Brickset's Amazon Bargain Watch

Yellowcastle

This discussion was created from comments split from: Brickset's Amazon Bargain Watch.

Yellowcastle

If they remove VAT from the price noted above, then the deal does indeed get better.

As far as giving credit to TnB, this discount at Amazon.fr can be found on Brickset's Amazon Bargain Watch Page and actually appears to have hit a lower price 5 separate times this year.

http://www.brickset.com/buy/fr/amazon/

LegoFanTexas

If they remove VAT from the price noted above, then the deal does indeed get better.

As far as giving credit to TnB, this discount at Amazon.fr can be found on Brickset's Amazon Bargain Watch Page and actually appears to have hit a lower price 5 separate times this year.

http://www.brickset.com/buy/fr/amazon/

The above may be true, but I find that page you provided to be less than useful. Too much listed there is just junk.

I much prefer the way TnB does it, with a dedicated deals page that gets posted only the really good deals.

I would suggest you need something similar, I promise to bookmark it if you do. :)

Yellowcastle

^ Are you talking about their homepage or their "Amazon quick links" ? I've just looked at their quick links and as far as I can tell, they simply bring you up any/every LEGO item on sale at Amazon, sorted by popularity.

Brickset's Amazon Bargain Watch page provides a ton of features including the ability to completely customize your search, bounce the results against your Brickset wanted list and analyze the price trend on any specific item. I, for one, find it crazy helpful as I've never previously been able to browse Amazon effectively for discounts. Many thanks to @drdavewatford and @Huw for developing it. I can't for the life of me see how you don't find it helpful but I'm sure DrD and Huw would welcome suggestions for improvement.

LegoFanTexas

http://toysnbricks.com/category/lego-discounts/lego-sales-usa/

That is what I have bookmarked... that is the sort of page I'm thinking of, where deals are cherry-picked, of course with direct links to the vendors for your referral fees.

LegoFanTexas

Just to continue... I don't want to "browse" for discounts, I want to be told about the really GOOD discounts on the sets that are worth caring about.

For example, the Yellow Cargo Train, just picked up 10 of those from Amazon.fr using the TnB link, since they informed me about it. I'm not going to "hunt" for deals, just give me the good stuff.

The Target deal on 7957 is another good example, I have a bunch of those coming now. The details posted about each item are important, there is no way to automate this, you have to post these by hand.

As for the "wanted" list on Brickset, that isn't useful to me, I am buying to resell, not for my personal collection. I know that most people are not doing this, but consider what the dollar value spent of resellers is compared to someone buying a single set for personal use.

Yellowcastle

@LegoFanTexas - There are currently 30+ items on sale for 20+% Off MSRP at Amazon.com alone, not counting what may be available from Amazon.fr, etc. As a collector, I want to see regular updates on anything/everything with a decent discount and I want to be able to customize that search to my own preferences.

I'll be honest in that I am truly amazed that you, an avid collector and reseller, glean nothing beneficial from the Bargain Watch page. It honestly perplexes me.

SirKevbags

I use the current system. Works perfectly for me. I've not thought about it being more beneficial to collectors than re sellers. If that is the case long may it continue.

Farmer_John

@Yellowcastle - Not sure who you are talking to, but I personally use the Amazon Bargain Watch page. The main problem with the Bargain Watch page for me personally is that the deals are usually gone by the time I go to them.

LegoFanTexas

The bargain watch page doesn't update often enough, I just checked a few of those items and the prices have changed since it was last updated...

LegoFanTexas

There are currently 30+ items on sale for 20+% Off MSRP at Amazon.com alone

Yes, but most of those aren't really on sale, they were just not in demand. The top item on the list for a long time are the female minifig magnets. That isn't a deal, those will not go up.

I suppose it is a deal for someone wanting to buy them for personal use, that's fine, but it isn't why I deal hunt. Nothing in the top 20 discounted items on that page is of any interest to me whatsoever, which is why I don't look at it.

Yellowcastle

^ I can definitely understand that being a concern. But that kind of drawback would be prevalent to any non-realtime system set to update at fixed intervals. Your suggested alternative would be just as susceptible.

Yellowcastle

^^ I just doublechecked all the 25%+ discounts for Amazon.com and 12 of 14 were unchanged. One went up a penny and the other went up a dollar. Additionally, I think the list being updated 4x per day is already pretty thorough.

LegobrandonCP

Too bad Amazon Canada does not sell LEGO. :(

Jasper_Parnebrick

Wow, quite a bit of discussion... I'd have to say im into LEGO half for collecting and playing with my son (who is only 3 now, but will have some NICE sets to play with in a few years) and also as an investment for reselling. I'm pretty much new to LEGO after about a 25-30 year hiatus. I think everybody here makes a good point though, and people shoudln't necessarily discount either method. That Amazon Bargain Watch page is SO great, thanks so much to those guys for developing it. However, one thing to note is that in Canada, price are inflated by 25%, even though our dollar is currently worth more than the Greenback. Makes me really balk at paying full MSRP up here when I know an hour and a half drive to Buffalo can save me hundreds!

