosely

pharmjod said:

Someone mind PM'ing me this guy's user name on eBay? Or a way to get in touch with him? I wouldn't mind contacting him to see if he wanted to buy mine.

Can I have his name also. I have a few to unload.

joel4motion

If anyone does know his name and is ok with passing the info on, I wouldn't mind knowing via pm.

MathBuilder

^Me too, I want to contact this guy and help him achieve his 1000 copies master plan. Then he will have cornered 5% of the maximum possible market.

Maybe he does not even want to sell them, just collect them. If some people buy just one real car worth more than that, why not 1000 LEGO trucks?

By the way are we sure he is a he and not a she?

stevemack

Same here, any info greatly welcome :)

dougts

I'll ask him if he's cool with me forwarding his info and then let you all know

mooman66

Maybe it's Veruca Salt's father and all she wants is #00001.

MathBuilder

^First thought, what do russian spies have to do with this? Then I realized, wrong movie. Oops!

ayane

please pass along his info as well.. :)

Dougout

I honestly couldn't believe people were trying to corner the market on this set, but with all the reported sales to them, it must be true. They could have saved so much money if they just paid me a small percentage for advice on the matter. Oh well, people are foolish sometimes.

gmpirate

Pacific493 said:

gmpirate said:

FollowsClosely said:

@gmpirate contact ebay and get your limit raised.

Lol, tried. Also did some internet searches which turned up a lot of frustrated people in the same situation. Got through to someone who didn't know what to do, who then transferred me to another department to be put on hold. After 20 minutes I had other things to do. Thought I would try again this morning and I have been on hold for over 30 minutes now . . .

What is the story with these limits? I have never heard of these before. Has Ebay set an arbitrary limit on the amount you can sell in a day/month/year?

Ebay has caps in place on everyone for the most part. You can only have listed so much at a time -- total dollar amount anyway. I thought is was an auction cap, but its actually total items & potential revenue. Most people don't know of the caps because they just haven't reached them :P I was surprised that I had considering I'm mostly just trying to get rid of all my small miscellaneous items and push the rest into 2014. The volume this year is way off.

Anyway, I left my phone on speaker while I tended to other things and finally after 55 minutes I had my situation resolved.

Lobot

#10227 is now 'Sold out' in S@H UK, so can I assume that it's finally been discontinued in Europe? Assuming that Toys R Us don't have a massive stockpile of them, what are the likely returns for 12-18 months from now? I've got two and I was debating building one of them.....

FollowsClosely

Blah. It is a great build, but at $200 it was priced to high. I got only 5 of them @ $100 each. At that price point I expect to make something small after 2 years. OR I may just save the set and use it for gifts over the next few years.

vitreolum

^ Where do I sign up for one of those gifts? :)

SuperTramp

No chance that guy purchased 900 41999. when i last looked at his feedback i counted around 50 purchases of them. his total feedback in the last 3 months is only 300 which includes buyers feedback. sure he didn't say he's got 90 and going for 100?

SuperTramp

Just checked again and he has only had 206 feedback left for "has a buyer" in the last 6 months, the set has only been out around 3 months. so say 100 feedback off for other purchases he has made lego, fancys bags etc. that would mean 100 for the 41999. wheres the other 800 feedback for them?

LegoManiacc

^multiple accounts and makes offers to buy outside of eBay (directly through eBay messaging even). I don't think he has 900 yet but it's possible, last count I heard was 500.

For anyone looking to sell, expect to be told to falsify the customs form. I chose not to do that.

SuperTramp

I know about his other account, he messaged me with it to purchase mine.

Still his feedback in that doesn't compute to nowhere near 100, never mind the 500 you heard or the 900 claimed.

SuperTramp

theres only 772 sold or gone unsold on ebay worldwide all the way back to August. that would mean he has purchased all of them.

LegoManiacc

That's what I'm saying, he purchases outside of eBay. I've received eBay messages from him asking to purchase outside of eBay.

