Bricklink (LEGO) is closing stores all around the world

[kevin8]

Bricklink (LEGO) recently announced that starting this month, AFOLs from a significant number of countries will be denied access to the platform.

Beyond the problem of those who had a business over the years and will no longer be able to operate it without having to move to other platforms, beyond all the AFOLs who will no longer be able to access the platform and purchase parts, what's frightening is the way Lego is treating a significant number of fans.

I'm honestly a little worried. What do you think?

https://www.bricklink.com/help.asp?helpID=2687

 

Edited December 1, 2025 by kevin8

[SpacePolice89]

I think this is a very bad decision. While there must be some reason behind this like low sales or problems with local rules this should never have been allowed to happen. Maybe people from the banned countries could use Brickowl instead? I compared the availability of 6990 Futuron Monorail on both websites, BL has 60 sets for sale while BO only has 11 sets for sale. Only one of the sets on BL were from the soon to be banned countries (Indonesia) while BO had zero sets from the soon to be banned countries. Maybe low BL activity in those countries was one reason for the ban? But it is still wrong in so many ways and I hope they reverse this decision.

[MAB]

2 hours ago, kevin8 said:

Bricklink (LEGO) recently announced that starting today, AFOLs from a significant number of countries will be denied access to the platform.

Beyond the problem of those who had a business over the years and will no longer be able to operate it without having to move to other platforms, beyond all the AFOLs who will no longer be able to access the platform and purchase parts, what's frightening is the way Lego is treating a significant number of fans.

I'm honestly a little worried. What do you think?

https://www.bricklink.com/help.asp?helpID=2687

 

It is not a particularly good thing to do and the most frustrating part is that no reasons are given. At least doing that makes it understandable and cuts out the rumours as to why it is being done.

However you ought to change your post. It does not start until 12th December, whereas you say "today" (1st December). Users in those countries will also still be able to use the site, but not the marketplace. So they can continue to use it for inventories, use studio for digital designs, and the other features, just not the marketplace. It is also not "all around the world" which suggests everyone is affected. It is specific countries and affects only a very small percentage of users. Of course it is very hard on those users, at least the active ones that use the marketplace and especially sellers that were given only three weeks notice before their stores are to be closed.

I started a thread on it over a week ago in the buy/sell/trade section where other bricklink marketplace threads go, but it seems that either very few people use that area or they don't care about it.

 

1 hour ago, SpacePolice89 said:

I think this is a very bad decision. While there must be some reason behind this like low sales or problems with local rules this should never have been allowed to happen. Maybe people from the banned countries could use Brickowl instead? I compared the availability of 6990 Futuron Monorail on both websites, BL has 60 sets for sale while BO only has 11 sets for sale. Only one of the sets on BL were from the soon to be banned countries (Indonesia) while BO had zero sets from the soon to be banned countries. Maybe low BL activity in those countries was one reason for the ban? But it is still wrong in so many ways and I hope they reverse this decision.

One rumour (probably the most credible one to me) is that LEGO is signing an exclusive distribution contract with a company in these areas so LEGO won't be the primary distributor. To have a LEGO subsidiary arranging grey market sales for sets in those areas would go against that.

It is also interesting that there was nowhere near as much outrage when LEGO totally blocked all users from China, they cannot access the site at all with an account, although i think the can access it for inventories. There a reason was given, it is about data storage and to operate in China, they have to be based and keep records on Chinese users in China.

Edited December 1, 2025 by MAB

[SpacePolice89]

13 minutes ago, MAB said:

The rumour (probably the most credible one to me) is that LEGO is signing an exclusive distribution contract with a company in these areas so LEGO won't be the primary distributor. To have a LEGO subsidiary arranging grey market sales for sets in those areas would go against that.

It is also interesting that there was nowhere near as much outrage when LEGO totally blocked all users from China, they cannot access the site at all. There a reason was given, it is about data storage and to operate in China, they have to be based and keep records on Chinese users in China.

That sounds very plausible and would be a logical explanation. They should have been more clear about this like they were with the China ban and with China there is always the risk of getting fake bricks sold as the real deal especially from private sellers. But the recent decision is still a bad thing and a huge mistake.

