Amazon is so clever

leo3344

I have been buying a lot of Lego from Amazon US and Amazon AU, and sometimes UK (not so often)
It depends on which region is giving the lower price on the item I am interested in.
I am travelling between US and AU so international shipping is not an issue. I find that 
in most cases Amazon AU has a much better price than that of the US but their Lego boxes are
usually dented or bad. I've bought more than 50 sets from Amazon AU and only less than 5 sets
are without any dents, some even re-taped obviously. On the other hand, I've bought approx. 20 sets from Amazon US but probably only one box was with significant problem. 

My guess is that Amazon US tends to sell at higher price so they are giving better boxes
while when they find any bad box or returned item they ship them in lot to Australia and
let this market digest the less perfect products with lower price.

It's a very smart way of doing business. Maybe they know that Australian is less interested
in or willing to pay for Lego so they are marking down the prices while giving boxes of
inferior quality. Very smart, very sneaky.

Astrobricks

I suspect it would be too expensive to bother shipping returned US product all the way to Australia. 

tomalphin

Also not possible, since there is a different box design for North America vs. rest of the world... 

(USA boxes show part count on the front.)

Astrobricks

I still don’t get why we’re the only ones who get the part count on the box.

560Heliport

Is there a US law that requires the part count? Maybe an aspect of copyright law, that the packaging design has to accurately describe what's in the package? 

thenos

15 U.S. Code § 1453 (section on commerce and trade, fair packaging and labeling) 

https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/15/1453

See paragraph A.2 - The net quantity of contents (in terms of weight or mass, measure, or numerical count) shall be separately and accurately stated in a uniform location upon the principal display panel... 

560Heliport

^ Thanks! ..."accurately stated"... What about all the spares, e.g. cheese slopes, 1x1 round plates ("studs"), etc.? ;)

leo3344

henrysunset said:

Also not possible, since there is a different box design for North America vs. rest of the world... 

(USA boxes show part count on the front.)

Good point I did not notice. You are right, but I still don't quite understand
why I am getting significantly more dented boxes from Amazon AU rather than Amazon US.
I thought it was connected to the price, but I should have been wrong

Some of them are even in horribly bad condition, but still  sold as new, and they are new sets
, e.g. the year of 2020, not one or two years ago. I really can't quite imagine how they
can make the box that bad

panchox1

 

Some of them are even in horribly bad condition, but still  sold as new, and they are new sets
, e.g. the year of 2020, not one or two years ago. I really can't quite imagine how they
can make the box that bad

Boxing Kangaroos?

leo3344

panchox1 said:

 

Some of them are even in horribly bad condition, but still  sold as new, and they are new sets
, e.g. the year of 2020, not one or two years ago. I really can't quite imagine how they
can make the box that bad

Boxing Kangaroos?

kangaroos? won't you get a better box in lego shop when there are so many choices

Astrobricks

leo3344 said:

henrysunset said:

Also not possible, since there is a different box design for North America vs. rest of the world... 

(USA boxes show part count on the front.)

Good point I did not notice. You are right, but I still don't quite understand
why I am getting significantly more dented boxes from Amazon AU rather than Amazon US.
I thought it was connected to the price, but I should have been wrong

Some of them are even in horribly bad condition, but still  sold as new, and they are new sets
, e.g. the year of 2020, not one or two years ago. I really can't quite imagine how they
can make the box that bad

Even within the US, some people get way more damaged boxes than others. Some distribution hubs obviously have better trained or happier employees than others.

autolycus

Yup, I’m in Atlanta area and every single time I’ve ordered a larger set from Amazon, there’s been something wrong with the packaging and the Lego box, with one exception: the UCS MF my wife scored on the Black Friday deal. It was, of course, double boxed.

Some of the Lego boxes have been completely destroyed, holes, creases, etc. others have just had small creases that I could live with.

thenos

560Heliport said:

^ Thanks! ..."accurately stated"... What about all the spares, e.g. cheese slopes, 1x1 round plates ("studs"), etc.? ;)

I think paragraph (b) covers that. 

"That such supplemental statements of net quantity of contents shall not include any term qualifying a unit of weight or mass, measure, or count that tends to exaggerate the amount of the commodity contained in the package."

