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The Brick Closet is my eBay Store - open to all shoppers! I PMed Jeff yesterday about putting up a banner ad for two primary reasons: 1. Finally hitting that mythical "100" positive feedback mark that many of you hit a long time ago. 2. Meeting the threshold for "Top Seller" status Jeff is right - I saw a big uptick in visits to the site today. I'll try to post some statistics on views, etc. once eBay's Traffic Reports feature comes available. How many of those visits were from curious Brickpickers remains to be seen. And Frog, nobody wants me as an overlord...

I thought it was this.....

Comparing Lego to Coach bags and diamonds is a bit of a stretch. If your theory was true, then the part-out value of sets would be a fraction of the cost of the set because when you're selling individual parts, you've removed the design and name, and are simply peddling plastic bricks. However, the part-out value of sets often tracks somewhat closely to the cost of the set. If you took a Coach bag, stripped it down to the fabric, you couldn't sell that for anything close to the value of the assembled bag. There's not really an appropriate comparison to diamonds, but the value there has been created through a monopoly cartel and savvy marketing. IMHO, the reason that Lego bans resellers is that they want to control their distribution channels and build long-lasting relationships with the customers who buy directly from LEGO Shop at Home. As a result, they don't want resellers using their in-house retail channel as a wholesale channel and draining all of their inventory when a set goes on sale. I have no problem with TLG controlling their distribution mechanisms in this way and also have no problem conforming my buying to their wishes. If TLG only wants my retail dollars,that's fine...there are plenty of others out there who will gladly accept my wholesale dollars.

I have banned myself from being banned so if they try to ban me I will force them to take my money because I called it first. Nannie nannie nah nah.

Hi, Never know about this site before today: http://www.brickwatch.nl/ It's a sort of price watch (lik tweakers.net), but then for Lego! You can even make a personal watchlist. Credits go out to JPDeckers in this topic: http://www.lowlug.nl/forums/33/10650.html

http://shop.lego.com/en-US/LEGO-Promo-Gift-Card

Picked up Dol Guldur Battle today at B&******. Used 25% discount, member discount, and gift card from work to get it down to about $30. Probably build tonight or tomorrow night.

Quick update - my first with the banner ad showed an increase in eBay Store visits of over 1,000%! To be clear, my store visits were low before, but they really spiked yesterday. Today, it appears my site traffic will decrease slightly from yesterday, but it's still way up over my last month's equivalent dates. And for those who say the holiday season is likely part of the bump, my store visits prior to the ad were about the same as they were a month prior, if not a little lower. I expect to see a steady stream of clicks from the BP ad in the near future, but they will probably tail off from the insane spike I saw yesterday. It's the Brickpicker Effect in a different form... EDIT - I also sold a good chunck of merch yesterday too!

Feel free to peruse the hundreds of topics here that answer your question.

While I generally agree, both 41999 and 21102 (when first released last year) were sets that were produced in limited quantities and not so easy to get. Veteran Lego resellers and those that followed this site knew these were coming/available, but a good chunk of the rest of the world were left behind/out of luck.

Yes, you bought a lot from me and I appreciate it! I'm not mad about it by any means. Quite the opposite because I don't think I would have made that much had you not been buying them all from me and everyone else selling them! My point is that at the $400-450 price there weren't that many takers other than you. If you hadn't been buying them all up at those price points, I think the supply would have exceeded the demand, keeping the price in the lower $300s.

Totally agree, which is why I also added the (admittedly churlish) part about my sales and procurement going so well despite the website ban. I just wanted them to know that they are not stopping or even slowing my game. As far as previous posts speculating about the reason for all this, my theory is the following: Lego wants to have as much control as possible over resellers because they are selling an item with a low inherent value. Lego items have a high value because of name and design. Without name and design they are simply pieces of nearly worthless plastic. This is similar to Coach handbags, another company which tries to stop resellers (they go even further than Lego in their zeal to stop resellers) because they also know that their items have low inherent value. They are selling fabric bags worth around $5 in actual money. They become $500 because of the Coach name and design. The diamond cartels also engage in similar practices of strict control because diamonds are not actually scarce, contrary to public opinion. The diamond market is artificially created. Go try to sell a used diamond and you will find out really quickly what the inherent value of a diamond is. In fact, most diamond dealers have a strict policy of not buying used diamonds. I could go on and on but I think you get the idea. The bottom line is this: if you are selling an item with a low inherent value you need to tightly control the flow (sale) that item. If the market gets flooded with items like this the price will drop precipitously and the whole house of cards will collapse. Lego knows this. Coach knows this. The diamond cartels know this. I don't think it's much more complicated than this.

This is just the beginning of capitulation. That's the first seller dumping it this low in a while. We need more weakheads to puke out their inventory and throw in the towel befere it's going back up. Put on your helmet, sit tight. It's going to be a hell of a ride.

