Predictions on Discontinuing Sets and their Secondary Market Value

madforLEGO

SithLord196 said:

While I was at my nearest Lego store this past weekend, I overheard one of the employees telling a customer to go look for a specific set at one of the big three retailers (Target, Walmart, TRU) because it was exclusive to them and they didn't have any copies. I don't remember which set/store as I only overheard it, but take it for what you will.

I know retailer exclusives have been available at Lego stores in the past. I'd be surprised if that fact has changed.

Were you up at the Schaumburg LEGO store on Saturday? I was asking about the Doc Strange and GR sets and the manager told me that the Doc Strange one is an exclusive to another store therefore they did not have them. It appears they are Target exclusives, but that has to be the first time the LEGO store did not have a retailers 'exclusive' set in stock.

Also speaking of the Woodfield mall in Schaumburg IL. If you are at the LEGO store, I suggest when you are done to go over and check out the 'Brickmania' store, which is close to the part of the mall that has the Cheesecake Factory. It is then on the ground level across from the Candy store (follow the popcorn smell).

They sell a lot of military vehicle kits made from LEGO parts, they also have minifigs in army gear, brick arms weapons, custom printed parts (like soda cans and what not) and sticker sheets for custom stuff and those brick light LED kits as well (I think that what they were called). It is not cheap, like most stores in a mall, but if you are at the mall anyway I would say go check them out, especially if you are into the military type sets.

pharmjod

brumey said:

yea

murica an super heroes!

we in europe dont like EDM or huge ass festivals.

we like the DUB and the stoner rock!

jungle, psy, goa, tek is also a thing here!
aaaand DnB for the london fabric kiddies!

does america even have a soundsystem scene like europe does ?   munich alone has 13 DUB-ONLY soundsystems! not counting soca/dancehall crap!

Is this written in code? 

SithLord196

madforLEGO said:

SithLord196 said:

While I was at my nearest Lego store this past weekend, I overheard one of the employees telling a customer to go look for a specific set at one of the big three retailers (Target, Walmart, TRU) because it was exclusive to them and they didn't have any copies. I don't remember which set/store as I only overheard it, but take it for what you will.

I know retailer exclusives have been available at Lego stores in the past. I'd be surprised if that fact has changed.

Were you up at the Schaumburg LEGO store on Saturday? I was asking about the Doc Strange and GR sets and the manager told me that the Doc Strange one is an exclusive to another store therefore they did not have them. It appears they are Target exclusives, but that has to be the first time the LEGO store did not have a retailers 'exclusive' set in stock.

Also speaking of the Woodfield mall in Schaumburg IL. If you are at the LEGO store, I suggest when you are done to go over and check out the 'Brickmania' store, which is close to the part of the mall that has the Cheesecake Factory. It is then on the ground level across from the Candy store (follow the popcorn smell).

They sell a lot of military vehicle kits made from LEGO parts, they also have minifigs in army gear, brick arms weapons, custom printed parts (like soda cans and what not) and sticker sheets for custom stuff and those brick light LED kits as well (I think that what they were called). It is not cheap, like most stores in a mall, but if you are at the mall anyway I would say go check them out, especially if you are into the military type sets.

No, I'm from PA so my local store is King of Prussia. I'll keep this in mind if I'm ever out that way though, thanks.

The King of Prussia store is a little small, but it usually has what I go in looking for and they've had good stocks of the promos. Come to think of it, I don't remember seeing the Dr. Strange set while I was there and that may have been the one the person was asking about, as they were standing near the Superheroes sets when I overheard it. I only did a quick glance though as I was mainly there for the Volvo EW160E and the $5.99 Disney set for the Olaf polybag. I usually do a quick in and out there because of it being so busy even though most of the employees recognize my fiance and I.

MAGNINOMINISUMBRA

pharmjod said:

Is this written in code? 

Phew... I'm glad someone else said what I was thinking!

