No Discounts Policy on LEGO Exclusives & Hard to Find Items

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Re: No Discounts Policy on LEGO Exclusives & Hard to Find It

Post by Observer » Fri Oct 18, 2013 1:32 pm

I like this move. Now I know that there is no point in waiting for a sale. Get it now and sooner than later.

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Re: No Discounts Policy on LEGO Exclusives & Hard to Find It

Post by nick91884 » Fri Oct 18, 2013 1:51 pm

Tyrant01 wrote:
mshiels wrote:
nick91884 wrote:Sounds an awful lot like price fixing to me
Well actually in USA it is very legal based on past court cases, for a manufacturer to require minimum prices. That is not considered price fixing.
Look at video game systems for a real good example.
Videogame systems can be marked down, unfortunately there isn't a whole lot of markup on game systems so they only use discounts as a loss leader to get people in the door which is why they are rare. But the manufacturers are not telling them they can't offer sales and discounts.

Lego is actually telling them what they have to sell it for and that they cannot alter the price, which is different.

I'm not saying there may not be precedent set by past lawsuits but videogame console pricing is not a good example to argue that its not price fixing or an anticompetitive business practice.
"The problem with quotes on the internet is it's difficult to determine if indeed they are true" -Abraham Lincoln

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Re: No Discounts Policy on LEGO Exclusives & Hard to Find It

Post by slisa51 » Fri Oct 18, 2013 2:06 pm

I have known about this discount policy for quite some time now and thought it was common knowledge already. This started a few months ago when they began the reseller ban. This year on BLACK FRIDAY Lego will not be offering any percentage off scratch cards or any other total transaction discount. For the last several years on black Friday, Lego had a scratch card you received at the register and it was either 10% 20% or 50% off your entire transaction. This year they will only be offering a few non-exclusive sale items. At least if you are still interested in going to a Lego store on black Friday you wont have to wait in a line. If you are interested in exclusives, you may as well try to buy them before NOV 1st when double VIP ends.

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Re: No Discounts Policy on LEGO Exclusives & Hard to Find It

Post by SpaceNinjaDino » Fri Oct 18, 2013 2:20 pm

Tyrant01 wrote:Look at video game systems for a real good example.
I don't know how that is a real good example. I just got an XBOX 360 'E' Console 4GB (newest low-end 360 version) that retails for $199.99 for $179.99 + $50 Gift Card off Amazon because they were price matching Best Buy. I've seen sales on consoles pretty frequently especially if gift cards qualify.

I hope that LEGO will lift these restrictions maybe twice a year so that we can get deals or allow themselves to bypass that rule for (at a minimum) Black Friday.

I guess LEGO looks at sets like Cafe Corner and says hey we only sold that for $140 and even less. And they figure at a minimum, they should get their full retail cut.

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Re: No Discounts Policy on LEGO Exclusives & Hard to Find It

Post by Deathleech » Fri Oct 18, 2013 2:21 pm

So does this mean there won't be any discounts on exclusives ever? For instance last year Lego had 10% off everything during Black Friday, will this not apply to the exclusives now? If not I might as well buy the sets now during double VIP because it seems to be the best deal you can get.

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Re: No Discounts Policy on LEGO Exclusives & Hard to Find It

Post by littlemic » Fri Oct 18, 2013 2:34 pm

Observer wrote:I like this move. Now I know that there is no point in waiting for a sale. Get it now and sooner than later.
does this person work for Lego? encouraging others to buy at non-sale price sooner than later and he has only 1 post in the forum. :roll: :problem: :evil:

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Re: No Discounts Policy on LEGO Exclusives & Hard to Find It

Post by frackbricks » Fri Oct 18, 2013 2:44 pm

There is also another way to look at this. Lego is the brand. They have always taken back product in LBRs. If you found a great deal at another store you could trade the sets in for an exclusive. You may lose out on the points, but you can buy stuff cheap at Target, Walmart and other stores, then go to LBR and trade in the sets. This of course will not be an option if LBR starts making different boxes with different codes on them.

Either way I think we have some fun times ahead of us.