[MAB]

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Edited December 1, 2025 by MAB
Duplicated post

[Mylenium]

Pardon the French, but compliance is a b*tch. Pretty much all of the countries listed have not subscribed to the GDRP, the DSA and possibly other EU regulations nor have they other bilateral agreements like the EU has with the US and other countries. LEGO are caught between a rock and a hard place on that. Other reasons may be at play as well. They definitely do not have an established distribution system in many of these countries and that could cause all kinds of issues with legal representation and liability.

Mylenium

[MAB]

1 hour ago, SpacePolice89 said:

That sounds very plausible and would be a logical explanation. They should have been more clear about this like they were with the China ban and with China there is always the risk of getting fake bricks sold as the real deal especially from private sellers. But the recent decision is still a bad thing and a huge mistake.

With China, I don't think it had anything to do with fake parts. The 'nightshift' parts were apparently mainly from Mexico but entered bricklink usually via American and European sellers that bought on other sites in bulk to sell on BL. And for used parts, everywhere has sellers that don't check carefully enough when dealing with mass second hand bulk.

44 minutes ago, Mylenium said:

Pardon the French, but compliance is a b*tch. Pretty much all of the countries listed have not subscribed to the GDRP, the DSA and possibly other EU regulations nor have they other bilateral agreements like the EU has with the US and other countries. LEGO are caught between a rock and a hard place on that. Other reasons may be at play as well. They definitely do not have an established distribution system in many of these countries and that could cause all kinds of issues with legal representation and liability.

Mylenium

Agreed. Especially in the last few years this type of thing has grown and as LEGO are a huge company they have far more to lose than when BL was a small company. We've had issues here with imgur. They disagreed with our governmental internet safety organisation and just pulled out of the UK rather than comply. So when people post images here linked from imgur, they are blocked for us unless we use a vpn. 

[hrdknxbrix]

17 hours ago, Mylenium said:

Pardon the French, but compliance is a b*tch. Pretty much all of the countries listed have not subscribed to the GDRP, the DSA and possibly other EU regulations nor have they other bilateral agreements like the EU has with the US and other countries. LEGO are caught between a rock and a hard place on that. Other reasons may be at play as well. They definitely do not have an established distribution system in many of these countries and that could cause all kinds of issues with legal representation and liability.

Mylenium

Bricklink is a US company so EU regulations would only apply to buyers/sellers within the EU.  If this were true then many other global platforms (i.e. eBay) would be affected.

18 hours ago, MAB said:

One rumour (probably the most credible one to me) is that LEGO is signing an exclusive distribution contract with a company in these areas so LEGO won't be the primary distributor. To have a LEGO subsidiary arranging grey market sales for sets in those areas would go against that.

 

Checking the list, I found around half of the countries listed had LEGO stores operated by a third party.  The other half didn't have any LEGO stores at all.  The weird one though is Greenland which is part of the Kingdom of Denmark; however, it doesn't have a store at this time.

 

[MAB]

5 hours ago, hrdknxbrix said:

Bricklink is a US company so EU regulations would only apply to buyers/sellers within the EU.  If this were true then many other global platforms (i.e. eBay) would be affected.

This isn't quite right. EU marketplace regulations apply to BL and so if BL wants to operate in the EU they can be forced to get their users to agree to certain terms. Otherwise it is the site that is not complying, rather than individuals. This was done recently, all sellers had to agree to abide by an EU regulation (DSA). The regulations apply to anyone selling into the EU, not just those based in the EU. And because any seller can tick a box and advertise goods for sale into the EU, then BL has to ensure that all sellers agree to follow it, whether they currently sell to the EU or not.

https://www.bricklink.com/help.asp?helpID=2655

Other sites are affected by similar things. For example on ebay, we (in UK) have to put the country of origin on products. If we do not, they will not be advertised in the USA even if we select to ship to the USA, as without this information they cannot be processed for tariffs.

5 hours ago, hrdknxbrix said:

Checking the list, I found around half of the countries listed had LEGO stores operated by a third party.  The other half didn't have any LEGO stores at all.  The weird one though is Greenland which is part of the Kingdom of Denmark; however, it doesn't have a store at this time.

 

It is, but it is autonomous.  Denmark controls security and foreign policy but otherwise Greenland governs itself, and that includes financial matters, finance regulation, import/export, etc. It is essentially independent for business matters.

 

One of the other rumours doing the rounds is that this is about buyer protection through PayPal and that the countries in the list all have weaker consumer protection that gets implemented through PayPal. 

