Bricklink's AFOL Designer Program 2021

[KShine]

13 minutes ago, $20 on joe vs dan said:

rather than limits...I think packaging will make or break these sets in terms of resale value, appreciation, and collectability.

One side of the spectrum is the 2019 series which was top notch and exceeded all expectations...middle of the road is the Yellow Profit Anchor...we don't know what the other end of the spectrum looks like...yet

Although they have promised nothing in the way of packaging, they would be helping themselves by doing something at least half decent.

Now if they use poor judgment (like setting limits of 5x per set), and decide to just ship loose pieces in a plastic bag - They should expect to receive an awful lot of returns.

[dennugsmello]

23 minutes ago, $20 on joe vs dan said:

One side of the spectrum is the 2019 series which was top notch and exceeded all expectations.

Yes they have. All the Lowenstein castles I snagged have really exploded in price wise since this second round began. 

[MotorCityMuscle]

FYI they made an announcement on the boondoggle https://www.bricklink.com/v2/community/newsview.page?msgid=1279639

[Mark Twain]

https://www.bricklink.com/v2/community/newsview.page?msgid=1279639

BrickLink Designer Program Round 1
BrickLink’s response to feedback
by The BrickLink Team | Jul 07, 2021 17:07 EST
Thank you for the incredible interest you showed in the BrickLink Designer Program. We have been blown away by the response. As with any new endeavor, some things went well, and others don’t go to plan.

What worked
Based on our first round of crowdfunding, we believe the BrickLink Designer Program has strong potential. Your interest exceeds all our expectations. The portfolio of products is strong, and the designers are a joy to work with. We are looking forward to preparing for rounds 2 and 3.

However, there are a few things we need to address urgently with Round 1.

What needs to be improved
Thank you to everyone who has shared comments and feedback with us over the past week. While we understand many of you are frustrated, we are grateful for your quick and clear input.

There are four areas we want to address:
Site performance
Limited production of 5,000 units of each set & ordering glitch
Order limits of 5 sets per customer
Shipping limited to countries serviced by LEGO.com
Site performance & server capacity
When the crowdfunding went live on Thursday July 1 traffic to the site overloaded BrickLink’s servers. This meant some users couldn’t place their orders in time and for many, the site ground to a halt. We apologize for any disappointment this caused. We are currently reviewing server capacity.

Limited production and ordering glitch
The limit of 5,000 units per set was based on the AFOL Designer Program run in 2019. For that release, we produced 2,500 sets which didn’t all sell out. We obviously underestimated the appeal of the Bricklink Designer Program sets and because of that, we will double the limit for future releases.

The high level of demand was compounded by the site performance issues. An ordering glitch meant that people were able to pre-order 5,000 additional Castle in the Forest sets, which means we’ve received orders for 10,000 sets.

We have talked to many of you in the community about how to address this and have decided on the following actions:
Produce 10,000 of the Castle in the Forest sets so we can deliver to everyone who ordered.
Re-opening pre-ordering for round 1 on August 3rd to allow the four projects Kakapo, Great Fishing Boat, Sheriff’s Safe and Pursuit of Flight to also sell up to 10,000 sets.
Increase production for Crowdfunding rounds 2 and 3 to 10,000 each to meet demand.
We appreciate that this approach may not satisfy everyone, but we had to balance meeting users’ expectations with offering a fair outcome, so all designers had the chance to sell the same number of sets and the potential to dilute some of the exclusivity that comes with doubling the number of set available. We hope you understand.

Increasing production will delay shipping and future rounds of crowdfunding. Since we are doubling the production run, the additional 5,000 sets for Round 1 will be shipped in June 2022, as opposed to January 2022. This will also delay the release of Rounds 2 & 3. The final plan for this will be communicated at a later stage.

If, because of these changes, you wish to cancel the sets you’ve pre-ordered, please contact LEGO Customer Service.

Order limits of five per customer
We initially set the maximum order quantity at five per customer. Unfortunately, we saw a very small number of opportunistic customers hoarding sets and re-selling them for inflated prices. We’re disappointed by this as it wasn’t our intention to enable such behavior. We want everyone to have an opportunity to get a hold of a set, so going forward, we will set a maximum order limit of 1 set per customer. This will apply from when we re-open Round 1 to additional orders and to future crowdfunding rounds.

It’s important to point out that 75% of orders for Castle in the Forest were for one set– so we’d like to thank you for being considerate of other fans.

Shipping limited to LEGO Shop countries
We have decided to sell BrickLink Designer Program sets through the LEGO.com shop to give you a smooth shipping and support process. Unfortunately, this also limits the countries to which we can ship. For now, we plan to continue to use LEGO.com and not offer additional shipping destinations.