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Re: No Discounts Policy on LEGO Exclusives & Hard to Find It

Post by bubbafeet » Fri Oct 18, 2013 2:54 pm

As long as there's angry customers and beaten up boxes, there's always a discount.

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Re: No Discounts Policy on LEGO Exclusives & Hard to Find It

Post by Kodiak10 » Fri Oct 18, 2013 3:03 pm

1.) I thought "Exclusive" meant Lego can only sell? I have found otherwise as of today!

2.) I love how not only is Lego upping the price per piece constantly, but Toys R US goes above and beyond to price Gouge and charge 30% more! Should work both ways then according to this report that seems to be true...... Let's be "CONSISTENT" LEGO GROUP!?

Anyone care to explain...

Oh and for the record all "Hard to Find Items" are at full retail except for one set that I have found. They must have missed that one; or they don't care...

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Re: No Discounts Policy on LEGO Exclusives & Hard to Find It

Post by King » Fri Oct 18, 2013 3:41 pm

1brickshyofcrazy wrote:
I think TLG should do what they can or want to curb the reseller issue or Fraud or what ever reason the TLG has but IMO it's really nothing to do with the items they claim are LEGO Exclusives and Hard to Find Items
Like I said in one of my posts...buy a black marker and write "SOLD" in permanent marker across every box if someone buys more than one of a set. Track it on the VIP card.

Problem solved for $2.

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Re: No Discounts Policy on LEGO Exclusives & Hard to Find It

Post by marcusloignon » Fri Oct 18, 2013 4:22 pm

nick91884 wrote:Sounds an awful lot like price fixing to me
To my knowledge price fixing is illegal in this country. I hear several times a year where the government has fined companies for price fixing, but that my be a little different. Either way, I think it may end up hurting Lego more than helping.

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Re: No Discounts Policy on LEGO Exclusives & Hard to Find It

Post by marcusloignon » Fri Oct 18, 2013 4:37 pm

bubbafeet wrote:As long as there's angry customers and beaten up boxes, there's always a discount.
LOL :-D :evil: :eek:

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Re: No Discounts Policy on LEGO Exclusives & Hard to Find It

Post by scotts » Fri Oct 18, 2013 4:50 pm

that guy wrote:I forget if the article above mentions it but this policy applies to employees of Lego as well. My local store told me they can't use their discounts for HTF/Exclusive sets anymore either. This was supposedly one of the conditions of Amazon and others but who know for real.
That is 100% not true, UNLESS it's a U.S.A. only rule.

As long as the money keeps flowing in TLG will keep doing whatever makes them more money. If they set prices people will shop at LEGO for the promos, but they also run the risk of ticking off their retailers if sales go too much in TLG's direction. Also I imagine this is partly in an effort to stop resellers but if they limit discounts less people will take the risk of stocking up on sets which will ultimately result in less sets on the market. Simple supply and demand, aftermarket prices will climb even higher then some sets currently are.

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Re: No Discounts Policy on LEGO Exclusives & Hard to Find It

Post by johnfromks » Fri Oct 18, 2013 5:04 pm

Disappointed by the policy and wishing I'd bought Town Hall from Amazon earlier this year when it was down to $175. But I can't really blame LEGO for doing it.

As far as the question about whether there is any reason for other retailers to carry these sets, I see a few. Many of these retailers have their own credit cards with "points" systems; even though I get a different kind of points when buying from LEGO, I might prefer the Amazon points for some purchases. Also, for birthdays and holidays, many people are more likely to receive a gift card from somewhere like Amazon, Target or Wal Mart than from LEGO, and since these cards are likely not nearly the full amount of an exclusive set, the retailers will still be making some profit.

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Re: No Discounts Policy on LEGO Exclusives & Hard to Find It

Post by auralgami » Fri Oct 18, 2013 5:38 pm

I am quite annoyed by the policy. I, like many other people here, drop a lot of money on Lego. The 10% is a nothing for them, but meaningful for me. To be penny-pinching on a coupon that I intend to use for an item that is over $200 just seems short-sighted and spiteful to me. It's anti-consumer and anti-fan, as are the expiring VIP points.

