[Benelux] Promotions

eMJeeNL

Thanks to @obelix1971 , btw.

TheBigLegoski

Well as long as there are no waiting lines everything is fine with me. I am not lining up in some cue. I can not stand them!

sid3windr

Whenever there's a store opening, there will be long lines. If it's a flagship store even more so. And in a big city like Amsterdam... even more so...

stlux

For the Leicester Square store opening I joined the queue at 08:40 with already 40ish people in front of me; the store opened its doors at 12:20.

A picture @jasonord69a posted at the time:



This was just the front of the queue.

About 200(?) people were let in at 12:20, with many 100's of people still queuing to get in.

TheBigLegoski

@stlux  

OK, and why? What, did you get some awesome gifts that made it all worth it?

ps.

Knowing how crowded Amsterdam is, and how narrow the streets, having a cue like this would cause serious problems.

pps. (second edit)

I live in the centre of Amsterdam, and it is has become increasingly crowded, more and more so in the last decade to the point of it being ridiculously overcrowded, and I am used to it (as I was born and raised here) in so far as you can ever get used to overcrowding, but unless there is something really super spectacular going on with that opening, I'll probably go and visit it the next day or so.

Nonetheless, thanks for all the info! Happy to read your stories about store openings why you cue up for it, what you get out of it.

Kerre

Something not related to the new LEGO stores in NL:

Starting Friday 20th of September, a number of stores in Belgium and The Netherlands will offer a 25% discount on the entire LEGO range. Called "Crazy LEGO Days", this is a simultaneous event with a fair number of retailers participating. Offer ends on Monday 23 September.

For now, I know Belgian retailers Dreamland.be and Fun.be participate. Brickshop.nl in The Netherlands will also offer 25% off (although Brickshop.nl mentions "almost all" sets - assuming the retired sets, Chinese new year sets and other rarities they sell at a significant markup will be excluded) .

As usual, for us AFOLs this mostly is interesting for large sets - D2C's, Creator expert etc.   

eMJeeNL

Intertoys (what’s left of it) also participates, i was told.
brickshop still has ridiculous pricing, imho. Even Intertoys does better for some sets (e.g. 60233).

TheBigLegoski

Yes, I received an email from Brickshop.nl too, but I don't think it mentioned anything about discount rates or percentages etc. or what will be excluded from the sale. I agree with eMJeeNL, they are usually not very cheap, or even have marked up prices.

Make sure to check against the amazon.de prices, they usually have the best deals to my knowledge.

HenkdeVries

Oh man, Amsterdam Store opening on Nov 16, that is about the time my wife should give birth to our second child. "Sorry honey, keep pushing, I'm 250th in line, will be back any minute now" :D:D
At least I can possibly attend the opening in Utrecht. 

Kerre

An update on the "Crazy LEGO days" starting tomorrow a number of shops have already started:

• A-Tembo.nl is explicitly advertising 25% extra discount on top of their current "standard"prices. They're not Amazon of course but A-Tembo tends to have a fairy extended range and their prices tend to be on the mid/lower side for BE/NL. If that additional 25% off that means some excellent deals. 
• MrBricks.nl is advertising 35% off - mostly on RRP. %odularts, Falcon are excluded but Droid Commander is included (142,95 € - lowest ever).
• Bol.com is supposed to participate as well - still not confirmed though.

LEGo took the initiative for the promotion but is not participating though their direct channels (Their online store/S@H and what is for a limited time their only physical LEGO store in BE/NL, the Wijnegem store)

TheBigLegoski

LOLbummer! I am trying to order something from A-Tembo, but their website cannot handle all the traffic, so now their site is offline. Dead as a Dodo!

wardm

Dreamland promised a 25% on all LEGO sets, but I only see some sets with a marked down ‘red’ price and most of them aren’t even 25% off...

sid3windr

A-Tembo's site was slow all evening but I did manage to order way more than I should have.

Definitely the best prices there, I don't think any other "crazy lego days" participant will beat them so keep an eye out there.

I'm sure their site will come back in a short while... but stock figures will be interesting.

