Jump to content

Leaderboard

Popular Content

Showing content with the highest reputation on 09/07/2014 in Posts

  1. Have to share this story. I may have created a monster. I told my parents (who are in their mid-70's) about the RI. They live in a different state than me, so I sort of half-jokingly told them they should start stalking the local legoland discovery center to see if they can get any. Well they did. My mom showed up the day the truck came in and they told her they had them but hadn't unloaded yet and try back later. So she has been calling and calling and called me to tell me today her and my dad showed up, in her scooter, with a packed store. She asked the cashier for the RI and he said they had some in back. She asked how many they had and he told her 8 but there is a limit of 2. She gave him a song and dance about how she has a ton of grandchildren and she has promised them this set and she will be damned if she disappoints her grandchildren. She told them she has been calling and calling and this is ridiculous and "I want all 8!". they told her there was a limit because people were reselling them to which she replied "Do I look like I am someone who is going to sell these? What am I going to do go on the corner and sell them from my scooter?" She walked out with all 8. The moral of the story? No more sympathy for grandma. Grandma > Reseller, especially when playing the look at me I am just a grandma card. Anyone know any quality makeup artists? Johnny Knoxville in Bad Grandpa can do it, so can I!
    10 points
  2. This is harder to classify than you might expect. The first reason is regional access. In Germany, BL stores have access to one or more gray sources (or at least sources they play close to the vest), and you have multiple stores competing with 1+ million parts. ChromeBricks has about 5.8m parts right now. Outside of Germany, there is no parts source available to sellers, so a large store is probably 500k+. The critical mass to sustain regular orders seems to be about 50-60k, so I'd say that 50k-500k are "medium" sized stores. 5k-50k are "small, but serious stores". Less than 5k are usually hobby sellers trying to unload excess parts from their collections or make a quick buck. The second issue is lot quality and lot diversity. Because there is no easy source (excluding Germany), medium and large stores build their inventories up in different ways. Some stores are aggressive parters, buying 20+ copies of a set at a time and parting them in. The best example of this is PBD which was "going out of business" for a year and liquidating but changed their mind recently. The challenge with this model is that the demand for specific parts such as basic 1x4 bricks does not match the distribution of those parts in sets. So your store ends up holding 20x lime wedges for years while the 20x blue 1x4's will sell within a week. Over time, this leads to huge inventories (PBD is 2.3m) but little of it is liquid. Other stores have old recycler stock that is lingering. An example of this is Lonely Brick which has 1.1m parts, but 20% of that number is in 4 lots. Anyone need 70,000 reddish brown 1x1 cones? Another band of sellers are PaB wall miners. The majority of their store inventory comes from buying PaB cases from LBR stores (although Lego is really trying to weed this out with changes to the policy this year). This allows them to build up decent inventory quantities, but the variety of lots available is the same across many stores, so the price competition on those lots can be fierce (read: no margin). Every store finds their niche, which makes it such a fascinating marketplace. We try to use a balance of methods that keeps our inventory diversified and attractive to buyers. We've found that its really hard for us to keep more than 1m parts in inventory because they turn over faster than we can restock. An alternate way of looking at BL store sizes is to analyze selling feedback volumes for the past month. You can see the sellers ranked by feedback here. "Large" stores are getting 200+ feedback per month, which equates to roughly about 300 orders per month. "Medium" would be 100-200. "Small" would be 20-100. "Hobby" would be less than 20. When you put the inventory number side by side with the order volume number, it sheds more light. For example, Sir Troy has 1m parts but only 50 feedbacks posted in the last month, meaning that his store is not very active despite the parts count. If you end up publishing data on this, I'd be very interested in reading the findings. -Jason
    7 points
  3. Thanks for the idea http://delaware.craigslist.org/tag/4656433049.html
    5 points
  4. Eurobricks (Click on each image to enlarge for full detail.) >Vampire Castle by CASTOR-TROY >Vampire Castle by CASTOR-TROY >Vampire Castle Details by CASTOR-TROY
    4 points
  5. That reminds me of the different modular enhanced mods of the Arkham Asylum Breakout set I have been meaning to post. (Each image has a link.)