I think the worst thing is that it is the opposite of warm-fuzzies. Lego used to make me happy to go to the mall and buy a 100+ set with a coupon. Now I'm just annoyed. I don't even get the 10% coupon all that often, and I didn't even go to the store this time.

It has already made one decision for me: I don't need the Sydney Opera House. I was marginal on it to begin with, but now I have no incentive. And yes -- I am that big a pushover that 10% off might convince me to buy a set that I am not 100% sold on. I hope that 10% was worth the loss of a $288 sale.

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Re: No Discounts Policy on LEGO Exclusives & Hard to Find It

Post by C&T » Fri Oct 18, 2013 6:04 pm

well this is a popular topic so here's my 2 cents :-)

I agree LEGO company is likely limiting coupon usage to make more $$ & this is standard business practice if company thinks their coupons are getting abused/used too much but for the limiting purchase quantities to 3-5 per person (whatever the number is) could also be the management/marketing types at LEGO trying to make sure more people get lego boxes instead of fewer people getting more lego boxes. Example, I'm guessing LEGO would rather have 100 people buying/owning 5 kits each instead of 10 people getting 50 kits each. Both cases LEGO sells 500 kits but if 100 people have the kits that is more company exposure & likely more future sales than if a few big spenders buy them all up. After all LEGO is primarily a toy company for kids yes ? That is my impression from their marketing etc, LEGO is not an adult hobby/investing company, or else their stuff would look different. Yes the architecture line is definitely more adult oriented & those huge technic kits are for older kids but the rest of the multi colored pretty little plastic pieces are for kids even tho the engineering/building approaches that can be done with the bricks are also appealing to adults.

I went to real LEGO store this week (as opposed to browsing amazon LOLOL) and the kids were koo koo yapping running around excited as all heck while the parents had that "OMG how much is this going to cost" look :-) And I'm also guessing that AFOLs spend more $$ on legos than parents buying them for their kids, but if LEGO just focused on AFOLs that is a shrinking market yes ? What is the best way to create more AFOLs ? Get them hooked as kiddies, I'm guessing (alot of guessing here :-) ) that most AFOLs also played with legos as a kid instead of suddenly deciding at 35 hey that little plastic brick kiddy toy looks fun, let's spend a few $1000 on them. Again the architecture line is different & clearly marketed for adults, but even there, look at the Design Studio product, that is geared for arch students in college to get them hooked etc.

And there is the LEGO Ambassador program, which is supposed to represent the AFOLs to LEGO company, if this is a hot topic that is a good way to get attention of LEGO company if plenty of AFOLs are upset about purchasing limits. Or maybe this is just like the current gun ammo shortage, too many people are buying too much ammo, so even tho the manufacturers are literally running their factories 24x7, the store shelves are empty alot (see this topic at gun forums), prices are very high & many places limit purchases per person/day etc

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Re: No Discounts Policy on LEGO Exclusives & Hard to Find It

Post by ExclusiveIssue » Fri Oct 18, 2013 6:19 pm

While I understand the policy from LEGO's point of view, they need to realize what this is going to do on the negative side of things.

FRAUD FRAUD FRAUD will be on the rise, even more than it is now.

The scammers with stolen credit cards will now be selling more and more of this high priced exclusives, because not every casual shopper will not be familiar with this new pricing policy. When the scammers price these sets lower than retail and list the sets on eBay, vulnerable eBay consumers will be buying them up 10x stronger than when they could find similar pricing on Amazon and other retailers. Even worse, the scammers will not have to low-ball the set prices as much so It will be harder to tell if it is just a consumer with buyers remorse, someone who hoarded the sets pre-policy and wants to unload or really a scammer trying to maximize his profits.

If you are not familiar with the scam I am referring to:

Scammers list High priced LEGO sets that they don't actually have, when someone buys it on eBay the scammer uses a stolen credit card to buy the LEGO set from LEGO.com and has it shipped to the address of the purchase that purchased it from them on eBay. The scammer gets the cash from the ebay buyer who doesn't know they are involved in a scam, the company who issued the credit card that is stolen is F-ed.

I wonder if LEGO.com even cares if they do millions in sales that are fraudulent, when the issuing credit card company is the one footing the bill?