Kerre

Roundup before I'm off to bed:

• MrBricks was quickest off the mark and started a bit after 9pm on Thursday. An hour later the site went down; it's back up now.  
• A-tembo's offers started an hour before midnight; right after midnight the site went down (and still is). I really, really hope they can fulfill orders placed as they don't have real-time inventory.
• Bol.com's discounts are meh. Up to 25% on some sets.
• Fun applied the 25% discount shortly after midnight. Note: you only see correct discounted prices on a set's detail page. List views don't show the discounted price (and they don't show the latest stock info either). A limited number of sets has the 25% off stacked with earlier discounts but those are selling out quickly.
• Ordering from Fun.be isn't painful enough for you? MaxiToys.be is participating as well!
• And while I was typing this: Dreamland promos are now up too. Dreamland did reset all prices to RRP before applying thediscount but the 25% is off across the entire range - D2C's, Creator Expert and Ideas too.

HenkdeVries

sid3windr said:

A-Tembo's site was slow all evening but I did manage to order way more than I should have. 


This morning it was still slow, but I also had the same experience haha, sorry wallet!

eMJeeNL

Kruidvat and Intertoys also participate, and at (some) good prices. E.g. #60233 for 52,50 @ Intertoys.

Brickfan50

Each time I see these promotions I check the sites only to know that in the end the 25% discounts are applied to Duplo and some City sets in which I have no interest. In the Netherlands we seldomly have a good discount. Amazon de/fr/uk/it are the sites where I really get good prices. And when you sign up up for select (about € 4-6 per month) the shipping is almost nothing or free!

sid3windr

I'll let you know when Amazon drops price on the big sets to below what I purchased them for at A-tembo then. ;-)

Aleydita

Checked out Cora and Carrefour today. All Lego 25% off but only a poor selection of sets on offer, which is especially unusual for Cora. It's like they removed 2/3rds of their stock off the shelf and spread what was left across the vacant shelf space. Of course, it's possible that they'd sold all that Lego they had on Friday when I last looked, but I can't see it - 25% isn't enough to make people go crazy.

wardm

So what did you guys buy with the discounts? I bought some of the Toy Story sets, the creator expert Carousel, donut shop opening, shrimp shack attack, the friends grape restaurant, the city space people pack, escape pod vs dewback (I really like that dewback build) and the praetorian guard battle pack. 

HenkdeVries

Here is my order from last Friday. Still being processed though...

sid3windr

I splurged massively on my backlog of big sets...

Humdrum

Don’t know if it was a local thing, but Carrefour Zemst has a 40% discount promo going on a large selection of toys (and Lego obviously). Notable discounts: whole TLM2 range (incl. CMF), Speed Champions, SW battlepacks, microfighters and a few smaller sets. Also some City/Creator, Friends and Duplo sets.

sid3windr

Yeah, forgot to post this here yesterday, same in Korbeek-Lo. The bigger City sets were unfortunately not discounted but I did pick up #60214 Burger bar fire rescue and some #42095 tracked racers. Aaand a #10880 Duplo T-Rex Tower for the newborn with approval from the Chief.. because T-Rex!

sid3windr

De opening van de nieuwe LEGO® wordt echt een heus event! Helaas, kunnen we u niet vertellen wanneer de exacte opening is omdat we zelf nog niet over die informatie beschikken.

Houd zeker een oogje op de website ;-).

"Information" from CS about the Utrecht store opening time.

"It's going to be a great event, so great we have not decided to tell you when to come, probably because we have not decided when we're coming either".

snowhitie

All Hidden Side sets are 10% off with 'HIDDENSIDE10' code on bol.com untill mid-October. There are better deals on them out there (amazon.co.uk at the moment) but that might change in the coming weeks, or you might need one tomorrow, so thought I'd share the code.

eMJeeNL

sid3windr said:

De opening van de nieuwe LEGO® wordt echt een heus event! Helaas, kunnen we u niet vertellen wanneer de exacte opening is omdat we zelf nog niet over die informatie beschikken.

Houd zeker een oogje op de website ;-).

"Information" from CS about the Utrecht store opening time.

