Retiring Soon - open speculation

[Bricklectic]

8 minutes ago, sauromosis said:

The downside of stock trading is far worse than Lego trading as stocks can go to zero.

This.

That's the massive appeal of Lego investing. If your buyin is at 30% off, your downside risk is almost nil while your upside is up to 100% in some cases. Stocks have massive risks. Especially in this fed fueled bubble were currently in. But thats an entirely different conversation.

Where else can u find an investment with max 10% downside and far likelier upsides of 50%+?

[oneknightr]

2 minutes ago, jaisonline said:

Only if you buy crap companies, have extreme bad luck,  or day trading.
 

I trade stocks but 90% of my holdings are long term. So much better than reselling Lego, no  hassle with buyers / idiots like Toy-Centric, zero shipping concerns, no worries about set refreshes, & no space needed for inventory 

Long term is key. A lot of people try to day trade, me included, and it doesn't end well most of the time.

[landphieran]

1 minute ago, Bricklectic said:

This.

That's the massive appeal of Lego investing. If your buyin is at 30% off, your downside risk is almost nil while your upside is up to 100% in some cases. Stocks have massive risks. Especially in this fed fueled bubble were currently in. But thats an entirely different conversation.

Where else can u find an investment with max 10% downside and far likelier upsides of 50%+?

With re-releases you are starting to see significant downside risk. Factoring in time and space you need AT LEAST 10% return to break even for the effort it takes to buy sell and hold.

[cambridge02138]

14 minutes ago, Bricklectic said:

This.

That's the massive appeal of Lego investing. If your buyin is at 30% off, your downside risk is almost nil while your upside is up to 100% in some cases. Stocks have massive risks. Especially in this fed fueled bubble were currently in. But thats an entirely different conversation.

Where else can u find an investment with max 10% downside and far likelier upsides of 50%+?

There are merits in both stock investing and Lego investing.  One consideration is what's your competitive advantage.  If you are much better at finding and buying undervalued Lego sets but not so good at identifying undervalued stocks, then you are probably going to do better at Lego investing than stock investing.  But there are caveats.  It's much easier to scale up in stock investing than Lego investing as there are far fewer constraints and less frictional cost in stock investing.

Ultimately, each investor really should assess his/her own situation and invest accordingly.

On an unrelated note ... even if one is really good at sourcing undervalued Lego sets, no one is going to pay him/her under a two and twenty arrangement.  However, when it comes to financial assets, if one is really, really good at what he/she does, he/she could be paid under a two and twenty arrangement.

 

Edited November 18, 2020 by cambridge02138

[redcell]

29 minutes ago, landphieran said:

Being a reseller 6 years ago is incredibly different then it is now. Every year gets worse, prices are worse, quantity restrictions, store bans, competition is worse, brand restriction and expectations from sellers are extraordinarily high.

 

I'd disagree with that...I wouldn't say that every year gets worse, but that every year presents new and different challenges.  Two years ago, sourcing was as easy as waiting for Walmart or Target to have a sale and then typing "100" in the quantity field.  Now, it's not so easy and takes a lot more hustle to operate at the same scale that was basically a snap of the fingers back then.  One of the key things for anyone getting into this now to realize is that nothing about the Lego market remains static over time and there's no way to know which direction it will go.  

If someone was wanting to get into this with the hope of operating at the scale of a larger reseller and was starting fresh, I would advise them to look elsewhere.  But, if someone was looking to get into this as a lark or something to do in their free time, I'd say have at it.  That's how I started and I would have never in a million years guessed it would lead to where it has led to for me.

9 minutes ago, Bricklectic said:

 

Where else can u find an investment with max 10% downside and far likelier upsides of 50%+?

You clearly did not put any money into Harley Quinn to the Rescue or the Jyn Erso Constractable if your largest downside was 10%.

