Brexit vote pushes up cost of Lego

Lego will raise its prices by 5 per cent next year, blaming the falling pound in the wake of the Brexit vote.

The Danish company will increase the prices it charges British retailers from New Year’s Day, but said it was up to shops to decide whether to pass on the cost to customers.

Lego, founded in 1932 by Ole Kirk Kristiansen, has become the latest company to raise prices after the referendum vote on June 23 to leave the European Union.

In October, the food manufacturer Unilever threatened to increase the price of its products to British retailers by 10 per cent. This would have affected Marmite, Hellmann’s mayonnaise and PG Tips tea bags. Eventually the multinational backed down, with retail experts believing it had compromised with supermarkets over the scale of its price increases.

Apple raised its UK prices by 20 per cent and last month Toblerone increased the distance between the chocolate bar’s peaks to reduce costs. The change applies only to the Swiss company’s products in Britain and was made because of the “higher costs for ingredients” due to the falling pound. The move by its owners, Mondelez International, which also owns Cadbury, meant that the bars cost the same but went down in weight with 400g to 360g and 170g to 150g.

Headquartered in Billund, Denmark, Lego used to have a factory in Wrexham, north Wales, but closed it in 1999. It continues to maintain UK offices in London and Slough, Berkshire, near its theme park in Windsor. It has moulding factories in Denmark as well as Hungary, Mexico and China.

Tell Denmark we will put up Bacon 20% and make our own

Edited December 15, 20169 yr by botchy123

22 minutes ago, botchy123 said:

Tell Denmark we will put up Bacon 20% and make our own

And... also tell them that most of us drink Real Ale and not Carlsberg!

And the US dollar continues to get stronger......not surprisingly, my international orders are way down. Guess that will continue to get worse. Enjoy your international sales!

These companies need to be called on this BS.  There hasn’t been a sustained GBP fall; there has been a reversion to the mean, with 2015 as an outlier.  They are simply using it as an excuse to profit take.  It stinks.  

Yearly mean.  2016 = 100% 

Todays close:1.19294

Edited December 15, 20169 yr by feed

Did they reduce prices when Gordon Brown put VAT down to 15%?

To my knowledge prices have never decreased as a result of either tax reductions (Sales or Corporate) or favourable exchange rates.   

So the only constant during this period was 10188 GBP price?

I couldn’t say, I didn’t really follow it.  

The greedier they get, the richer they get.

The richer they get the bigger they get,

The bigger they get the harder they fall.

I was actually expecting a DROP in prices due to the new factories' economies of scale and cutting corners in quality by producing in Knockoff Hell China.

That factory opens in 2017.

9 minutes ago, pstebbing said:

That factory opens in 2017.

i believe they already started it this year.

2 minutes ago, Val-E said:

i believe they already started it this year.

Hard to say what goes on over there. But this is what I was referencing.

2 minutes ago, pstebbing said:

Hard to say what goes on over there. But this is what I was referencing.

AFAIK they did the official opening and Jurgen was there. I think maybe they still have to finish some parts of the factory but production was definitely up and running.

yes it does say that they employed 200-400 employees in 2015 and "Fully Operational" by 2017 with a projected 2000 employees. Crazy.

2 minutes ago, pstebbing said:

yes it does say that they employed 200-400 employees in 2015 and "Fully Operational" by 2017 with a projected 2000 employees. Crazy.

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/business/2016-11/29/content_27515224.htm

there we go. A reliable source.

Well done Watson!

http://www.thelocal.dk/20161125/lego-opens-first-toy-brick-factory-in-china

And a Danish one. Seems they are not quite sure how many workers they employ, give or take 800. No wonder Lepin got the moulds with that level of control.

5 hours ago, TabbyBoy said:

I was actually expecting a DROP in prices due to the new factories' economies of scale and cutting corners in quality by producing in Knockoff Hell China.

You got it right the first time.  Why the correction?

According to rumors Lego gives themselves no time to (f&ck) play around with British Pound Sterling in long term, inflating the prices immediately of all new Star Wars Fall wave sets to almost 1:1 with Euro Zone priced in EUR.

Edited August 28, 20178 yr by Shewie

Normally, they would have to give wholesalers a certain advance warning before doing that. My guess is it WILL happen on 1st Jan.

58 minutes ago, Val-E said:

Normally, they would have to give wholesalers a certain advance warning before doing that. My guess is it WILL happen on 1st Jan.

We are talking about LEGO Shop at Home, brand as well as certified stores.

Edited August 29, 20178 yr by Shewie

1:1 with which country, though? Some of us in the Eurozone would be delighted to be at parity with German or Irish prices.....

8 minutes ago, Val-E said:

1:1 with which country, though? Some of us in the Eurozone would be delighted to be at parity with German or Irish prices.....

Yeah, but our salary was not updated. People are generally earning less in GBP nominally because it was worth 1.5x more. Now we earn the same nominal amount as before, i.e. everything just became stupidly expensive compared to our salary.

My favourite book publisher, Taschen, increased price of all new releases by almost 50%. For example there is a book series, £35 each, but the new costs £50. Guess what, each one costs €50. Don't even talk about holidays in Europe... Brexit is the stupidest thing in this century. If I knew it would happen I would not have started to work in this country. I will transfer after 2 years, good luck on the sinking ship.

Edited August 29, 20178 yr by inversion

9 minutes ago, Val-E said:

1:1 with which country, though? Some of us in the Eurozone would be delighted to be at parity with German or Irish prices.....

Sssssh, don't mention our prices, we've been getting away with it so far.