"It's going to be a great event, so great we have not decided to tell you when to come, probably because we have not decided when we're coming either".

I’m getting more and more annoyed with the Dutchified English used by TLG... starts with setnames and descriptions, but even this text isn’t even feeling like proper Dutch. Would it be really hard to have a creative Dutchperson to come up with proper ones?

sid3windr

Pretty sure the NL speaking support is in Ireland, so...

"Heus event" sounds Dutch to me, as a Belgian. You could claim they'd need to call it an evenement instead. But other than that I don't really see an issue with the text itself, but let's not mention the content...

eMJeeNL

It’s just the general feeling; e.g.:

‘houd zeker een oogje op de website’

is just not natural Dutch in 2019. E.g.:
’houd de website in de gaten!’ feels so much more natural nowadays.

also, I agree ‘heus event’ is proper Dutch, but just feels like 1985. ‘Een echte happening’ feels much more 2019, even though it contains an Anglicism.

and the comma after Helaas is onzin as well. ;)

HenkdeVries

As a translator by profession I am dying a bit inside when I see that text. ;-)

sid3windr

Yeah, reading it again but more awake it does seem to hang together with hooks and eyes... and all this brings us no closer to an actual opening time.

They're opening on the day I'm driving to Billund so my direction of travel is currently "via Utrecht" or "not via Utrecht" .... sigh. Would be nice to have some clarity.

TheBigLegoski

Ooh well, I am bilingual (Dutch/English) and I screw up on punctuation all the time in both languages, as well as all sorts of other typos etc. I fail to notice on time when writing things 'on the go'.

Not saying that it doesn't matter, proper spelling and grammar is important. I am generally much more annoyed with all the unnecessary Anglicisms in Dutch.

'Happening' - now that is really cringe worthy hipster lingo! (maybe it predates hipsters?!)

'Event' instead of proper Dutch 'evenement'.

Any way, TLG is known for even having had spelling mistakes in the past on printed pieces inside Lego sets, so what is new!?!

Fun fact: set #7955  e.g. contains a printed tile (at least my version) with this text: "You are far more powerfull than you would ever imagine..."  powerful has one 'l' too many, and grammatically that sentence is a bit wonky too.

Regarding Utrecht, this is what was in the e-mail i received:

Get ready for the opening of the NEW LEGO Store Utrecht

On 10th October 2019, LEGO opens it's first official LEGO Store in the Netherlands!

Don't miss our special grand opening celebrations between Thursday 7 November and Sunday 10 November.

TheBigLegoski

Who else ordered something from A-Tembo online on Friday, September 20th, during the Crazy Lego days, and hasn't heard from A-Tembo, nor received anything?!?

HenkdeVries

TheBigLegoski said:

Who else ordered something from A-Tembo online on Friday, September 20th, during the Crazy Lego days, and hasn't heard from A-Tembo, nor received anything?!?

Yup, same here, not a word yet. On the website I did see something that they were busy after the 20th for the next two weeks to process all orders. So I'm giving it a few more days before I contact them.

snowhitie

I haven't heard from them (ordered one Vestas) but my money came back (transfer since that's the only way to pay from Belgium) . Would have liked an email too to be honest.

It does say on the website that it may take some weeks so I'd give them indeed a bit more time.  I do think they just were overwhelmed with the orders and are doing their best to get things out.

HenkdeVries

TheBigLegoski said:

Regarding Utrecht, this is what was in the e-mail i received:

Get ready for the opening of the NEW LEGO Store Utrecht

On 10th October 2019, LEGO opens it's first official LEGO Store in the Netherlands!

Don't miss our special grand opening celebrations between Thursday 7 November and Sunday 10 November.