They meet the minimum, they are not advertising additional parts. The additional parts may, or may not, be there. But they have the actual quantity of necessary to build parts described on the box product. It'd be like selling a chocolate bar that is advertised at 1gram but it is really 1.00003. It has to be 1g, but it can be slightly more, but it can't say that it is up to 5g! That would be exaggerating. The Lego example would be advertising potential bonus pieces. That's how I read that.  

I am not a lawyer. 

vanvonfull

I’ve only ordered 2 sets from amazon in recent memory. Tron set was perfect and then there’s a pic below of the 2nd one.

 If I was looking to resell I would buy elsewhere. 

eggshen

Amazon has a pretty liberal return policy, and I doubt they are sending beat up returns back to LEGO distributors. I used to work for a toy store for many years, and TLG would never ever takes returns on opened or damaged boxes. Their policy is that if a set was legitimately missing pieces, the customer should contact them to get the pieces shipped free of charge. If sets were damaged in shipping, they would make the shipper (UPS) pay for damages, and we could try to sell the sets or just throw them away. TLG probably has the same policy for everyone, including Amazon.
So my guess would be that those are returned sets that Amazon has verified as not missing parts and in good enough condition to sell. Just my guess though.

leo3344

eggshen said:

Amazon has a pretty liberal return policy, and I doubt they are sending beat up returns back to LEGO distributors. I used to work for a toy store for many years, and TLG would never ever takes returns on opened or damaged boxes. Their policy is that if a set was legitimately missing pieces, the customer should contact them to get the pieces shipped free of charge. If sets were damaged in shipping, they would make the shipper (UPS) pay for damages, and we could try to sell the sets or just throw them away. TLG probably has the same policy for everyone, including Amazon.
So my guess would be that those are returned sets that Amazon has verified as not missing parts and in good enough condition to sell. Just my guess though.

I want to emphasize again that I don't have much problem of a dented or damaged box. I am not an OCD box collector. But a bad box could easily give us a first impression or suspicion that the content inside is manipulated. And in fact, by probability and common sense, not 1 among 1000 people will steal the potato fries and reseal the bag and return to Walmart, but probably more than 1 among 100 customers would steal bricks and mini-figures inside a Lego set and return..

The problem is there are plenty of videos on the web and Youtube about opening a Lego box perfectly without damage which I have tried and it worked perfectly, no mess.
This could be a problem if they only look at the box without unsealing the set to look at the contents. In fact, I once contacted Amazon service months ago about the concern but they were not giving any promising answer. 

Nevertheless I still buy from Amazon, but only limited to smaller and discounted sets. For bigger and more expensive sets I resort to buying locally at reputable toy stores where return or refund is not accepted. Most local toy stores here don't allow return. 

CCC

eggshen said:

Amazon has a pretty liberal return policy, ....
So my guess would be that those are returned sets that Amazon has verified as not missing parts and in good enough condition to sell. Just my guess though.

I don't know if anything has changed, but I asked Amazon about this about five years ago. I received a damaged book from them that looked like it had been used as there was a pen mark on the cover. They told me that any customer returns go to the warehouse section of their site and are not resold as new products.

eggshen

I don't know how Amazon handles returns at the return center, but I'm going to guess that they use humans to examine products to see if they are resellable as new. I'm also going to guess that they have some quotas or reports that show what percent of returns are getting sent to the warehouse section. And at least one of those humans is looking at LEGO products and thinking to themselves "well, I think all the bricks are inside, that counts as new" and puts it back into circulation so their numbers look better. I used to work for a big retailer at the customer service desk, I remember the many times I would see people send merchandise back to the sales floor even when it was obviously used/worn/unsellable. This is just a guess and based on anecdotal evidence, so take it with a grain of salt. 
All I know is SOMEONE put that brickheadz set in a box and thought to themselves "ah, good enough" and shipped it. 

eddiew

panchox1 said:

 

Some of them are even in horribly bad condition, but still  sold as new, and they are new sets
, e.g. the year of 2020, not one or two years ago. I really can't quite imagine how they
can make the box that bad

Boxing Kangaroos?

I was thinking Foster's.

77ncaachamps

vanvonfull said:

I’ve only ordered 2 sets from amazon in recent memory. Tron set was perfect and then there’s a pic below of the 2nd one.

 If I was looking to resell I would buy elsewhere. 

Did they throw that into a plastic mailing package?

Also, those Brickheadz boxes are SUPER flimsy cardboard.