In summary
For Round 1, we will increase the number of sets available from 5,000 to 10,000. Castle in the Forest has already reached this amount. The four other sets will re-open to additional pre-ordering on August 3rd, but it will not be possible to pre-order additional Castle in the Forest sets. The additional production run will delay in shipping and release dates for crowdfunding rounds 2 and 3.
All future pre-orders will have a quantity limit of 1.
Unfortunately, in the current LEGO.com setup we are not able to ship to additional countries.
Again, we apologize for any disappointment and hope that the steps outlined above go some way to address the concerns raised.
Thank you for your patience, feedback and support for the BrickLink Designer Program. We look forward to building a better experience moving forward.
Sincerely,
The BrickLink Team


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[oneknightr]

Alright, so who's going to cancel their orders now? I'm thinking about doing that. The lack of printed instructions and (nice) box and now the increased production run are ruining it IMO. 

[odysea11]

This doesn't surprise me...the only thing that is a true bummer is the limit of 1 going forward. At least make it two....

And I am NOT cancelling my orders....10,000 is still pretty limited.

[Ogelwoc]

https://www.bricklink.com/v2/community/newsview.page?msgid=1279639

It’s important to point out that 75% of orders for Castle in the Forest were for one set– so we’d like to thank you for being considerate of other fans.

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Right, how many of the 25% reseller scum are from BP?

[Mark Twain]

Alright, so who's going to cancel their orders now? I'm thinking about doing that. The lack of printed instructions and (nice) box and now the increased production run are ruining it IMO. 

I wouldn’t. You’ll have 6 months to sell before the next 5,000 units arrive. That’s a good window to make a flip if you don’t want it for a personal build.

“Since we are doubling the production run, the additional 5,000 sets for Round 1 will be shipped in June 2022, as opposed to January 2022. This will also delay the release of Rounds 2 & 3. The final plan for this will be communicated at a later stage.”


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[ponderingzissou]

5 minutes ago, oneknightr said:

Alright, so who's going to cancel their orders now? I'm thinking about doing that. The lack of printed instructions and (nice) box and now the increased production run are ruining it IMO. 

Wish there were a way for you to redirect your orders to my address

3 minutes ago, odysea11 said:

This doesn't surprise me...the only thing that is a true bummer is the limit of 1 going forward. At least make it two....

And I am NOT cancelling my orders....10,000 is still pretty limited.

Agreed. One to open and enjoy and a second to gift, flip or double the fun. 

[oneknightr]

Thanks for chiming in guys. I guess I'll keep my orders.

[Phil B]

Remember, if you bought 5 Castle of the Forest sets, there will be NO MORE of these sets made, because (I quote from the article) "The high level of demand was compounded by the site performance issues. An ordering glitch meant that people were able to pre-order 5,000 additional Castle in the Forest sets, which means we’ve received orders for 10,000 sets."

So actually, all they are doing is opening the other four up to 5000 more orders, at 1 max per order. If you thought CotF was a winner before, it still is now

[KShine]

Limit was 5,000, but we sold 10,000 - Ugh, that seems a bit embarrassing.

The mob freaked out because everyone was supposedly buying 5x, but 75% were for single sets (and they sold 10,000 - so I guess they had what they wanted all along, but still needed to cry like babies.

Changing the rules going forward to 1x is fine - if they don't all sell though, hopefully they will allow extra purchases.

 

Edited July 8, 2021 by KShine

[Pseudoty]

2 hours ago, Mark Twain said:

I wouldn’t. You’ll have 6 months to sell before the next 5,000 units arrive. That’s a good window to make a flip if you don’t want it for a personal build.

“Since we are doubling the production run, the additional 5,000 sets for Round 1 will be shipped in June 2022, as opposed to January 2022. This will also delay the release of Rounds 2 & 3. The final plan for this will be communicated at a later stage.”


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Will be interesting to see how they ship the castle orders since all 10K sold will they all ship January?

And what was the glitch that only applied to the castle? Did they miss allocate 5K for the USA and 5K for the other 29 countries because it was still orderable in the USA while others reported it was sold out in their country.

Since there will be no new orders allowed for the castle I wouldn’t cancel as the demand is obviously there. 

Edited July 8, 2021 by Pseudoty

[scatttcat]

I just want to give a shout-out to whoever gave me that link AFTER they supposedly sold out… the link that supposedly broke Legos system and allowed DOUBLE the orders . Saved me and allowed me to get my one so thank you!


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[Bricklectic]

I'll be cancelling my pursuit of flights and my fishing boats. 

For my castles my thought process is:

1) No instructions

2) Questions about box presentation

3) 10k vs 2.5k from round one

4) I think there is another castle coming in next round

5) possibly castle wins 90th anniversary lego theme contest

maybe ill cancel 10 from the 15 i ordered and keep 5.