So it opens and then after a month they celebrate? Odd...

alldarker

It's called a 'soft opening'. It's a period to see how everything goes; to let the new crew get to know the systems and the administration. Don't forget, most of the staff won't have worked in a Lego store before and they won't even have had any chance to get to see another store in the Netherlands, so everything is going to be new for them too. It would be a bit harsh to confront the shop staff with an official opening day rush on their very first day in store!
They'll probably use the Utrecht store to train up some of the Amsterdam staff as well, I'm guessing. 

eMJeeNL

Good point @alldarker, although I'm curious how the rush is going to be regarding the Lego World-public the second week :)

Aleydita

As a Brit living in Belgium, who has tried but failed miserably to absorb Dutch*, it never ceases to amaze me how much companies rely on English in their advertisements and company slogans here. The same is true in the UK, where French and sometimes German is used sparingly for effect, but English is everywhere here. I guess maybe it's seen as a neutral language or perhaps that Belgian businesses are speaking to the large English-speaking immigrant community. I don't know the reasons but it was very noticeable when I first came here and if anything it's becoming more normal.

*the fact virtually everyone here speaks better English than me is probably something to do with it. I really struggle with learning new languages, mostly because of the masculine/feminine thing. It exists in English too but is much more subtle. In Dutch, French, Spanish and German, you need to know the gender of everything because it has an effect on what you say.

ps OT - the local Carrefour had the 40% off toys promo running, but not a single Lego set to be seen anywhere.

TheBigLegoski

@Aleydita   

"the fact virtually everyone here speaks better English than me is probably something to do with it. "

Why? Are you a Scouser, a Brummy, a Northumbrian etc. with an incredibly thick accent, who chucks in all sorts of slang and typical regional dialect?!

Btw. plenty of Brits aren't too keen on the influx of American-English either muddying up 'proper' English.

I imagine it probably must be somewhat annoying (if not just outright suck!), when living abroad (at least when it is not just for a short period), not being able to mingle properly with the locals due to a lack of command of their language. I suppose living in Belgium makes it more difficult (depending on where you exactly live) as you are dealing with both Walloons and the Flemish, who either speak French or Dutch, but also converse with one another in their own regional dialects.

Do you know the app DuoLingo? Put that on your phone, and give it a try. You can learn Dutch among many other languages with it. Just use it every day for 10 minutes or so, and you will notice that your Dutch will improve a lot in a short time. Though Dutch on that app is Nederlands not Flemish Dutch as spoken in Belgium, though for writing and reading skills that does not matter. It is just the pronunciation (mostly) that is different. Not saying pronunciation is the only difference between Nederlands and Vlaams, but it still is essentially the same language.  You can also use it to learn French etc.

TheBigLegoski

@HenkdeVries   

@snowhitie   

Let's hope for the best. I am counting on A-Tembo to follow through. Not sure what is going on in your case (snowwhitie) with the refund?!?

eMJeeNL

TheBigLegoski said:

Do you know the app DuoLingo? Put that on your phone, and give it a try. You can learn Dutch among many other languages with it. Just use it every day for 10 minutes or so, and you will notice that your Dutch will improve a lot in a short time. Though Dutch on that app is Nederlands not Flemish Dutch as spoken in Belgium, though for writing and reading skills that does not matter. It is just the pronunciation (mostly) that is different.

i heard Flemish is actually going more and more towards Dutch, to the regret of many true Flemands? So should be too much of a problem. I live near the border, and never had a problem to be understood at the other side, nor to understanding anyone myself.

Aleydita

TheBigLegoski said:

@Aleydita   

Why? Are you a Scouser, a Brummy, a Northumbrian etc. with an incredibly thick accent, who chucks in all sorts of slang and typical regional dialect?!

Well, kinda. I'm from Yorkshire where slang is a way of life. It's like a different language entirely and I find I have to moderate my English here to be understood. Most Belgians speak what I would call 'the Queen's English' - they've learnt the pure language which makes understanding them easy.

I do know of that app but I don't use it. I am learning Dutch, very slowly, and get by with the French I remember from my school-days. Also learning Spanish which I guess doesn't help but my wife is Spanish so it's only polite :)

US English has been working its way into British English for a while now, but most of what us Brits refer to as US English is actually British English from a couple of centuries ago. The biggest bugbear for people is that 's' is being replaced by 'z', so capitalize instead of capitalise, but both spellings have been around in the UK for centuries, it's just that one had fallen out of use.

