Retiring Soon Update

[Edmond Dantes]

Posted literally seconds ago on Facebook:

Lots of new updates. http://shop.lego.com/en-US/Retiring-Soo ... n_Feb13_NA

Some of those sets JUST came out.

[lemus]

Probably somebody in the LEGO IT just messed up. Out of the 9 sets recently added to the Retiring Soon tag, only the Sungnyemun makes sense to me. Notice also that the other 8 have a top tag that says NEW and not Retiring Soon. Even if the Retiring Soon tag is part of the tags in the listing.

[Edmond Dantes]

Probably somebody in the LEGO IT just messed up. Out of the 9 sets recently added to the Retiring Soon tag, only the Sungnyemun makes sense to me. Notice also that the other 8 have a top tag that says NEW and not Retiring Soon. Even if the Retiring Soon tag is part of the tags in the listing.

Nope - taken from the Facebook page:

LEGO Shop: Just wanted to clarify that there is no mistake on the Friends and Chima items. The Friends Pets and Chima Speedorz are set to refresh on much shorter timelines than most sets.

We put items as retiring soon even if they're sold out because it is possible that these items can still be found at other retailers even if we do not have remaining inventory.

[lemus]

WOW! Who understands LEGO!
Unless they know that the pet series, Speedorz and series 9 are a total flop then it seems like the only thing they are doing is feeding the after market!
The whole minecraft effect was not the fault of resellers it is just LEGO doing weird things like this.

[brickarmor]

Second round of Speedorz are imminent, as I'm assuming are the next in the series of Friends animals and CMFs. Who knows how many batches of Speedorz will be made, or how long Chima will last.

[just2good]

Series 9 hasn't even shown up in non-LEGO Stores near me yet!
The Animals/Speedorz sets are understandable, and I'll give 'em until March. Though, I don't understand the need to retire the Starter set.

[dilbert12]

WOW! Who understands LEGO!
Unless they know that the pet series, Speedorz and series 9 are a total flop then it seems like the only thing they are doing is feeding the after market!
The whole minecraft effect was not the fault of resellers it is just LEGO doing weird things like this.

This is no different than the Ninjago spinners. It states retiring soon, not retired. This simply means they are not producing anymore sets. Once they go through their current inventory, that's it on their end. It's unknown exactly how long that will be. The other part of the equation is the retailer which has the sets in their inventory. Simply put, buy the set if it becomes "retiring soon" if you really want it.

http://toysnbricks.com/usca-lego-retiri ... lage-more/

Collectible minifigures cycles are well known for the year now. They come out every 4 months. I expect to continue to see series 9 in the LEGO stores for at least 2 more months.

After market isn't the same as the general public market which makes up most of LEGO sales. Minecraft is a Cuusoo project which young and is making changes as it's ongoing. Why fault after market for the price gouging. They sell what they feel people will pay for it. I don't blame LEGO either. They produced more sets when the demand was high enough and I never saw anywhere that they weren't going to sell more after the initial run. It was all speculation.

[peanut]

I never saw anywhere that they weren't going to sell more after the initial run. It was all speculation.

http://www.brickset.com/news/article/?id=3542" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[Brick & Blue]

The Friends thing is a series, limited run, so the next one will come out when those run out. I probably should get the tree rat and the turtle soon.

What i don't get is series 9. They seem harder to find than series 3-8, and if LEGO is cutting back on the umbers they make than I will be cutting back on buying them.

[vynsane]

Dang, got to get some of those Friends pets for my daughter ASAP.

[dilbert12]

I never saw anywhere that they weren't going to sell more after the initial run. It was all speculation.

http://www.brickset.com/news/article/?id=3542" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Thanks! From my experience, consumer service associates at any company are mostly correct, but they are way down in the chain and really don't know what is really going on at times.

"Update: Tim from Cuusoo has stated in the comments "Actually, the message Dennis received is inaccurate. We knew the LEGO Minecraft Micro World would be popular, and though we are temporarily sold out at LEGO Direct, more than 10,000 have been made, and we are planning to meet demand on this item throughout the year."

[dilbert12]

The Friends thing is a series, limited run, so the next one will come out when those run out. I probably should get the tree rat and the turtle soon.

What i don't get is series 9. They seem harder to find than series 3-8, and if LEGO is cutting back on the umbers they make than I will be cutting back on buying them.

Where are you located? Official release date was 6 weeks ago in US. I know some places sold out quickly, but I imagine they have more inventory at their retail warehouses or getting more.

It's the retailers that order the quantities well before they show up at the stores. LEGO doesn't tell the retailers what to buy and how many. They may give incentives, but it's the retailers you should be blaming mostly. Some retailers may have underestimated the demand. Series 1 is an example when retailers had no idea how popular they would be and did not order much. This is why after market prices are so high for the most popular series 1 minifigs.

[wegj]

Wow, series 9 and the Chima speeders, I don't think I've even seen those in stores much yet.