Edited July 8, 2021 by Bricklectic

[lego2016]

12 minutes ago, Bricklectic said:

I'll be cancelling my pursuit of flights and my fishing boats. 

For my castles my thought process is:

1) No instructions

2) Questions about box presentation

3) 10k vs 2.5k from round one

4) I think there is another castle coming in next round

5) possibly castle wins 90th anniversary lego theme contest

maybe ill cancel 10 from the 15 i ordered and keep 5.

If you happen to want a Lowenstein Castle from round one, I would trade it for 2 of the new ones

[Hardwired]

https://www.brickfanatics.com/lego-addresses-scalper-concerns-for-bricklink-designer-program/. 

I am curious how they plan to stop scalpers from reselling... Anyone else catch that bit?

[Pseudoty]

5 minutes ago, Hardwired said:

https://www.brickfanatics.com/lego-addresses-scalper-concerns-for-bricklink-designer-program/. 

I am curious how they plan to stop scalpers from reselling... Anyone else catch that bit?

“The LEGO Group and BrickLink also emphasised that the number of people buying sets for resale was only a small proportion. 75% of orders for 910001 The Castle in the Forest were for just one item and a further 15% were for two, suggesting that the majority of people were purchasing them for personal use.”

I believe this is an untrue assumption or being used to calm the masses.  They need to look at orders per account not sets per order as many resellers ordered multiples but in units of 1 or 2.

 

“BrickLink also stated that it will be taking action against eBay sellers to stop anyone from selling on sets from the Designer Program at high prices.“

Hmmm…

[BrickLover80]

20 minutes ago, Pseudoty said:

“The LEGO Group and BrickLink also emphasised that the number of people buying sets for resale was only a small proportion. 75% of orders for 910001 The Castle in the Forest were for just one item and a further 15% were for two, suggesting that the majority of people were purchasing them for personal use.”

I believe this is an untrue assumption or being used to calm the masses.  They need to look at orders per account not sets per order as many resellers ordered multiples but in units of 1 or 2.

That's very much possible.

But even if it's by account, the logic is somewhat flawed. If five people order one each and one person orders five, 17% of orders were "resell" orders but 50% of units went to resellers. So using Lego's numbers, more than half the units were bought by multiple unit buyers. And that's before thinking about multiple orders per account.

[Pseudoty]

36 minutes ago, BrickLover80 said:

That's very much possible.

But even if it's by account, the logic is somewhat flawed. If five people order one each and one person orders five, 17% of orders were "resell" orders but 50% of units went to resellers. So using Lego's numbers, more than half the units were bought by multiple unit buyers. And that's before thinking about multiple orders per account.

Good point, but I don’t think it is as high as 50% because many collectors buy 2, one to build and one to keep. The other wildcard that could make it greater than 50% is the link that allowed you to order 5K units after it was marked as sold out, that is a classic reseller  only move. 

[Al Legorical]

"Ordering glitch" allowed exactly twice the number of (what they now call) pre-orders, on Castle only.... humm 

so they "say" 10,000 were ordered 25% went to investors  scalpers... 75% were single copy  2500 units on secondary market. Assuming they are being honest, without numbering it could be any number

don't know if anyone else noticed, after it showed sold out on BrickLink, on LEGO. con back orders were accepted.. 
 

one per customer? That'll be interesting I wonder how many new accounts appear on BL 🤔

Edited July 8, 2021 by Al Legorical

[iahawks550]

There was no "glitch". We know it, TLG knows it, everyone knows it. It's great publicity for them to sell even more of this type of set in the future.

[Bricklectic]

2 hours ago, Hardwired said:

https://www.brickfanatics.com/lego-addresses-scalper-concerns-for-bricklink-designer-program/. 

I am curious how they plan to stop scalpers from reselling... Anyone else catch that bit?

Director of Community Engagement Tanja Friberg has now revealed to LEGO Fan Media (including Brick Fanatics) that the company has ‘taken action’ against the sellers responsible for those listings in an attempt to clamp down on scalpers.

“As you saw, [The Castle in the Forest] went up on eBay in the amount of 800-something dollars – completely crazy,” Tanja said. “We have taken action against that, because eBay has a guideline that if you’re not able to ship your product within 30 days, you cannot put it up for sale.

[Pseudoty]

On 7/3/2021 at 6:12 AM, Pseudoty said:

I think anyone preselling this now on eBay is foolish. And for all the people complaining about what they are “going for” on eBay I don’t see one sold listing as of yet.

So they are going after the pre-sale rule so once it is actually released not sure what they could do other than try and ban that item but there are easy workarounds for that.

Edited July 8, 2021 by Pseudoty

[minicoopers11]

12 hours ago, KShine said:

if they don't all sell though, hopefully they will allow extra purchases.

 

That's what they did last time. Of course, not owned by LEGO yet, but Bricklink sellers got first dibs on bulk buys.