Luciant wrote:zztoy wrote:You are so correct, without resellers their business would NOT be what it is today. The resellers are who are keeping their BRAND alive. The resellers are who probably make up for 65% percent of their sales and allowed their brand to penetrate the global marketplace. Let's remove that factor and they would be like Playmobil.
Looks like some of those Chinese companies are making some great look a likes far far less expensive...I see more resellers selling those look a likes and it will increase very soon. The fact that you now see toysrus/fao and now target selling on eBay suggests a lot. Why would those companies need eBay when they have established web sites that should severe that purpose?
Cheers.
All I have to say is LOL. Resellers are no where NEAR 50% much less 65% of their sales. Go check sales data. As far as the Chinese knock-offs... they are still knock-offs. Do you choose to buy a real Iphone, or a Chinese Knock-off? The reason they are made cheaper, is because the product is inferior.
As far as why they sell on ebay, it's about expanding their market even more. If you can sell 5 extra units by going on ebay, why wouldn't you? It says absolutely nothing about their NEED. It's business... you always want to expand your market of who you can sell to.
I can't believe people being this upset about a lack of sales is causing this. This goes to show that Lego has allowed it's product to get discounted to the point where people now EXPECT a discount rather than paying full price. Granted this should tell Lego to check it's price points, but they've been near the holy $0.10/piece and they still take flak.
Agree on the reseller part, most reseller do not buy from Lego directly anyway, so Lego is not losing sales by them, more like resellers are angry that they cannot make that big of a profit from crappy sales like this. For Chinese knock-offs, they came a long way, yes, they are still knock-offs, but ever since Lego build and manufacture their stuff there, we knew it was trouble, and eventually they might come pretty close to the real thing. I think the question then will be Do you choose to buy a real Iphone for $500, or a much improved Chinese Knock-off for $200?
Totally agree with what you said about using Ebay as another access on selling, it is proven it worked, and that is why Ebay is still around after this many years, it has followers, some only buy from them.
I personal is upset that they are enforcing no discount on exclusives from other retailers, while they are not making that big of an effort to compensate for that, $5 off in points with a purchase of $100 on your NEXT purchase was and even a bigger joke now. A lot of their licensed or non-licensed sets were, are, hopefully will not continue to be above $0.10/piece, but most are, maybe not for americans, but definitely they are everywhere else in the world. Honestly, by moving their factories to countries with cheap larbor already net a gain. Also I remember reading somewhere that their quarterly profit report show they did better than the year before two year straight. This is like the case on why Apple rarely have to discount their products before was because there was a lack of competition, also mainly because people still blindly support them. From a business point of view, if I can sell my product for a 300% gain why should I discount it say down to 100% when people still bite at 300%? Sure we will give them a 10% with the points system when they buy enough from us, that is still 290% profit. What us fans are asking is, if you limit other retailers that would rather make less by selling the sets to us at 100% markup, then be ready to sell us sets ocasionally with 150-200% markup. Also none of this overstock crap either, we want exclusives, the stuff that they limited and what most of us really want.