[Brick & Blue]

The Friends thing is a series, limited run, so the next one will come out when those run out. I probably should get the tree rat and the turtle soon.

What i don't get is series 9. They seem harder to find than series 3-8, and if LEGO is cutting back on the umbers they make than I will be cutting back on buying them.

Where are you located? Official release date was 6 weeks ago in US. I know some places sold out quickly, but I imagine they have more inventory at their retail warehouses or getting more.

It's the retailers that order the quantities well before they show up at the stores. LEGO doesn't tell the retailers what to buy and how many. They may give incentives, but it's the retailers you should be blaming mostly. Some retailers may have underestimated the demand. Series 1 is an example when retailers had no idea how popular they would be and did not order much. This is why after market prices are so high for the most popular series 1 minifigs.

Actually series 1 and 2 was a screw up on LEGO's part. However the last few series of mini figures I have seen at Target, they had nothing, they are just getting over Christmas, Walmart hasn't had any, and I normally get them at TRU and they didn't have any either. Like I said, it's a toy. I'm not worried about it at all. Saves me $50.

Maybe if LEGO stopped making 800 sets a year they would have more time to make more sets. It's getting out of hand. If they can't keep up with the demand then slow down on releasing things.

[janckson]

Not surprised. Lego is producing way too many things at once, WM and Target doesn't have the shelf space to carry all the releases. It's not even a year yet and WM is already clearing Jabba's Palace and Helm's Deep off their shelves.

Good news is that most of the sets labeled 'retired' should still be around to buy, but you should be relatively quick about it.

[vynsane]

Actually series 1 and 2 was a screw up on LEGO's part.

How so? Generalities like this don't really help without some facts backing them up.

[kbsig106]

Wow, the Series 1 Lego Friends bags are being retired - I'm happy I bought them in early December more out of curiosity since I have not seen them in B&M stores until a few weeks ago.

Going to make a note to self, not to take series 2 lightly.

[Morgan19]

Actually series 1 and 2 was a screw up on LEGO's part.

How so? Generalities like this don't really help without some facts backing them up.

I thought it was pretty common knowledge that LEGO didn't anticipate demand for S1 and S2, leading to severe shortages of product...? They didn't produce enough so the first serires were near-impossible to find, then the supply was remedied for subsequent series.

m19

[vynsane]

I thought it was pretty common knowledge that LEGO didn't anticipate demand for S1 and S2, leading to severe shortages of product...? They didn't produce enough so the first serires were near-impossible to find, then the supply was remedied for subsequent series.

m19

It's common knowledge that that's a theory as to why CMFs1 and CMFs2 had low production runs/lifetime. I've heard the other theory that retailers were skeptical about the viability of the product, and thus didn't order at all (Target, Walmart), or ordered small amounts (TRU) and thus production met the small amount of orders, plus LEGO Store/S@H allotments.

It's more than likely a combination of both - TLG wasn't sure about the viability of the product, so did a limited initial production run, larger retailers didn't buy into it, so TLG didn't pump out any more (until they started showing up at LEGO Store BaM kiosks, anyway), etc.

Either way, I wouldn't go so far as to call it a "screw up on LEGO's part" so much as an overly cautious initial release. But you have that sort of supply/demand problem with the first of anything - in the comic world, "issue #1's" of any kind are usually the highest-selling, lowest-printed (back in the day, anyway) issue of the series. Say there were 50,000 copies of Amazing Spider-man #1 printed, and they sold out. #2 comes out with a print-run of 75,000, and sells out. #3 gets 100,000 printed, and only sells 75,000 copies. But #4's print run was already ordered before they got the numbers on #3, so they also printed 100,000 copies of that issue, but only sold 65,000, etc...

That's why CMFs1 - 4 are more high-demand than later series, which ended up showing up at clearance prices in some places (including S@H, Target, and Walmart). TLG may have taken this as an indication to reduce the production run for CMFs9, hence the 'retiring soon' mark.

Or they simply could be attempting to artificially increase demand/sales on these items, because saying something is 'retiring soon' seems to drive people (especially resellers) through the roof.

[Deathleech]

Not surprised. Lego is producing way too many things at once, WM and Target doesn't have the shelf space to carry all the releases. It's not even a year yet and WM is already clearing Jabba's Palace and Helm's Deep off their shelves.

Good news is that most of the sets labeled 'retired' should still be around to buy, but you should be relatively quick about it.

If you are trying to buy every Lego theme possible then ya, it's too much. If you only stick to one or two themes though, they really don't release that much compared to other toy companies. I mean look at your examples - Jabba's Palace and Helm's Deep. They have been on shelves almost a year. In comparison action figures are lucky to stay on shelves for 4 or 5 months before getting replaced with the next wave and most stores only get a few cases from each wave (which may in turn only have one or two of a specific figure).

Granted they aren't the same type of toy, but it still goes to show Lego production runs last a LOT longer than with most other toys. Having Lego quickly retire the little cheap impulse buys after a few months and have quicker cycles with them a doesn't really bother me.