Legoboy

pharmjod said:

brumey said:

yea

murica an super heroes!

we in europe dont like EDM or huge ass festivals.

we like the DUB and the stoner rock!

jungle, psy, goa, tek is also a thing here!
aaaand DnB for the london fabric kiddies!

does america even have a soundsystem scene like europe does ?   munich alone has 13 DUB-ONLY soundsystems! not counting soca/dancehall crap!

Is this written in code? 

No.  Brummie. 

kizkiz

Laegoboy said:

pharmjod said:

brumey said:

yea

murica an super heroes!

we in europe dont like EDM or huge ass festivals.

we like the DUB and the stoner rock!

jungle, psy, goa, tek is also a thing here!
aaaand DnB for the london fabric kiddies!

does america even have a soundsystem scene like europe does ?   munich alone has 13 DUB-ONLY soundsystems! not counting soca/dancehall crap!

Is this written in code? 

No.  Brummie. 

sadly, I understand it.
Spent my 21st in fabric. Great venue back in the day

ricecake

I was a DnB/Jungle DJ back in the day.

AustinPowers

brumey said:

i m selling fortrex's and misfortune keep's in my "local ebay-like fleamarket webpage"

THEY ARE SELLING LIKE HOTCAKES
fortrex for 70€
misfortune keep for 75€

i lost overview. must have pushed like 20 the last 14 days!

As CCC said, small wonder, when you are selling them at such a discount compared to RRP.

AustinPowers

bandit778 said:

@Scatterbug
That depends on where you are in the world, from reading through this thread, #76039 seemed to sell out a lot quicker in the U.S. than it did in the U.K.

And even more so than over here in Germany, where #76039 is still widely available at RRP. Then again, as RRP is so much more in Euro than in USD, no wonder these sets (like others from the superhero lines) don't sell over here. I mean, if they are already less popular over here, why hinder sales even more by setting the RRPs so high?

Wait, you are saying the Ant Man set is popular in the aftermarket. Perhaps I should by some at my local toy store after all and do my first ever reselling coup ;-)

brumey

AustinPowers said:

brumey said:

i m selling fortrex's and misfortune keep's in my "local ebay-like fleamarket webpage"

THEY ARE SELLING LIKE HOTCAKES
fortrex for 70€
misfortune keep for 75€

i lost overview. must have pushed like 20 the last 14 days!

As CCC said, small wonder, when you are selling them at such a discount compared to RRP.

amazon sold it for 64€ and 68€ . i wonder why people buy from me, when they can just let it deliver to their front door for cheaper!
maybe they just type amazon in their browser and dont have a clue bout amazon.it amazon.co.uk amazon.de amazon.fr ....

MAGNINOMINISUMBRA

I personally saw #76039 ONCE in the wild here in Australia - it was so rare that if it wasn't for the one other person in my LUG who saw it (and bought one) every OTHER person in my LUG who tried to convince me I'd imagined it would have done so successfully!  Based on discussions with interstate brick fans - this was the case country-wide.  With its apparently limited availability worldwide and the near certainty of a sequel movie being released -  I FIRMLY believe the set will be pure aftermarket gold.

brumey

local toy store still has 5x #76039
but i wont get them at rrp. paying them a visit every week. if i find some inspiration i ll ask them for a discount on the antman sets in case i get all of them!

stlux

With the current aftermarket prices for #76039, I would be happy to buy at RRP! For my personal collection though, might not make sense for reselling. I should try to find those magical shops in Germany where they still have these on the shelf!

VorpalRyu

MAGNINOMINISUMBRA said:

I personally saw #76039 ONCE in the wild here in Australia - it was so rare that if it wasn't for the one other person in my LUG who saw it (and bought one) every OTHER person in my LUG who tried to convince me I'd imagined it would have done so successfully!  Based on discussions with interstate brick fans - this was the case country-wide.  With its apparently limited availability worldwide and the near certainty of a sequel movie being released -  I FIRMLY believe the set will be pure aftermarket gold.