Yes, and we will just buy it using Amazon UK

Regardless, a good chunk of the sets sold on ebay during that time went to you. If you hadn't been buying them all at that price, I don't believe there were enough interested buyers to support the price, which is why the price has been dropping off. I'm not saying it will never recover, it will, but not at the pace it went up before, unless you start buying them all again.

I've been fairly lucky with ordering from TRU, but my distribution center is only about 100 miles away. I get most of my TRU stuff delivered from there. Yes, I've received damaged packages from pretty much all online retailers. I have to say, YoYo.com is probably been the best performer for me.

Yes. For that reason the set will struggle to do well IMO (as well as other Iron Man suits being available in other sets)

Hello, Vampire Hearse is still available on the UK store, check the serialnumbers, only the "glowing sticker vers." is retired

Instead, by the serious play set with light blay riggings. Those riggings will likely just get in the way though, so you can send them my way. I'm just trying to let your employees' creativity flow.

Sounds fun. Buy a couple of sets and let them have a go for an entire day. Maybe a team competition too. Cheaper than hiring professional team building consultants.

Anybody trying to set up a Lego account will make a huge mistake, You have to carry 75% of the Lego Themes, Every Set in the theme, You need a Retail sales License, You have to show a actual Picture of your Store, plus paying State taxes every quarter."Now here are a few examples of how much Lego are Wholesale. Lets take the New SW Gunship and Jabba's Barge. Retail is $119.99 your Wholesale price is $83.99 a piece, 2 to a case so $10 a box to ship so you are paying $88.99 each for them. Now Amazon and Target just had 2 big sales that you could of gotten both as low as $65-70 each, not counting all the other great sales they had, so why on earth would anybody want a Lego account and Loose money most of the time as most people are buying from Amazon,Target,Etc. Plus you can't carry no Hard to Find and Exclusives." Another thing Amazon and Target,Walmart Lost money on most of there sales, so wasting $10,000 or more to set up a account will loose big time. Before you could order what ever set you wanted, so me and 65% of Wholesale buyers were buying 99% of Large Sets and we made lots of money. Now 75% of Wholesale sellers like me has had there accounts cancelled because we would not accept there terms. ED

You sure it wasn't under the cone of silence?

I don't get the outrage. Toys R Us just did the same thing. The $10 gift card with $100 purchase is only good for 1 week! I don't think this is that unusual or even a big deal. Just saying

I've been doing great since the last week of November (both buying and selling), considering I just do this to earn some extra cash, I am extremely happy with the results.

It is a nice banner, and I assume it is a member here. There's definitely some nice pieces/listings in there.

I think that will remain a mystery forever, and ever. And ever.

The way I figure it is this: even if I'm only making $20 per DC (after all fees), this set will be available much longer through 2014...why not capitalize on a hot item now for christmas...make 30-50% margin and I can always stock back up on DC's again later for the long term?

yes. the same http://www.bricklink.com/catalogItemIn.asp?M=sh015&in=S

The Hobbit, Lord of the Rings, one and the same really. Lot of this talk from naysayers sounds awfully similar to people going on about the original trilogy and prequel trilogy with Star Wars. Anyway, An Unexpected Gathering is one set which truly ties in to both The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings as it is Baggins 'little hole in the wall'.

I'm surprised they released the second wave when they did. I figured they would wait until the end of November or first week in December. Had they done that, they would have been under $300 for Christmas. Even with the earlier release, they're getting pretty close. I really think Mark had a huge impact on the resale of the set that could be felt for quite some time.

Young kids talks about how much they want this set while I was buying these at the Lego store. Not many parents will shell out 2 bills on a toy unless you live in Greenwich, Newport or Orange County. These kids will be buying from Mark or myself, if these kids don't end up dropping out of high school and get a decent job. For the short sighted flippers, you are clearing 80 max if you sell at 320 on Ebay today and it's still a superior ROI in 3/4 months.

Damn samsclub shipped my soundbar without a box. It's supposed to be an Xmas gift and my wife has now seen it. Also way to let everyone know what item they should be stealing! Boooooo.

Who's this Mark we're talking about here??

Yeah, Mark bought alot for $400 approximately. If they were an investment you would think he would wait till he could sale them for a significant chunk. If he using them for some other reason, and not planning on selling them that just means less supply. To me, Mark buying alot up, at that price, is solid for other investors that bought them for $200 with a christmas promo and ten percent in VIP points.

You may want to hurry, 3942 is still going up on eBay. If nothing else feel free to PM me, maybe we can work something out

Not sure if this really means anything but I might be inclined to take the plunge and pick up a few during 2X VIP this weekend just to be safe.