Hi all, I've just gotten back into legos when I got a set for my birthday. I'm just wondering when you shop on the lego site as a Canadian do we get stuck paying additional duties once it gets to our houses? Also I have an investment question, are most of the exclusives like modulars pretty much guaranteed to make you some money after 2-3 years? Thanks for taking the time to read my questions.

Hi Wheystud,

 

Welcome you will love it her lots of great people an great advice. To answer your question there is a lego store Canada that you would shop at when you order online. The prices are going to be higher then the US site. The sets all get shipped from with in Canada. So you will not need to pay any duties on them and i believe if you pay  over $75 it is free. To answer your other question about modular. It is a  safe bet in my opinion that most to all modular's will increase in 2-3 years granted they are not being made any moreretired. If they are still being produced they wont make anything for you and will probably lose money on them. The key is to wait until they are about to retire and buy them then or even better wait till they retire and stores but a huge discount on them to get rid of them. 

 

I hope this info will help you out.

Sets from LEGO shop at home are shipped from the US but have a purple customs sticker on them so that you do not pay and further tax. Any orders that you make from the US could be charged tax only, not duty... there is no duty on toys. There is also a handling fee of about $10 per package that they are charging the tax on. You will not get stuck every time as they seem to randomly pick boxes to tax. Ie: I have had orders of $500 with no tax but get charged on a $30 order. 

VERY important... if at all possible, have a seller from the US ship to you by USPS, not UPS or fedx etc as in my experience they always charge the tax and their own handling fee which can be much greater than the regular post fees are. 

 

Right now there are many sets that are cheaper here than in the US and this is mostly on more expensive sets. With the poor Canadian dollar, lost of the exclusive sets are a bit cheaper than in the US and they have a no discount policy now, so it is unlikely that they will go on sale on either side of the border... get em now! or at  least when they should be close to retirement. 

 

Play well

Howdy! welcome aboard, always nice to find another Canuck finding the fold again :-)

 

in TLG's shop@home changing your region to Canada/EF will put you in the Canadian site, higher prices but as mentioned above the shipping is Free over $75 for now (it's likely to change as the dollar remains low) still with the conversion costs it's a breakeven against buying in the US & bringing it across the border yourself. 

 

It seems, from what I see in my local market, the modulars are really slowing down in popularity as there are soo many coming out one after another they are only "must haves" to those that have been collecting the series all along. Even older eol ones are much harder to move than before since fewer completionists are joining in - newcomers don't seem so willing to spend quite so much over retail to get recently eol'd sets as there's always something new & costly just about to come out.  market saturation if you like - also since so many of the recent sets have been horded there doesn't seem to be any worry of a short supply (it's hard for Canadians to price match the US competition anyway)   are they guaranteed to make you some money? "yes, some", but is it enough to tie up the capitol, that's a judgement call, imo it's getting less & less worth it as a heavy investment.   These days anyone who enjoys the series doesn't miss buying the next set directly from shop@home  so the buying pool is naturally getting smaller.

Very insightful information guys, thanks for the warm welcome. I really do appreciate you guys being so helpful right of the bat, I'm very impressed by this community.

Welcome!

 

May i ask which set you received for your birthday!? always interesting to see which set brings people out of the dark ages. It was the 7965 Falcon for me.

 

Looks like your questions have already been answered: Items ship from the US but we are NEVER charged import fees and such. Exclusives are for the most part a safe bet and will return your money and then some in a couple years. As Thumper mentioned though; the market is getting a bit tougher as more and more join in, but still a safe bet.

 

Have fun!

Hi Sandwraithx157, it was the Simpsons house, I had mentioned I thought it would be cool to have to my girlfriend and she ended up getting it for me. I then started looking up other lego sets and became really intrigued by everything lego, the hobby itself as well as the community and the resale potential it brings. I was kind of shocked that the Simpsons house isn't well received in the lego community I thought it was a pretty awesome collaboration and I thought it could potentially have great resale potential but the community doesn't seem to think so so I'm not sure. Maybe it's just my age, I used to watch show religiously back when I was younger and the show was actually decent. Now I'm just trying to figure out what sets are actually good investments. 