Just as our local Target was closing up one night I spotted them, brand new on the shelf. I actually grabbed one off the shelf (they had three), but put it back, planning to go back first thing the next day, as the sale didn't start until then. Dropped James off to school & raced down there to find an empty shelf, seems some employee knew how sought after #76039 was & grabbed them for themselves after hours, just glad I bought one from S@H as soon as they were available.

TheLoneTensor

brumey said:

local toy store still has 5x #76039
but i wont get them at rrp. paying them a visit every week. if i find some inspiration i ll ask them for a discount on the antman sets in case i get all of them!

Is Australian rrp insane or something that leaves no profit margin?  Otherwise, isn't that instant money?  Dis don't make no sense.

MAGNINOMINISUMBRA

^ I don't think @brumey is located in Australia. I'm also pretty sure that the only place final battle was available here was an EXTREMELY limited release to Target (in fact @VorpalRyu  just confirmed exactly what store I saw it in - couldn't personally remember where it was) and S@H.  As a general rule our RRPs are a bit beyond those of US and Europe but I find this more than evens out with the fact that exclusives here aren't limited to S@H and can normally be obtained for 20-33% below S@H RRP. Mind you - it's definitely not the heady days of early in the century where you could walk into a Kmart and buy a dozen 7191s or 7181s for between 50-125 AUD (depending on exact sale details) and resell them for 250 USD.  I was making 700-1000 a fortnight just in reselling those two sets alone for a good six months or so!  These days such bargains just aren't around.  My other favourite buy back then was when I was buying Super Chiefs for around 17-21 USD and I thought I was a genius for doubling my money - hindsight eh!

MAGNINOMINISUMBRA

Just did some quick number crunching - Aussie RRP on 76039 was 39.99AUD (30.59USD/ 23.65GBP) at TODAYS rate. I couldn't be bothered calculating exact exchange rates for June/July 2015.  Where our S@H purchases start REALLY hurting is standard shipping is 30 AUD.  To qualify for free shipping in Australia is you need to spend 200AUD for free shipping!  (Occasionally this is reduced to 150 and Lego Australia wants to start front paging it and starting a jerk circle whenever this AWESOME offer is made).  Would I pay 39.99 AUD today for a final battle set?  Let's put it this way.... I'll take EVERY SINGLE ONE I COULD FIND!  As I said - aftermarket gold...

MAGNINOMINISUMBRA

@TheLoneTensor
Ive just worked out the confusion! Brumby is in AUSTRIA - Vorpalryu and I are in AUSTRALIA!  (I see this confusion a LOT on international boards and have always assumed it to be a common (and perfectly understandable) reading error on behalf of the reader as opposed to you thinking one of us can't spell our home country! :)

TheLoneTensor

Ha, I saw Austria, then I looked again to make sure it wasn't Australia, and lo and behold it was, but that was actually VorpalRyu, who is from Australia.  Funny.

Anyway, questions still stands, can you turn those things around?

Bricklover18

He could definitely sell them on here for a profit, or least trade them for something he wants more.

prevere

TheLoneTensor said:

Ha, I saw Austria, then I looked again to make sure it wasn't Australia, and lo and behold it was, but that was actually VorpalRyu, who is from Australia.  Funny.

Anyway, questions still stands, can you turn those things around?

I think we need someone from Astoria to comment here.

Farmer_John

brumey said:

yea

murica an super heroes!

we in europe dont like EDM or huge ass festivals.

we like the DUB and the stoner rock!

jungle, psy, goa, tek is also a thing here!
aaaand DnB for the london fabric kiddies!

does america even have a soundsystem scene like europe does ?   munich alone has 13 DUB-ONLY soundsystems! not counting soca/dancehall crap!

My pig Latin is a little rusty. Little help here?

