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Comments
*Opens door* "Yes! It's a parcel, for me and I am only expecting one thing..."
*Quickly opens parcel* "Now to rearrange my daily plans to include some build time..."
Many, many thanks to @Jern92 for taking the time to do this, very reasonably priced postage to the UK too.
Couldn't wait to get started on it, enjoyed the build immensely and definitely need to BL an extra Pig Costumed Minifig!
Unfortunately, the Dragon set is out of stock but he offered to send this one now. Cross fingers the Dragon Dance set comes back!
Here's the video for it.
Not exactly short on exclusives?
Could you remind me of any set that is/has been region exclusive to Europe?
Can't think of any at the moment, other than some boring minifigs like the German soccer or UK Olympics team that really are of very niche interest and certainly don't compare to these Chinese sets.
Plus, afaik China has had region exclusive "Year of the ..." sets for several years in a row now, not to mention all those US exclusive sets like everything SDCC, or those great last sets of the Ultra Agents theme like that fantastic HQ boat set.
Clearly these were limited availability from the very beginning, and with Lego's production schedules firmed up many months in advance, it was apparently always going to be that way. A wider release may simply not have been possible, even were it desired, so the only alternative to a regional release was maybe to not release them at all.
AFAIK, most regional sets have - until now - been small promotional items like Lester, the Statue of Liberty, etc. Other than the early CUUSOO (speeling?) sets and other Japan-only releases like Kabaya and those weird paper sets.
Then there are SDCC sets, polybags (the HP polybag never came to my country), Lego books/magazines with limited edition minifigures, stuff that are limited to particular countries (I'm looking at you, Lester minifigure!). If you're looking purely at the term 'Exclusive' then yeah there really isn't much, but if you think of it in terms of availability for purchase, you guys have had it much better than us for a long time. With the CNY sets, I think most of you finally understand exactly how we in Asia have been feeling all this time. It's always been unfair, and it will probably always be unless Lego starts selling the exact same products everywhere.
But I suppose the grass is always greener on the other side...
Now the dragon moves in a spiral...
https://www.facebook.com/JKBrickworks/videos/412434632835459 (Facebook account NOT needed to view this.)
For another example, Overwatch sets are only physically available in two stores in the entire country (Legoland Discovery Centre and Dreamworld). That's justifiable because they are niche sets competing for limited shelf space, so Lego decided to make them online exclusives. Furthermore, we won't see TLM2 sets for another month or so. This is because they are designed to coincide with the film's release here, which in turn is supposed to coincide with school holidays. Both very good reasons for us missing out, but we still miss out. It's nobody's fault that this happens, but it still happens.
My point is that it is equally as justifiable for the Chinese New Year sets to be limited to Australasia. Yes, Europe and America miss out here, but it's not because TLG are blithering idiots or because they're the root of all evil. It's because CNY just isn't celebrated nearly as much there (granted, the same could be said of Australia, but the sets were barely available here anyway). So don't go ranting at some poor customer service employee because you had to pay $20 extra for shipping. There's nothing they can or will do. Inequality? Sure. Inequity? Not at all.
I look at this from a supply-chain perspective. If the sets are produced in Asia for that market and have an Asian theme or are (as their marketing people would anticipate) of particular interest to that market, I'm not sure why other markets would expect access to that product.
The greater issue I see is whether this is a test for more specialization in each regional market. If, for instance, World of Warcraft is 100x more popular in Asia, would LEGO pursue licensing with Blizzard and make sets exclusive to the Asian market? Is that more profitable than globally universal sets?
Will consumers in each regional market purchase more Police Stations that 'better' reflect architecture or uniforms in their market? (I can't imagine having to chase modulars unique to their markets!)
And I'm not talking about ethnically themed LEGO, but more neutral/objective differences in regions.
I doubt it. If it were a good idea for them to do that, they would have done that. Lego aren't perfect at reading the market, but they're sure as hell better than anyone here.
I don't think descent is relevant. A huge portion of Australians are descended from Europeans - does that mean they should have sold Team GB down here?
Yes, that can be said of many major cities in the West, not just the US.
What's wrong with that thinking? It makes perfect sense. The only places where CNY is widely celebrated are in Asia, so Lego decided to save on delivery and production costs by limiting it only to those regions where it'd be as popular as they like.
That is true, and many Lego fans might care about that, but you need remember that we're rarely the target audience. Random adults that haven't picked up a brick in years aren't going to go, "Wowee, look at that exotic printed tile!"
"In a heartbeat"? "Simply"? They can't just effortlessly change their marketing strategy. Lego allocate production of sets based on how much of that set they want to produce. It's why, for example, when the MilF went out of stock straight away, they couldn't just do another run overnight. The production of some obscure City set would be overwhelmingly bigger than either of these, and it'd take a lot of mucking around to elevate the latter to meet the former.
This would actually be a good idea. However, I'd imagine the reason it's not already done has to do with blurring the lines between "exclusive" and "worldwide". A store could simply order twenty exclusive polybags from the other side of the world and sell them for triple the RRP each. Not to mention, it wouldn't help in a lot of scenarios, such as in Australia where we don't actually have any brand stores.
(I hoped I would get them for under £100 each but it was close. Maybe I will keep telling myself that ...!)
(Edited to removed the huge accidental quote)