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Comments
Believe it or not, there is a large market for well built custom MOCs and this is coming from someone who only deals and builds in Technic, which most AFOL turn their nose up at... I can't imagine what kind of market that really good system builders would get...
IMO though the real market for this is casual fans who don't know about bricklink and don't want to build models themselves... Great Mocs would do far better to casuals on Ebay since Ebay is so much more well known, but you have higher selling fees... Knowledge of bricklink is devastating for sellers on Ebay...
I noted on the BL forums, I reckon there will be problems with people making money off other people's MOCs. Find something online, submit it as your own original work, maybe amending a couple of parts first. I wonder how BL are going to handle the legal claims that they are allowing people to sell plagiarised works.
And this is one of the MOCs they are showcasing.
A poorer version of something that already exists in an official set at a similar scale. What a way to kill it before it starts.
The Stephen Hawkin one is a copy of one from six years ago with minor changes ... hopefully by the same designer. http://kottke.org/08/07/lego-stephen-hawking
Is there going to be a backdoor price increase in fees?
http://alpha.bricklink.com/pages/newsview.page?msgid=806118
Fees and Pricing
The base MOC price will be the sum of the part price from a seller’s inventory. Let’s say in your store, the base MOC price comes to $10. As part of the submission process, the designer will have selected a design fee of 0%-5% (3% is $.30). This will be shown to the buyer as part of the model price. ($10 + $.30 = $10.30 Model price) BrickLink takes 30 percent of design fee and 70 percent goes to the designer. But, the designers will receive 100 percent of the design fee as part of the grand opening of the MOC Shop. The regular BrickLink fee will be a fixed 5% of the base price and will continue to be assessed with the design fee to sellers on a monthly basis.
This is from a page about the MOC shop, but notice that the regular fees (not the designer fees which the buyer pays) are stated as 5% not 3%.
But I'd never pay for the instructions, not when you see how easy it is to create from the photos supplied.
I can imagine complex mocs being bought - crowkillers technic models for example are great and as has been said modulars, train carriages etc sell on ebay. They are beyond what most could reproduce and they have a wow factor. The trouble is, buying a complete set of parts for complex mocs is going to cost a huge amount. Its going to be off putting for the vast majority of casual browsers and thats assuming there are more than a couple of stores able to supply the parts. So cost is going to put of most casual buyers. Non casual buyers, the lego enthusiast probably won't need all the parts as most will come from their own collection. Can you buy just 50% of the parts easily?
As for the simple models, most aren't going to have the wow factor needed to encourage a purchase in anything approaching large numbers. Many will be easy to reproduce without paying for them. With small models its even more likely you'll have the pieces unless they're very rare which will push up the cost of even a little set.
There'll be a few mocs that I think will do really well - the ones that make you go wow but don't cost the earth. Will it change much? I doubt it, those that already use bricklink will carry on, those that dont but find there way over there will compare the prices of a moc they can buy from bricklink with a set they can buy at retail and I suspect they'll walk away.
I can see a market for MOCs but I don't think this is really it, little novelty sets like those featured in this thread so far ares massively easy to make something very similar.
^I was in the middle of writing something very similar regarding pricing but you beat me to the punch, totally agree.
I just can't see there being enough advantage for sellers to make it worth the effort needed for them to 'complete' the inventory and be able to sell the mocs.
Then the MOC shop would show the pictures, info on if it is instructions for sale or the actual model, and if only instructions were for sale the part list would be required to be uploaded by the seller, and the option to look for parts directly from the shop would be available. I could see that as useful, but wouldn't want the "buy all parts only" feature since I can pull first from my inventory.
http://www.bricklink.com/message.asp?ID=806240
Me: This salad is really ordinary, it's ok, but not great
Chef: now about I make you a much better salad from scratch?
Me: that sound great. What will it be like
Chef: it will be amazing, it will have everything you need in a salad.
Me: can you give me a list of ingredients
3rd party; get real, you can't expect the chef to give you a list of ingredients.
Chef: yes, we can.
Me: great, lets see it
Crickets
Me: what about that list?
Crickets
Chef: ok, here it is
Stares down at grilled cheese.
WTH????
You said a great salad and I get a grilled cheese?? No one you didn't want
to share the list of ingredients
I like grilled cheese, but that's neither what I asked for nor what you promised.
--
Chef: no you are getting it all wrong. This is the cheese to go on the salad.
Me: okay, thank you very much! Bring in the salad, please.
Chef: yes sure
Crickets
Me: salad.. please?
Chef: oh no, I will wait to see how do you like your cheese that will go on your
salad first.
What they need to do is fix that God awful forum layout that they are using... If I took over running that joint, that would have been the first thing that I would have changed...
flickr.com/photos/[email protected]/sets/72157635260224964
Here's my thoughts so far...
1. Yes, getting the parts and inventorying kits is a mare - I would recommend designing so you can get all bits directly from 1 source (pref pick a brick - it solves a lot of problems)
2. Boxes are a bit of a 'mare - I was luck enough to stumble across some.
3. LDD is great for rapid prototyping but not very good at printing instructions - I ended up doing a video.
4. The alternatives to LDD are quite a steep learning curve.
5. Everyone hates you for advertising (I am expecting a flaming for posting this)
6. Retail outlets are tricky
7. make sure you label kits "for adult collectors only" - it gets you out of lots of potential trouble.
8. forget about making any money for the hours you will be putting in. - at best its a self sustaining hobby - my hourly rate for these 10 kits is working out at about 6 pence.