I have a relative who's been helping me out with buying lego. He works for a big box store but can't tell you which one. He basically lets me use his employee discount of 15%. He's about to quit and asks if there's anything I want to load up on. With this said, do I get the most of my money by buying exclusives (modulars, Simpsons etc) at 15% off or do I use my funds elsewhere buying up supposed EOL sets at full price? (GE, SSD etc). The "eol" exclusives are oos at the store he works for. Opinions are most welcome.

Cliff notes: exclusive with discount vs eol at retail, where to tie up funds?

I guess I would buy TB's , TO's  and DS at discount......Instead of GE SSD R2D2 that probably you already missed the boat on those.....

It depends. How much money do you have to spend? Which sets are you looking at? Perhaps split it up? Are you factoring in the worry that you might not get those "EOL" sets? (guarantee of purchase from your relative vs. questionable searches for EOL - they're near EOL for a reason).

 

I see you mentioned modulars, so I'll take that as an example. Consider to yourself - is the modular discount worthy enough to tie up funds for a set that will be open for an entire year until it EOLs, assuming it follows the standard EOL pattern? For myself, if its long term, I wouldn't want to get it too early from its EOL date - too much fund tying that can instead be spent flowing around through short-medium term stuff and expanding your money to buy even more in the year its expected to retire.

 

Another thing is that I would maximize the last usage of the 15% off by applying it to sets that are very, very likely to not ever go on discount as much as 15%. DS would be one such set, but the "Life Star" might end up putting a LOT of frozen money in your closet for a long time. 

 

If my guess as to which "unnamed big box store" your relative works for, then my recommendation is to look at some Technic. Do some BP research in the price guides, you'll get a gist and find which ones are worthy. The further discount will just boost your sales.

 

I think the only way to REALLY figure out which options are better is to put it quantitatively. Make a spreadsheet with some predictions on certain sets you're looking at within a certain time frame, and see what will get you a better return, plus or minus some liquidity expansion from other flipping, if you're into that. Because on one hand, the paper profits of holding a bunch of SSD's are great - over a length of time. On the other hand, in that length of time somewhere along the line perhaps the other exclusive sets could have already appreciated, been sold, and bought another round of new LEGOs.

 

Up to you, sorry my thoughts are disorganized/potentially repeated all over the place. Pennies for thought.

Fantastic replies! Very helpful! I was thinking of spending around 1k usd. That's something like 6 150usd sets and get the 7th free. It's also tricky since the "eol" sets apart from SSD are all available aty local lego store. I'll really have to think about it. I have till June when my relative resigns.