    4 points
  6. You should create a new craigs list ad. "Time Machine that will take you back to Sunday when TMNT Lairs where available for $15 from Target" $5,000,000,000
    3 points
  7. SSD almost @ $800 Amazon... might hit a grand this holiday season .
    3 points
  8. Shadiness knows no age limit apparently.
    3 points
  9. If I told my parents about it, they'd come home with Galaxy Squad out of spite. They'd say it was payback for one of the times I ran up the long-distance bill.
    2 points
  10. Great story. Thanks for sharing. Now all you need to do is take Grandma on a shopko run to utilize her 15% senior citizen discount like I do with my old man.! I sure do! Anyone who would like to borrow it to complete their disguise, just let me know!
    2 points
  11. Lego posted this event on Facebook about building a mini Ghost ship. Looks like Ghost ship on 10/11 and Bat Signal on 10/18. Perhaps the Bat Signal can guide the Ghost Ship. https://www.facebook.com/events/275621232637987/
    2 points
  12. Im gonna stand outside an Apple store and ho.d a sign "do uou know how much Apple actually pays for an iphone??,! Thatll show em. You didnt build that, somebody else.....built that
    2 points
  13. Hit the jackpot today @ the Belmont yard sale. I got the game, Lava Dragon, for $3 dollars, and a box of assorted bricks (not all LEGO) for $10 bucks. Total was $13 dollars. Not that big of a bulk lot, BUT it had the 3828 Air Temple from the Avatar theme! Also, you know how you can feel each brick right when you open a box and it has that brand-new feeling that just makes you go "So new!" Well, these bricks had that feel, and the minifigures were in pristine condition except for slight animal bite marks on one (hardly noticeable.) I just completed the temple and am going to start on the extras soon. Only missing a few pieces that I had in my own collection, and two of the window stickers near the top. It also looks like there were two of the clone trooper battle packs and an assortment of droids. I'll probably sell a few of those to make a small profit.
    2 points
  14. What does Yoda know anyway? He spent the last years of his life living in a hut in the middle of a monster-infested swamp. If that's success, I'll take failure any day.
    2 points
  15. It has been touched on in other threads but RCSS has some serious discounted items to report on. I've purchased a big bulk of items this week. Everything I list is 50% off: 75003 A-wing 75015 Alliance Tank 75016 Spider Droid 75022 Mandalorion speeder 76003 Metropolis Showdown 76004 Spider cycle chase 76008 Iron Man vs Mandarin 79011 Dol Guldur Ambush 79012 Mirkwood Elf Army 70400 Forest Ambush 70401 Gold Getaway 60017 Flatbed Truck 6153 Cinderella's Carriage (Duplo) I'm sure I'm missing some others particularly from the CITY line. And while some 2013 sets were discounted other 2013s were not for some reason. I saw dozens and dozens of 75000 and 75001 army builders sitting there for regular price but that could change at any time.
    1 point
  16. 150,000+ (varies a bit day to day, but we've been able to keep it above that even with very good recent sales). Definitely aiming for 200K minimum by end of year.
    1 point
  17. I am glad you like the Brick Trader feature. Brick Classifieds will be a whole new site and not even be attached to Brickpicker or the forums at all. Over time elements of both sites will cross paths with information, but they will be their own platforms.
    1 point
  18. A Lego technic 8053 mobile crane (2010) used, complete with box and instructions for 10
    1 point
  19. I've got just over 40k pieces in my store, with more to part out, and I get maybe 2-3 orders/week. If you go to the search tab and then the find stores tab under that you can see a list of all the stores and you can sort them by part count or lot count.
    1 point
  20. My wife hacked my BP....my bad ;)
    1 point
  21. I have only one on purpose. I'm not convinced this is a good seller in my country. France is not the USA, and it may be annoying to ship it through europe, but I don't want to miss the boat so... just 1 set ! Do you think moderate shelf wear will be a problem? Because I bought mine at a toy shop clearance after Christmas for ~
    1 point
  22. 1 point
  23. Disappointed new investors who expected a jump in value as soon as retired, maybe ? The really good thing about this set IMO is that it is certainly a long time seller, so it can both be considered as an "investment product" (to ear some money) and as a "safe investment" (low probability to see it drop in value, as long as AFOLs exist).
