Lego - given up on the UK?

[Cardinal Brick]

Independent toy retailers? What are these things of which you speak? Seriously though, I live in London and I only know of one independent toy shop (I haven’t gone out searching for them) and they’re right on the other side of London. However I’d say that the Toys R Us I go to has a good range it even sells castle which is a major plus for me. My local woollies is tiny and looks like it’s from and 80’s ghetto but it still has a few bits and bobs. I just feel I’m luck to live a bus ride away from Bluewater which allows me to buy most of the range in person and use the loyalty card, and as that’s the cinema I tend to go to it does offer the odd impulse by. Finally Argos sometimes has something good.

I think Lego realise that as the CEO said the other year (though talking about the USA at the time) Lego is not a mass market product, and is more limited so it won’t be so widely available.

[rriggs]

Good News: Went to Woolworths today and they have the complete range of Agents sets in store.

Bad News: They appear to have removed all other LEGO sets from the store.

Cheers

Rog

[Joey Lock]

I live in the South-west and I can find alot of old star wars sets in TK Max, Sutton and 2007 Battlepacks in Woolworths, Putney.

[Shoc]

  rriggs said:

Good News: Went to Woolworths today and they have the complete range of Agents sets in store.

Bad News: They appear to have removed all other LEGO sets from the store.

Next time I go to Woolies, I'll be spending my money!

I'm not that upset if they don't have any other sets, all the sets they had in there last time, I either didn't want or I already had.

:skull:

[ElisHelrot]

I'm from Germany and here you can get mostly everything, everybody offers Lego, some stores have got a little bit more than others, but I get everything I want, no problem here

[Tenorikuma]

Japan is pretty good for Lego. Department stores all stock a reasonable selection of current sets, and Bik Camera and Toyrs'R'Us have larger selections. There are also several Lego outlet stores — two within a reasonable train ride's distance of my city — and they have near everything.

Independent toy shops tend to have little or no Lego, however, sticking to non-imported toys like Gundam models and trains.

[brickzone]

Here in Ireland there are not too many options for Lego either. Fortunately, we have an indigenous toy chain, Smyth's Toys, which is generally a superb toy warehouse (retail park style operation) - although they have a bit too much of a monopoly in some places. For Lego this doesn't matter though as they often have nearly the full range and at S@H prices (sometimes cheaper even!). Smyth's have had a lot of business from me, mainly small sets. I put in a recent S@H order including Agents Volcano Base, but for example I will pick up the Swamp Mission at my leisure in Smyth's. The main alternative local chain, Toymaster, also had a decent Lego selection, but the franchise owner went bust in the south of the country through overexpansion.

Argos (the UK catalogue outlet retailer) are a player for Lego here in Ireland too, but have a markup on S@H prices. They seem to have a better range in Ireland than UK. Like in UK, they had Castle '07 exclusive, which was annoying as they only carried 3 sets with a markup. Smyth's have both Castle '07 and '08 this year though.

There is also another indigenous chain store, Art+Hobby, which isn't a toy store per se, but sells some "imagination" type toys including Lego. They however add a markup to the Lego. I think they just about manage with Lego through the art of distributing their Lego across outlets around the country - possibly they rotate what stock is on display too. They also end up with some older sets - I got hold of an outdated Viking Set I'd been looking out for here (€35 rather than €30). At least some of their locations though they don't have much competition though (Smyth's etc. are increasingly just retail parks - whereas A+H is high-street/mall).

Tesco have a couple of sets. I picked up a couple Mars Mission sets and a City set here on impulse. Back in the day before Tesco took over Quinnsworth here in Ireland, the latter had a fantastic range of Lego - it was the main Lego source along with Roches Stores (department store taken over by Debenhams now). Sets would sit on the shelves for an eternity though - the actual numerical prices were similar or higher for a given size of set in the 1990s in Irish Pounds than they are in Euro today (i.e. a small set that is €8 today would have been about IR£8 then) - conversion rate at euro creation in 1999 was £1 = €1.27 and we have had a number of years since where inflation even reached 5%.

The regional towns seem to still have some independent (or at least small chain) toy retailers selling Lego - but to be honest, unless you were stuck in those places, it's not a big deal as they have a markup and old/limited range.

I wish we had more real proper elaborate department stores here in Ireland with toy departments. I've visited a number in Germany which were awesome.

[Shoc]

  ElisHelrot said:

I'm from Germany and here you can get mostly everything, everybody offers Lego, some stores have got a little bit more than others, but I get everything I want, no problem here

It makes sense, seeing as Lego is (I read) most popular in Germany! When I have been to Germany they always have a much larger and better selection than porbably anywhere in England!

:skull:

[Dovchenko]

I live in Southern Canada and I have to say that surprisingly for TRU... it's like their retarded. And I mean it. For everything that comes out, they rush right away to get it out on shelves. Not early, not late. But after a day, it's all gone. Well apperantly, they don't restock. They buy it and put what they get on shelves... then that's it. If it's all been bought, it's all been bought. There's a whole wall of lonely Jan-Feb City Sets w/NO COASTGUARD, half Bionicle, 6 castle sets, 4 racer sets, a dozen Tiny Turbo's, a backwall with last year and early this year's SW (only the smaller sets), about a hundred Shark Mission sets for Agents, Two Vahki just sitting there, one Knights Kingdom, a few yester-yester year Technics and absolutely nothing else. Sounds like a lot, but it's very small and surrounded by Barbie. Online's nice but then you've got to pay shipping. It's easier, but you can't get it so often. UK isn't the only one suffering.