**Updated with more behavioral examples** 8/1/2014

 

Many folks ask questions about "what does this product status mean?" Many folks use these terms interchangeably, and that's not helpful to the community discussion. These terms all seem to have distinct and meaningful differences. I think we can learn from them, and their subtle differences.

 

I thought i'd put a post together to gather those statuses (Statii?) and some interpretations of their meaning. Perhaps we could also include examples of how products behaved while in those statuses. Obviously these statuses will change with time, so feel free to suggest better examples as things change.

 

• Lego Shop @ Home (in proposed order of most retired)

• • Retired Product
    • Example Orc Forge
    • Example Super Star Destroyer 10221 (as of 8/18/2014)
  • Retiring Soon
    • Ex: Croc Swamp
    • Ex: SSD never had the Retiring Soon tag, so this is not a required stage

• "Product Not Available" -We

• Lego Shop @ Home
  • In Stock
  • Out of Stock. Ships <some date>
  • Out of Stock. Ships in 30 days
  • Temp Out of Stock
  • Sold Out
  • Retired Product
• Walmart
• Target
  • "Currently Unavailable Online" - Seems to be a 'current' outage, not a permanent one.
    • Example, Arch Studio
• Toys R US
• FAO Schwartz

You may have to add current screenshots.

 

In a few years from, DS might eventually get to "call check for availability", and your example would be invalid

 

BTW, add "call check for availability"

 

You may have to add current screenshots.

 

In a few years from, DS might eventually get to "call check for availability", and your example would be invalid

 

BTW, add "call check for availability"

 

Good one re: Call to check.

 

Dang i ALREADY can't edit the original. Perhaps this is more of a blog post.

IIRC you only have 30 minutes after posting to edit a post

IIRC you only have 30 minutes after posting to edit a post

You can always endlessly quote yourself. Hopefully you don't get banned for doing that

 

• Lego Shop @ Home
  • Out of Stock - Expected ship date DD, Month, Year
    • This seems very defined as to a SPECIFIC date more will be back.
    • Still lets you add to cart
    • Example Horizon Express Kit 
  • Out Of Stock (will ship in 30 days) - this seems LESS definite than the status above, because the 30 days just keeps rolling
    • Example DS 10188

 

I'd say "OOS will ship in 30 days" is MORE definite for an item to be going out than the above info with a date. To me it would seem that if there is a date LEGO already has a plan concerning new productions runs for this and hence can tell its customers when the new batch will arrive. Whereas "30 days" seems more like a "Well, let's wait and see what happens in this status" statement LEGO uses to collect a kind of "pre-orders" (since you can still put in in the basket), but which might NOT result in a new production run if demand is too low - otherwise they could just set of a date of "ships in xxx days", which they don't do for a reason I guess.

Updated the top post with samples of items "MISSING" from a site, Currently the SSD is MISSING from the SHOP.LEGO.COM site. THis is an interesting development, and we'll track it here to see if that is a temp glitch, or a transitional state between being Available, then Out of Stock - Expected ship date DD, Month, Year, Then Out Of Stock (will ship in 30 days) , then "SOLD OUT", and now "MISSING", and perhaps next "RETIRING SOON" or RETIRED".

Updated the top post with samples of items "MISSING" from a site, Currently the SSD & Death Star are MISSING from the SHOP.LEGO.COM site. THis is an interesting development, and we'll track it here to see if that is a temp glitch, or a transitional state between being Available, then Out of Stock - Expected ship date DD, Month, Year, Then Out Of Stock (will ship in 30 days) , then "SOLD OUT", and now "MISSING", and perhaps next "RETIRING SOON" or RETIRED".

Death Start is not missing:

 

http://shop.lego.com/en-US/Death-Star-10188

 

only ssd is missing

Death Start is not missing:

 

http://shop.lego.com/en-US/Death-Star-10188

 

only ssd is missing

 

Fixed, thanks!

Updated to show the SSD went from a "Missing" product to "RETIRED PRODUCT" status today 8/18/14.

 

This shows that "Retiring Soon" status is not a required step, which many suspected.

They dumped retiring soon from the u.k site years ago, "check to call for availability" but you never know for sure, around Xmas you see this happen more and 80% of sets with this tag will not have renewed stock, SSD and any popular set that last over 2 -2.5 years are the mystery, wrapped in an enigma though.