AllBrick

Brumey has taken it upon himself to express his opinions regarding the music scenes in th EU and US..... It must be noted that these are just opinions and are in no way fact.... I'm pretty sure EDM (Electronic Dance Music, a rather large umbrella I'm sure you'll agree) is extremely popular, so are festivals.... DUB is also vague, cars with stupidly big wheels? And stoner rock? No thanks..... DnB (Drum and Bass) is not "just for the London Fabric kiddies!"....... America probably does have a soundsystem scene (google it), 13 sounds like overkill and there's nothing wrong with a bit of dancehall and soca music..... Back to Lego.

piratemania7

Was perusing S@H today and always get a giggle out of how so many exclusive and hard to find sets are out of stock with a delayed shipping just after double VIP points time.

its like shooting fish in a barrel.

AustinPowers

brumey said:

local toy store still has 5x #76039
but i wont get them at rrp. paying them a visit every week. if i find some inspiration i ll ask them for a discount on the antman sets in case i get all of them!

Same here. Will do the same thing today at mine.

AustinPowers

brumey said:

amazon sold it for 64€ and 68€ . i wonder why people buy from me, when they can just let it deliver to their front door for cheaper!
maybe they just type amazon in their browser and dont have a clue bout amazon.it amazon.co.uk amazon.de amazon.fr ....

True, but shipping costs can be quite prohibitive if you use Amazon from a different country. Especially from Italy to Germany they are hideous. Something like 30 Euro for a 5 Euro set. Ridiculous.

AustinPowers

stlux said:

With the current aftermarket prices for #76039, I would be happy to buy at RRP! For my personal collection though, might not make sense for reselling. I should try to find those magical shops in Germany where they still have these on the shelf!

Actually Germany and Austria it seems. And there's nothing magical about them. It's just a fact that Superhero sets are not popular here, at least in the region where I live. I'm at our local toy shops quite often and see lots of Lego sets being purchased. Never a Superhero set among them. And when I asked a while ago about a Superhero set I actually was interested in (#76035 - Jokerland) which they didn't have on the shelves, the store person told me they are reducing the shelf space devoted to those sets because they "don't sell" - original quote. Go figure. Guess I might get a discount on those 76039 after all ;-)

brumey

guys guys guys, AUSTRIA IS IN THE CENTER OF EUROPE!

DUB in murica are those cars with stupudly big wheels!

originally DUB is the first ever electronically engineered music that has been there for ages. early 70ies. for DUB you typically build your own soundsystem.
18" bass bins
14" kick bass drivers
mid section 
horns
if you dont feel the bass its not worth it!

originally they used reggae pre amps with a set of send/return and/or delays/echoes .
you can then split the audio signal into various frequency bands for each separate amp.
4 way is the way to go currently, me thinks!

DUB evolved over the years. france has a pretty solid dub community (they say digital dub there) .  then there is the 80ies dancehall digi-reggae dub style (maffi, jahtari, ...).
steppa dub
roots dub

i just love this music!
not really into psy-dub tough!

JudgeChuck

^...and back on Planet Earth......

;-)

SumoLego

DUBs...



Although all of this dub discussion takes me back to watching Sesame Street.

TigerMoth

And another...

AustinPowers

Oh, and while we're at it, here's a pic of my Lego haul from today ("only" got a 10% discount on the RRP).
Now I can truly flood the aftermarket... ;-)

prevere

Hold those babies til just before Ant-Man 2 comes out. Or if you see a new Ant-Man regular fig launching in another Marvel set.

TheLoneTensor

I think they have hit the 80/20 rule myself.

prevere

So I'm wondering if the glut of sets that are overdue to retire (too many to list) is due more to:
A) Sets not selling as well and there's just a large quantity to get rid of
B) Expanded production capacity has made it easy to keep sets active longer
C) LEGO trying to crush the resellers (see conspiracy theorists)

SumoLego

prevere said:

C) LEGO trying to crush the resellers (see conspiracy theorists)

I think Lego is trying to crush the primary market.  More and better sets available for longer periods of time - tends to crush the secondary market.