Consumers and credit card companies BEWARE!

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Re: No Discounts Policy on LEGO Exclusives & Hard to Find It

Post by Luciant » Fri Oct 18, 2013 6:36 pm

Interesting thoughts C&T, I have had some that are in the same school of thought. To add on to your reasoning...

Think of TRU.. they mark up prices, why? Because their main target audience is the 'average buyer' who just wants to pick up a quick toy for their child/gift/etc., not the collectors. Same mentality. TLG wants to grow market by increasing number of sales rather than volume as C&T explains above. Sure, AFOLs put a nice chunk of change in their pocket, but they also are savy enough to avoid paying what Lego deems fair value for their sets, so their profit margin isn't as good for us as it is for the avg joe TRU audience Lego wants too.

One of the difficulties I think they've faced lately, is trying to figure out production runs. CMF production was too short, then too much, etc. Mass buying of Exclusive/HTF sets (Modulars, High Dollar Sets in general) when found on discount, but when full price, sales stagnant. How can they figure out what is actually selling well, and what is moving because of price/discount. It also has caused shortages of certain sets (Ninjago Spinners?) which created an uproar / backlash. Especially for Lloyd ZX. I would bet most of the production went to resellers first.

Remember that "Exclusive" sets are generally great PPP, have exclusive parts/minifigs, etc. They are more expensive to make, have smaller production runs, and aren't as profitable. They bring in the business with the wow factor though. They need to be able to better control their production forcasting unless you want costs to keep going up (a response to heavy discounting IMO).

Finally, I think you could argue that in general the heavy discount puts downward pressure on Lego's price... savy folks realize "you should never buy a set unless you get at least a 25% discount.." because it was so common. That gave TLG a huge disadvantage for those Exclusive sales because they only offer % discounts on special sales days, and those are very rare and not high %'s and not very many sets. Why "only get double VIP points and a free polybag" for buying full $150 for a Modular, when I could wait to get the Modular for $110, pay $10 to a reseller for the Polybag, and still be better off since I don't have to buy anything else to actually get the 'discount'.
I have mixed feelings about new releases: I can't wait to see and get the new sets... but I can't figure out where I'm gonna put them or store them.

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Re: No Discounts Policy on LEGO Exclusives & Hard to Find It

Post by Relhak » Fri Oct 18, 2013 6:45 pm

bubbafeet wrote:As long as there's angry customers and beaten up boxes, there's always a discount.
The stores are required to ship all damaged box 'exclusive' items back to the warehouse now, if they can't sell them for full price.

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Re: No Discounts Policy on LEGO Exclusives & Hard to Find It

Post by Luciant » Fri Oct 18, 2013 6:49 pm

Personally, I don't like the policy as a customer, since I loved to finally pull the trigger on a decent discount when spending that much on a set. But it was also frustrating because you could miss that 2 hour Amazon sale, or have it sold out in minutes because Resellers bought 10 at a time. My wife likes to get the 'big sets' for me as Birthday, Christmas, Anniversary presents, so she is an avg joe and doesn't snag it on a discount.... so ultimately it won't effect me all that much. In fact, it might actually spur me to actually pull the trigger on a few High Value Targets I was waiting to get a discount on, of course with double VIP or freebies from Lego now.

I completely agree with it as a business decision, as it makes sense. This will show them the true demand for these Exclusives, and let them understand the likes/dislikes better. I agree that it really 'feeds' the reseller market, but only in the sense that prices will be higher, but volume will be much lower. Lego knows mom and dad aren't gonna buy Tommy a Cafe Corner on ebay, but instead spend those dollars to buy the lastest Police station. They prefer prices to skyrocket. It builds perceived value in Lego in general, and keeps their target audience pumping sales into them instead of sets they've already sold/made money on. You can't tell me that the Mr. Gold craze didn't create a Buzz in the non-Lego community...it was a Top Story on Yahoo News. Free press that helps drive perceived value of 'colored bits of plastic' higher, so people are willing to pay their prices.
I have mixed feelings about new releases: I can't wait to see and get the new sets... but I can't figure out where I'm gonna put them or store them.

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