[jaisonline]

10 minutes ago, oneknightr said:

Long term is key. A lot of people try to day trade, me included, and it doesn't end well most of the time.

yep.  day trading also cost me some cash.  plus, i rather pay 20% taxes on capital gain longs instead of 37% for short holds

[elmaslıefendi]

I derailed the thread again. Nothing new.

[Voltron]

What I don't understand is how lego is managing to maintain the biggest set inventory to date / releasing huge amount of new 18+ set / whilst also not retiring many sets. Surely their manufacturing / production capacity has to reach near capacity, without building new plants. Or is the plan to reach "peak lego" and then just decline naturally, as year on year growth cant be sustained.

[$20 on joe vs dan]

10 minutes ago, Voltron said:

What I don't understand is how lego is managing to maintain the biggest set inventory to date / releasing huge amount of new 18+ set / whilst also not retiring many sets. Surely their manufacturing / production capacity has to reach near capacity, without building new plants. Or is the plan to reach "peak lego" and then just decline naturally, as year on year growth cant be sustained.

my thoughts exactly...I don;t see how the current load of sets is sustainable...and my guess is that it's not.  LEGO saw an opportunity during early SIP...caught w/ factories closed...once re-opened...it was full steam ahead and "All in" for this holiday season...make decisions later.

I am guessing there will be a lot of sudden and unexpected EOLs/ unknown scarcity in 2021 as LEGO needs to correct/adapt for a more sustainable process.

[landphieran]

29 minutes ago, Voltron said:

What I don't understand is how lego is managing to maintain the biggest set inventory to date / releasing huge amount of new 18+ set / whilst also not retiring many sets. Surely their manufacturing / production capacity has to reach near capacity, without building new plants. Or is the plan to reach "peak lego" and then just decline naturally, as year on year growth cant be sustained.

They aren't keeping up. If you look through most retailers inventory (a week before black friday) 20% of the sets are sold out. They are going out of stock at discounts of 10% maybe 20%. The only thing they have effectively done is keep harry potter and avengers sets in stock. It will be interesting to see what decisions they make this year. They need harry potter level payloads of all lines of sets at this point to make it through the holidays.
 

I expect one of two scenarios:

They continue to try to meet demand of both 2020 retirements and 2021 sets - leaving many holes in availability and a lot of room to flip this christmas.
Resulting in a huge glut of less desirable sets at decent discounts post Christmas

-OR-

Cutting production to some 2020 retirements early

Resulting in great returns for what they cut out, large restocks of 2020 retirements of what they continued with, similar prices and availability to what we see now.

This is a less desirable flipping scenario.

I moved a lot of my 2020 retirement stock to the front of my warehouse. Depending on how black friday pans out, I will determine whether or not to flip next years inventory.

[Achilles]

The competition aspect has been one of the more frustrating/interesting elements. After being threatened with tougher gating restrictions, it seems to be easier to sell on Amazon than ever.  When Walmart had that $25 sale on Queen Whatevra's palace, within a week there were close to 150 listings.  (Which, for those uninitiated, is a lot. A lot a lot.)
Even the Nebulon B, it was funny to watch as everyone was reporting getting their shipments yesterday, the sellers went from 1 to 9 in a couple of hours. (Down to 7 currently).

Mandalorian Battle Pack (still in production) has 133 sellers right now. These are not the sort of numbers we have seen in years past. There are a LOT more sellers much more willing to quick flip for smaller profits and engage in undercutting wars.

And LEGO themselves, sometimes I wonder with stuff like Treehouse and Diner, they are well aware resellers are buying these in large quantity - and to me, feels like they are basically printing money by keep popping them out and seeing them snapped up. Treehouse has 77 listing, Diner 50. And this isn't counting folks hoarding them.

Obviously these metrics aren't the be all end all, but I think they are somewhat telling of things just being different - Obviously, more competition and more supply makes it harder for resellers.

 

I don't really have any advice that hasn't already been given, just kind of echoing how things are definitely different than they were in years past, which is to be expected of course as folks see the potential for profit and it gets more exposure. I personally kind of believed Amazon and LEGO when they said they wanted to make it tougher for resellers, but their actual policies haven't really borne that out.