SuperTramp

Yes but what im saying is there has only been 772 sold or unsold on ebay. that includes potential sales outside ebay. that would mean no one else in the world are purchasing them and this guy has 900 stacked up somewhere. i don't believe it. i want pics.

LegoManiacc

Yeah, I don't know about the 500-900 number, but there have been enough people to sell 10+ each to him that 500 is believable.

How does 772 potential eBay sales have anything to do with sales outside of eBay though? They don't track Craigslist/email/amazon etc deals.

SuperTramp

Anyone who has £300k cash shouldn't be buying Lego at 3x the retail.

LegoManiacc

^agreed

Unless it's from me. Kidding...not really.

Actually yes, kidding, savings account, that's the way to go. Or newspapers.

SuperTramp

Can you imagine 900 of them stacked up somewhere. he would have made more money renting the building out that he has to keep them in.

jcb193

Anybody think triple points is a good value compared to future sales this year? Thinking about picking up a creator set or two.

madforLEGO

I would say that for exclusives, or maybe those sets that are retailer specific (like Town Square, City Carage, or the Helicopter rescue), it is a good deal.
Otherwise I think someone noted it is about 15% off really (excluding whatever your tax is).
So I would say if it is exclusive or retailer specific, and that retailers does not put that set on sale much, probably the best deal you are going to get. If it is not an exclusive set, look for it on sale for somewhere cheaper (like Amazon)
But that is just my opinion on that.
Plus you have to account for purchases at a LEGO store get you a PAB box, for purchases over 75 and for today and after BF you get the Holiday set#2 for purchases over 99.

Diggydoes

SuperTramp said:

Yes but what im saying is there has only been 772 sold or unsold on ebay. that includes potential sales outside ebay. that would mean no one else in the world are purchasing them and this guy has 900 stacked up somewhere. i don't believe it. i want pics.

I believe this number! A buddy of mine sold him about 8 Sets, plus one from me and all outside of Ebay and i´m pretty sure this how he worked out with a couple of other people globally (i´m not from the UK!!!)!

SuperTramp

If he's got that kind of money, why would he even need to invest in Lego?. i could understand it more if he got them at retail but he didn't. paid around 3x more. If he has that kind of money then he ain't stupid and im 100% sure there are better ways to make money with that amount.

Like you said a "couple of people globally", that still doesn't add up to 900.

SuperTramp

Another thing this guy has only sold about 40 Lego sets in the last 2 months, it doesn't even add up to £10k?

See where im going with this......

LegoManiacc

Here's the photo from over 3 mos ago, and his buying has been nonstop since according to various sellers

SuperTramp

I don't doubt he has a lot. i said myself i counted 50 with his feedback.

But still i count around 100 in that picture. wheres the other 400 -800?

Wheres the link to the picture?

madforLEGO

What, is he trying to build a fort out of the boxes?

LegoManiacc

I don't have that pic, I would try to get it for you but I'm not sure how I could explain that to the police if I was caught...

I mean, the camera in my hands in front of a giant stack of Crawlers in a stranger's house would be easy to explain once I pointed them to brickset, but why am I not wearing any pants? ...wait...what?

vitreolum

SuperTramp said:

Another thing this guy has only sold about 40 Lego sets in the last 2 months, it doesn't even add up to £10k?

See where im going with this......

As it was mentioned before, this is data you only gathered from ebay. That's in no way relevant. My ebay data is maybe 1% of my sales/purchases.

mooman66

Alright, I give. I'd appreciate the contact info, too...maybe then I'll be on his good side when the Crawler invasion begins.

doriansdad

SuperTramp said:

Another thing this guy has only sold about 40 Lego sets in the last 2 months, it doesn't even add up to £10k?

See where im going with this......

I can guarantee this individual purchased many hundreds. Gold fever is a very common affliction. I hope it all works out but the market rarely rewards taking unnecessary risk.

SuperTramp said:

f he has that kind of money then he ain't stupid

You are assuming he earned his money. Is Paris Hilton not stupid?

bp10030

europe S@H says: Call to check..." for #79111