Hi Sandwraithx157, it was the Simpsons house, I had mentioned I thought it would be cool to have to my girlfriend and she ended up getting it for me. I then started looking up other lego sets and became really intrigued by everything lego, the hobby itself as well as the community and the resale potential it brings. I was kind of shocked that the Simpsons house isn't well received in the lego community I thought it was a pretty awesome collaboration and I thought it could potentially have great resale potential but the community doesn't seem to think so so I'm not sure. Maybe it's just my age, I used to watch show religiously back when I was younger and the show was actually decent. Now I'm just trying to figure out what sets are actually good investments. 

 

Welcome Wheystud!

 

The Simpsons House is an interesting set... My kids think it's really neat, but never ask to play with it. The fact they are 7 & 4 makes me think that this set will appeal to AFOLs the most.... and that is why it's interesting. It's not kids who are spending $2k on a sealed box Cafe Corner or $200 for a sealed & retired Ninjago set, it's adults and often AFOLs themselves (AFOL = adult fan of lego).

 

There is tons and tons of great information on this site, and the answers to your questions above are a very good start.

 

-> No duty on toys, ever!

-> You need to factor tax as possible on anything imported over $25 CDN.

-> Avoid UPS, FedEx, and (on eBay) Global Shipping if you can as they'll all charge you brokerage fees to do the "customs paperwork." Brokerage fees are usually a % of your total value with a min/max amount.

-> If you buy online from a Canadian website, you'll never pay more (taxes or fees) than what the invoice itself shows.

-> Exchange rates play a big role for successful investors. Good rates mean your costs go down, bad rates mean Canadians might be willing to shell out a few more dollars to buy "Canadian" and that our prices may be more attractive to non-Canadian buyers.

-> If you live near the US border, you may want to look into parcel holding services (note: Lego won't ship to them, but Target, Toys R US, and Walmart will).

-> Be careful of what you purchase from Lego Shop @ Home .. at least in large quantities. Bans can and do happen for people.

 

Feel free to ask questions, but just a friendly reminder than Jeff has implemented an EXCELLENT forum search feature up in the top right... Who knows what little nuggets you might find that we forget to mention.

 

PS - If you haven't been there already, might I suggest giving this thread a read: .. it just might need to be on your Xmas or birthday list.

 I was kind of shocked that the Simpsons house isn't well received in the lego community I thought it was a pretty awesome collaboration and I thought it could potentially have great resale potential but the community doesn't seem to think so so I'm not sure. 

Oh nice first set!

 

Not sure which community you are speaking of, but i'm fairly certain this forum's community is quite excited at the resale potential of this set. Especially with the Kwik-E Mart coming and another wave of minifigs.

 

This theme sounds like it will be around a little while, and we might see more from it, making the Simpsons house a must have for anyone who wants to collect and build Springfield Simpsons collectors are crazy.

 

Maybe it doesn't have the greatest build/look or whatnot (i have no opinions on it as a model), but i -think- i can safety say it will be a good investment. Now i'm convincing myself to start grabbing some... darn it.

Thank you for all the helpful tips Greg, which thread is

Thank you for all the helpful tips Greg, which thread is

 

Which thread is _______?

Which thread is _______?

 

 

Sorry, I accidentally posted without finishing my sentence. Which thread is it that you wanted me to take a look at?

Sorry, I accidentally posted without finishing my sentence. Which thread is it that you wanted me to take a look at?

 

Well I suggest you read a lot of them, but if you're asking about investing in exclusives, this is an interesting one. Many new investors ask questions like "if the limit is 5, can I buy more?" or "can I buy 5 pet shops, 5 palace cinemas, 5 etc all at the same time?"

 

http://community.brickpicker.com/topic/9997-lego-bans-open-discussion

 

It's got lot of good information.. the whole site does.

Welcome!

Welcome to Brickpicker!!

Welcome aboard. I think The Simpsons House will surprise a lot of people once it's retired and no longer available. I wouldn't be caught without at least a couple of them.

Welcome to the site, Wheystud.