    1 point
  24. How he made the walls is just MAD. Nice work!
    1 point
  25. I'm dying here...that's hilarious! Alright, that's it. I'm putting my mother to work now.
    1 point
  26. *whistles* More Mixels Series 1...
    1 point
  27. Wow! A helpful non-sarcastic reply from Stephen is all the love I need on a Saturday Night Deal. I'll have my agent contact you with the delivery instructions. They will be coming via freight from Gahna.
    1 point
  28. If you're not feeling the love, perhaps you forgotten the glove. :whistle:
    1 point
  29. If it makes you feel any better we all love you ;)
    1 point
  30. What a jerk. You should go to this guys job and interfere with him when he's trying to make a living.
    1 point
  31. i am waiting for this to go on sale somewhere - back door way to get some exclusive minifigures including the retro 60's tv show batman and robin that was sold at san diego comicon and the joker minifig from batwing over gotham and funhouse escape. mad that i left them on the shelf at walmart near me for $24. poof on me.
    1 point
  32. Thanks again Wal-Mart app! 6 x 75018 - Star Wars: JEK-14's Stealth Starfighter - $20 each 2 x 79007 - LOTR: Battle of Black Gate - $29 each 1 x 70006 - Chima: Cragger's Command Ship - $40 each 3 x 75000 - Clone Troopers vs. Droidekas - $5 each KMart.com 3 x 21107 - Minecraft Microworld - The End - $26 each (after $10 off $75 and points, also received $20 in points on $75 purchase with a stacked coupon)
    1 point
  33. These Grandmas are making it harder and harder to be a reseller. What would really be funny is if she charged you $40 for them ;)
    1 point
  34. 1 point
  35. I got a response from Amazon asking for receipts for all the 'Lego Brand Toys' I had listed. I sent them the scans, hopefully it will work out. At least they are keeping an eye out for fakes. Ebay is flooded with them.
    1 point
  36. 1 point
  37. Winter Village sets are proven winners. You can argue piece counts, weights, box size...whatever, but you know year in and year out these sets will outperform many other LEGO themes and will make investors and resellers money. Are there better choices...YES, but it is an easy choice for people who dabble in the LEGO secondary market and want "guaranteed" profits. They are cute and creative sets with somewhat limited production runs, so what else does an investor want?
    1 point
  38. This thread is 136 pages..... I think 130 of them are useless. I remember when someone even had a funny remark in the daily deals and it was shunned upon. After 10 pm est people :)
    1 point
  39. 2 x LEGO Juniors - Defend the Batcave on Amazon - $37 shipped I'm not holding my breath.
    1 point
  40. Amazon went out of stock on the Delorean.
    1 point
  41. There's always the Winter Village Chopper Showdown...
    1 point
  42. They will either both be back, or neither will be. Or one will be back and one will not. Or both will be back briefly and then discontinued again. Or Exo will be and not RI or vice versa. There will either be one or more production runs of both, either, neither or no more runs of one or the other or both. It is likely that I will buy between 0 and 100 more of both. Prices will likely remain the same for RI, increase if supply is low, or decrease upon multiple more runs. For Exo the outlook looks the same. Mark my words, put it in the bank. My Lego manager insider told me, his wife plays bridge with the wife of a guy who works on the board of directors of some place that knows the CEO.
    1 point
  43. ..and into the arms of the Devil Reseller!
    1 point
  44. Very nice box and set ... Will be getting some for sure ... If only I was a builder/collector I could appreciate these bad a$$ Lego sets much more!!
    1 point
  45. Absolutely beautiful. At only $200, purchasing one per month from release to eol shouldn't sting too bad. I'm going all in on this one.
    1 point
  46. In this thread, the VIP invite is on display, and it shows that there will be a "Winter Skating Scene" will be available this November. I'm really excited about it, because I've wanted to get a nice skating scene going for my village.
    1 point
  47. For those wondering why Lego didn't include a certain red-nosed reindeer. Marcos is the designer of the set. Sent from an iPhone using the Brickpicker app
    1 point
×
×
  • Create New...