So the thing about our prices being inflated - take the Cargo train.. it only shows up as a 21% discount on Amazon.fr, something that would totally fly under my radar had it not been featured on TnB and broken down so nicely for us to see what a great deal it is! 21% off the French MSRP is actually like 50% off the Canadian MSRP (before whatever duties I may get hit with). That kind of deal just can't translate the same way on the Bargain Watch page unfortunately. It just means checking many different sources for the best deals. If these sites didn't exist I would be a lot richer, but wouldn't have all these great toys! Keep up all the great work guys!

Jasper_Parnebrick

Too bad Amazon Canada does not sell LEGO. :(

Yea Lego Brandon, doesn't make sense that I can ship something from Amazon.fr to me cheaply, but can't even buy something from Amazon.com!

Farmer_John

I didn't realize that Amazon Canada doesn't sell Lego products. What's up with that? Seems like the Canadian dollar is performing as well or better than any other currency out there...

nkx1

Today I viewed the UK watch list http://www.brickset.com/buy/UK/amazon/, and noticed the Super Car 8070 was going for £62.90. Good deal! However, I clicked on buy now, and of course the real price was £78.99.

In fact, according to CCC, the price has never been £62.90 (the current price is the lowest it's been from Amazon UK). Not even any 3rd party sets going for £62.90.

Is this a common issue, or is this just a fluke?

I would like to be able to use the price watch feature, and I think it's a great shopping tool in theory. However, the utility of the list is obviously negated if it can't be used reliably and is just going to waste my time.

Huw

When Amazon was scanned it was indeed £62.90 but I suspect there were only a few at that price so once they sold the price went up shortly afterwards.

The CCC site, which we don't like to mention here because it's a competing affiliate scheme, will work on the same principle as Brickset, i.e. periodically gather prices, so I suspect it didn't do so when it was at that price.

The UK bargain watch alerts are posted just after 5am, 11am, 5pm and 11pm, so if you want to get sets at the price indicated, make sure you check at those times!

nkx1

Got it, thanks very much for the reply. Duly noted with respect to the competing price tracker. If it's just a matter of me not clicking the link in time to catch the deal, I can obviously live with that. I just wanted to ensure the tool was functioning properly such that I can rely on it for purchases.

CCC

I think the CCC one (nothing to do with me!) only automatically logs prices once per day, so often misses blips.

Farmer_John

Saw Police Station for USA listed at $35 (it still is); however, going to the link shows $87 at Amazon. This is typically the case for any "new" item that comes up...it might actually be on sale once in ten tries. I do like the idea of the Amazon Bargain list; however, I never seem to be the lucky person to get the set at the price mentioned on Brickset. That said, there are many items that have been listed for a year (perhaps a slight exaggeration) that have more than worn out their welcome on the list.

Yellowcastle

Though it may not pertain in this case, you also have to realize that the Amazon Bargain Watch page takes into account shipping when calculating discount off of MSRP. As such, if a $100 item is being sold for $90 buy a 3rd party but has $6.95 shipping, you won't see it show up in the 10% Off results.

drdavewatford

^ Thanks, YC - exactly right. In the U.S. in particular there are a lot of third party LEGO items on Amazon, and shipping on these can be substantial, so we felt that the system had to take shipping costs into account in order to be useful.

For what it's worth, I periodically check the alerts as soon as they appear to confirm that they're not throwing up spurious data, and can almost always vouch for their accuracy.

Yellowcastle

@Jasper_Parnebrick - Thanks for weighing back in. I agree that any automated pricing review would not be able to account for any additional savings calculated only at checkout. For situations like these, we're always going to be reliant on a more "hands-on" approach.

And if the folks over at TnB (or FBTB, BB, etc.) did the legwork to dig up this extra discount, then by all means feel free to give them the credit in your original post.

LegoFanTexas

@Yellowcastle - I am just trying to help, please don't take my comments in a negative way. All I can do is tell you what I find to be of benefit, and try and offer a suggestion to you to add such a feature that I would like to have.

If you had a similar page, I'd give you those purchases instead of TnB. It does, however, require a human to post them, it isn't something that I think you can automate.

Yellowcastle

^ Unfortunately, cherry picking the sets that most interest you and then posting them as a news article is kind of a non-starter. ;o) For the U.S. market, I'll continue to do my best to post the worthwhile (Non-Amazon) sales on Brickset's front page. I'll rely on the Amazon Bargain Watch and Bargain Watch Updates to alert the membership to Amazon discounts. Lastly, the other one-off sales (B&N Coupon Codes, Amazon.fr Vat discounts, etc) will likely continue to just be discussed in the Forum. Hopefully, this covers the gamut for everyone.