Capitalizing on strength of USD

itsnotme

Curious if any US buyers have found it worth the effort (and extra shipping costs) to purchase from GBP and EUR denominated sellers given the surge in USD in recent weeks and months. While I believe it’s no longer possible to do so with big retailers (e.g. Amazon and Lego.com) it can still be accomplished via other sites such as Bricklink, eBay, etc. Interested to hear from anyone that’s dug into this! 

madforLEGO

If I have to break out a calculator to determine how many cents or few dollars I would save, I don't worry about it and just buy in the US...The only time I do buy like this is when Amazon UK loses their minds and drops sets down to like half off (like they did with #60052 and #60097), its a set that is exclusive to overseas that I really really want (like the first LEGO CNY sets), or in the case of BL its a part I cannot find in the US. Really cost of shipping from overseas (and the condition such items will arrive in) has to be accounted for in your decision as well, I have found that shipping costs overseas prohibit many of my purchases, Im sure same goes for those who are not in US who want to get something from the US to them. That and, while I have been lucky, I have heard of packages either arriving looking like they went through a meat grinder, or it took ages to arrive (and god forbid if you change your mind or its not the right item for whatever reason).

itsnotme

^ Very fair points, particularly on the condition of items shipped overseas. However, the pound is down more than 20% versus the dollar since the beginning of the year, which should translate to more than a few bucks. It's literally >20% cheaper to buy from a GBP denominated seller than it was nine months ago. Agree it was generally unattractive at then, but at some point it becomes compelling. 

CCC

itsnotme said:

^ Very fair points, particularly on the condition of items shipped overseas. However, the pound is down more than 20% versus the dollar since the beginning of the year, which should translate to more than a few bucks. It's literally >20% cheaper to buy from a GBP denominated seller than it was nine months ago. Agree it was generally unattractive at then, but at some point it becomes compelling. 

That works only if the GBP prices have not already changed because the $ is strong. We are getting the problem that lots of imported goods are going up as they are priced internationally in USD. It hasn't happened with LEGO RRPs (yet). So it is only 20% cheaper now if the GBP price has not changed. I sell some stuff on BL, and recently went through and increased prices by 10-20% and it looks like others have done the same so there might not be the bargains you hope for. For sets and more expensive parts and minifigures, I tend to price to be (close to) competitive in the UK, without caring about EU and US prices.

Fizyx

CCC said:

itsnotme said:

^ Very fair points, particularly on the condition of items shipped overseas. However, the pound is down more than 20% versus the dollar since the beginning of the year, which should translate to more than a few bucks. It's literally >20% cheaper to buy from a GBP denominated seller than it was nine months ago. Agree it was generally unattractive at then, but at some point it becomes compelling. 

That works only if the GBP prices have not already changed because the $ is strong. We are getting the problem that lots of imported goods are going up as they are priced internationally in USD. It hasn't happened with LEGO RRPs (yet). So it is only 20% cheaper now if the GBP price has not changed. I sell some stuff on BL, and recently went through and increased prices by 10-20% and it looks like others have done the same so there might not be the bargains you hope for. For sets and more expensive parts and minifigures, I tend to price to be (close to) competitive in the UK, without caring about EU and US prices.

I think in general this is going to hold true, but I think we may be able to take advantage of something that I've noticed happens a lot in the UK that we don't see at much in the US, which is heavy sales (in the 30% range) on large D2C sets.  Those sets very rarely go on sale here, and generally top out around 10%.  Very very rarely we'll see them at 20%.  But it seems like I see major sales from UK retailers on those large sets fairly often.  Assuming that prices stay the same (which, to be fair, is a big assumption like you point out, CCC), I think there are definitely going to be some opportunities for some savings on those sets, as long as we're able to get them shipped for reasonable prices.  Once everything is said and done, we may only end up with like a 15% total discount, but there's still a good chance it may be better than any sale we would get on that set stateside ever.

CCC

The funny thing is, everything is going up so much here that LEGO's recent price rises like fairly reasonable now!

That might also be good for getting discounts. If people don't have the disposable income to spend on LEGO, stores will have to discount in the short term.