Other retailers, like Target, have expanded their LEGO selection but definitely changed how they clearance. I've seen several Wal-Mart stores (mostly smaller ones, but still) actually reduce their LEGO shelf space.

 

As always, it's an interesting time to be reselling.

[joneyyy1981]

I think we are going to see a scenario of longer life with less production runs. I think the re release of ship & Saturn v confirms it. Longer back orders, longer lifespans.

[nolan808]

1 minute ago, joneyyy1981 said:

I think we are going to see a scenario of longer life with less production runs. I think the re release of ship & Saturn v confirms it. Longer back orders, longer lifespans.

But as long as the diner goes we'll be alright?

[coelian]

2 minutes ago, raulaco said:

But as long as the diner goes we'll be alright?

I'm afraid it's going to be 10255 first. 

[nolan808]

1 minute ago, coelian said:

I'm afraid it's going to be 10255 first. 

Lol imagine the uproar.

[coelian]

3 minutes ago, raulaco said:

Lol imagine the uproar.

FIFO it's only logical. Wait logic got thrown out of the window in 2020.

[marcandre]

17 minutes ago, coelian said:

I'm afraid it's going to be 10255 first. 

I may bow out if that happened. The fallout here would be pretty entertaining. 

[elmaslıefendi]

Should I wait with sharing the info that 10255 retires first or will all hell break loose if I do so?

😉

[coelian]

The carnage. 

[elmaslıefendi]

Before some people die of a heart attack, I was joking.

[nolan808]

I swear the vw campervan is going to be on the 30 percent Black Friday Deals. Noticed that it's limit has been put down to 3 which is a little hint and the production hasn't stopped just yet.  Makes sense for it to go out with a bang.

[brecki]

Well, if I remember correctly, in 2018 the 10242 Mini was the only exclusive set tagged with a "retiring soon" before Black Friday. And what happened? - it was 30% off. 

Now we see the same development for the 10252 VW. It's the only "retiring soon" announcement here in Germany.

Well, I bet 5 Euro that the 10252 will be discounted and not the 10220 campervan.

But that's only my speculation 😇

[exracer327]

1 hour ago, sauromosis said:

The downside of stock trading is far worse than Lego trading as stocks can go to zero.

I don't know what experience you've had but in 30+ years of investing I have only seen one stock I own disappear (not go to zero, but actually disappear).   When the USA gov't "took over" GM.  Everyone holding GM stock had it taken away from them and all the employees of GM gained brand new stock without having to spend a dime.  Thank you Fed Gov't and Pres. Obama. 

By the way, normally when a company goes through bankruptcy, most of the time they will reorg the existing stock with a reverse split (I.E. for every 5 shares you get 1 share).  But the gov't didn't do this.  They literally caused GM to cease to exist and then created a new company called GM and issued brand new shares of stock to people of their choosing.  None of which included former stock holders.  I'm not rich by any means and if I knew that was their plan, I would have sold the several hundred shares of GM stock I owned at the time.

For comparison, I also bought Ford at the same time and tripled my money not including the regular dividend they paid.

There are way more examples of stocks going up than down.  Stocks may go down like last Feb/Mar, but if you bought in last March then you're money ahead.

[raindog]

1 hour ago, Achilles said:

Mandalorian Battle Pack (still in production) has 133 sellers right now. These are not the sort of numbers we have seen in years past. There are a LOT more sellers much more willing to quick flip for smaller profits and engage in undercutting wars.

That's incorrect.  Sorry.  I saw the Research Institute (21110) get to over 400 sellers on Amazon, as did 75920 at its height.  There are others but those two jump to mind at the moment.

[exciter1]

Just now, raindog said:

That's incorrect.  Sorry.  I saw the Research Institute (21110) get to over 400 sellers on Amazon, as did 75920 at its height.  There are others but those two jump to mind at the moment.

Santa's Workshop was up to 250 at a point.