BrickDancer

@prevere I have a feeling that A) is starting to happen now. And that C) has been the strategy in play for 2 years or more now.

lordzarak

If LEGO is trying to "crush" the secondary market, they need to be careful. Secondary markets are fully capable of crushing themselves. See comic books, sports cards and Beanie Babies for examples.  With that said, I doubt that is their motivation when this is the same company that gives us Mr. Gold, the Bat-Pod and the SDCC exclusives.

BrickDancer

^I know what you mean with the other past hobby bubbles popping. But I think Lego is slightly different and that we were in the early stages of 'speculation' when TLG started to influence it with extremely short runs of some sets mixed with extremely long runs of obvious gems like the Modulars. It's almost like they're baiting in the resellers with Zombie sets and the infrequent Mr. Gold, Bat-pod, SDCC promos that are essentially one-off events. Then giving them a bath on big expensive sets Petshops, Deathstars, Tower Bridges. Where they are holding $KKKs worth of stock on sets that just will not retire.

SumoLego

Also, Lego isn't at all invested in the secondary market to help drive sales of their product.

Recce

prevere said:

Hold those babies til just before Ant-Man 2 comes out. Or if you see a new Ant-Man regular fig launching in another Marvel set.

Actually when Ant-Man 2 comes out, I'm pretty sure this Ant-Man set will drop in price drastically due to many more Ant-Man sets being launched. So better sell it off way way before the new movie :-)

brumey

there hasnt been a deadpool set when deadpool came out. so why should there be a antman set ?

AustinPowers

Recce said:

prevere said:

Hold those babies til just before Ant-Man 2 comes out. Or if you see a new Ant-Man regular fig launching in another Marvel set.

Actually when Ant-Man 2 comes out, I'm pretty sure this Ant-Man set will drop in price drastically due to many more Ant-Man sets being launched. So better sell it off way way before the new movie :-)

To be totally honest, buying these three was just an experiment. And of course to prove that I didn't lie all the time when talking about them being readily available. What you can't see in the picture by the way is that they truly had dust on the top of the boxes, from standing on that shelf for more than a year ;-)
And if I can't sell them on, I will just keep them. Like the two Poe Damerons I bought yesterday for less than 10 Euro each. One of these I will build anyway, and the other one will not lose me any money either, not at that discount. And even if can't sell that in future either, I know enough kids in the family/friends/neighborhood who like Lego Star Wars and will be happy to get such a set as a birthday/Christmas/whatever present.
Or perhaps one day I might be able to swap one of them for some other EOL set that interests me. Dunno.

monkeyhanger

brumey said:

there hasnt been a deadpool set when deadpool came out. so why should there be a antman set ?

The wolverine/magneto/deadpool set that was out ages ago (6866?) was based on cartoon or comic licenses. Lego doing sets based on an ultra violent film goes against their current ethos, even though i'm sure they'd have been able to do it if they (and Marvel) wanted to.

CCC

prevere said:

So I'm wondering if the glut of sets that are overdue to retire (too many to list) is due more to:
A) Sets not selling as well and there's just a large quantity to get rid of
B) Expanded production capacity has made it easy to keep sets active longer
C) LEGO trying to crush the resellers (see conspiracy theorists)

C also leads to A if they are not careful.

brumey

C) its inevitable!!!

Batman

SumoLego said:

Also, Lego isn't at all invested in the secondary market to help drive sales of their product.

Disagree. The secondary market eliminates the need for LEGO to conduct aggressive inventory sales. It's simple economics. 

 If the secondary market was removed, that would lead to supply > demand (at least with today's production #). LEGO would be forced to either scale back production (not good) or start selling at much smaller margin (not good). 

But the the mere existence of a secondary demand ensures their products move off shelves. 

To further the point, if they didn't care they wouldn't announce set retirements. 

floridabrick

^ I disagree with you regarding thier announcing set retirements.  It's a fact that's simply a marketing tool.

floridabrick

Don't be a fool as I once was, thinking Retiring Soon, Sold Out, Temporarily Out of Stock actually meant something.

TheLoneTensor

But I read on a website once that a store employee said that he heard from corporate that all those things meant something.