I love Belgium. I just wish customer service was a thing, and that more places opened on a Sunday. And I don't understand the nationalism graffiti everywhere near where I live, but I guess they have their reasons. People generally seem happier here than in the UK, and are on the whole very friendly. Though I much prefer the cost of living in the UK than here, it seems the big supermarkets are openly operating what should be an illegal cartel to keep prices high, but no-one local seems to mind so much.

And the driving. Holy **** - the E40 and R0 are crazy roads and the Sint-Stevens Woluwe junction(s) are insane. Daily accidents from selfish driving and illogical road layouts just seem to be accepted here as normal. It doesn't bother me so much now I'm used to it, and I've driven all over Europe and Italy and Croatia are far, far worse, but none of my family or friends will risk driving here when they come visit.

sid3windr

eMJeeNL said:

i heard Flemish is actually going more and more towards Dutch, to the regret of many true Flemands?

Umm wat? :-) (totally off-topic though)

TheBigLegoski

sid3windr said:

eMJeeNL said:

i heard Flemish is actually going more and more towards Dutch, to the regret of many true Flemands?

Umm wat? :-) (totally off-topic though)

LMAO!

When I read eMJeeNL's comment, I thought: 'OK, I will leave this to a Belgian bricksetter to reply and comment on'.

As far as I know Nederlands is the mother tongue of both the 'Nederlanders' (Dutch) and the 'Vlamingen' (Flemings from Flanders), and 'ABN: algemeen beschaafd Nederlands' or standard Dutch / standard Flemish in both countries is almost entirely the same. Sure accents differ tremendously, as well as idiom and all sorts of maxims and figures of speech used in everyday speech, but this is also true for people from different regions within the Netherlands, and I assume in Belgium as well.

Of course regional dialects is a completely different matter. I have generally no problems understanding the Flemish at all. I find them easier to understand, even when they speak in dialect, than fellow Dutch citizens from the south of Limburg especially when they speak their regional Limburgs dialect (in so far as this is to be considered a dialect and not an entirely separate/distinct language).

Back on topic: really curious about A-Tembo. I still have not received an update on what is going on.

@Aleydita     

Thanks for sharing that bit of personal history/experience of living in Belgium.

HenkdeVries

TheBigLegoski said:

Back on topic: really curious about A-Tembo. I still have not received an update on what is going on.

I just sent an email, will let you know what they reply!

HenkdeVries

HenkdeVries said:

TheBigLegoski said:

Back on topic: really curious about A-Tembo. I still have not received an update on what is going on.

I just sent an email, will let you know what they reply!

I got a reply that they will send out my order on Wednesday or Thursday!

TheBigLegoski

@HenkdeVries

Thanks!

Oh, those lovely Crazy Lego Days &  A-Tembo

@snowhitie

Perhaps they gave you a refund because they could not deliver straight away, but you will still get that windmill set you ordered?!?! ....some day.

eMJeeNL

sid3windr said:

eMJeeNL said:

i heard Flemish is actually going more and more towards Dutch, to the regret of many true Flemands?

Umm wat? :-) (totally off-topic though)

Uhm... Just reporting what I read a while ago:

https://www.rtlnieuws.nl/editienl/artikel/4812766/vlaamse-ouders-vrezen-kinderen-spreken-hollands-taalgebruik-online-series

Not true?

snowhitie

eMJeeNL said:

sid3windr said:

eMJeeNL said:

i heard Flemish is actually going more and more towards Dutch, to the regret of many true Flemands?

Umm wat? :-) (totally off-topic though)

Uhm... Just reporting what I read a while ago:

https://www.rtlnieuws.nl/editienl/artikel/4812766/vlaamse-ouders-vrezen-kinderen-spreken-hollands-taalgebruik-online-series

Not true?

I have not noticed this at all with my kids or his friends, English words yes, but nothing like that. Funny how they also talk about a 4 year old watching a family blogger, what is the world coming too?

Maybe those parents should interact with and read to their children more themselves instead of using a tablet as a babysitter.

Should we start a thread to discuss this further since we're really going off topic here.