[kevin8]

1 hour ago, MAB said:

This isn't quite right. EU marketplace regulations apply to BL and so if BL wants to operate in the EU they can be forced to get their users to agree to certain terms. Otherwise it is the site that is not complying, rather than individuals. This was done recently, all sellers had to agree to abide by an EU regulation (DSA). The regulations apply to anyone selling into the EU, not just those based in the EU. And because any seller can tick a box and advertise goods for sale into the EU, then BL has to ensure that all sellers agree to follow it, whether they currently sell to the EU or not.

https://www.bricklink.com/help.asp?helpID=2655

Other sites are affected by similar things. For example on ebay, we (in UK) have to put the country of origin on products. If we do not, they will not be advertised in the USA even if we select to ship to the USA, as without this information they cannot be processed for tariffs.

It is, but it is autonomous.  Denmark controls security and foreign policy but otherwise Greenland governs itself, and that includes financial matters, finance regulation, import/export, etc. It is essentially independent for business matters.

 

One of the other rumours doing the rounds is that this is about buyer protection through PayPal and that the countries in the list all have weaker consumer protection that gets implemented through PayPal. 

You seem very knowledgeable, and I'm sorry your thread was ignored. Even though I did a search using the keyword "bricklink," I couldn't find anything.

It seems to me that, rather than an impulsive decision, it was born out of specific policies to protect end users, based on the "excluded states" adherence to certain consumer protection laws.

From my point of view, all of this highlights a very different situation.

The fact remains that Lego's communication was handled in a very deficient manner. I understand that Lego can do whatever it wants with its own properties, but given that we're talking about AFOLs and fan communities, even very large ones like the Brazilian one, perhaps it would have been appropriate to consult their ambassadors and provide a more detailed communication. In any case, I hope your assumptions are correct and that this situation can be resolved somehow.

[MAB]

14 minutes ago, kevin8 said:

The fact remains that Lego's communication was handled in a very deficient manner. I understand that Lego can do whatever it wants with its own properties, but given that we're talking about AFOLs and fan communities, even very large ones like the Brazilian one, perhaps it would have been appropriate to consult their ambassadors and provide a more detailed communication. In any case, I hope your assumptions are correct and that this situation can be resolved somehow.

The communication has definitely been the worst part of it, and I think a bit of an own goal. They should have sent affected users an email rather than putting the announcement in the forum. It is this that some of the clickbait driven anti-LEGO youtubers have gone on about, implying LEGO are trying to hide the decision. I think the problem here is that LEGO/ bricklink has a community forum and they assume that people read what is posted in the announcements there. When the reality is that not many do, including many of the LEGO news type websites as it took most of them a week or so to notice. But when one does, they all do as they seem to copy each other for news rather than keep up with announcements via bricklink forum.

Similarly so many are going on about 30% of the world being excluded from bricklink based on population sizes and how this is signaling the end of bricklink (and LEGO). The reality is that in terms of current members it is really quite a small amount. Romania has more stores than Brazil, and The Netherlands has twenty times more stores than Brazil. Brazil's 8500 users are about 0.5% of the total number of registered users. It is sad for those users, but the clickbait youtubers that make money from outrage are really going for it. There seems to be a lot of stored up hatred for LEGO at the moment. I imagine a lot of this is for other reasons, but any anti-LEGO story and they all pile in. Some of the conspiracy theories on YouTube are ridiculous.

[MAB]

They have extended until 31st January to help affected sellers transition away / sell off stock. Plus waiving fees for Nov-Jan for those sellers.

[dr_spock]

Looks like about 351 stores are impacted.   Given the size of India's population, they have only 14 BL stores?

 

[zoth33]

1 hour ago, dr_spock said:

Looks like about 351 stores are impacted.   Given the size of India's population, they have only 14 BL stores?

 

 

Given the size of Canada and they have 1267 stores and the us has over 6000 stores.  So population has no bearing on how many stores there are in a country.  

[MAB]

Netherlands is similar, lower population but high number of stores and buyers. I saw a comment on a YouTube video that LEGO had banned 2.5 billion people from playing with LEGO.  Some of the claims made are just plain stupid and detract from the sensible comments that people genuinely affected make.

[dr_spock]

Whatever it is, it is not worth their while to operate BL in those countries.

 

[Toastie]

And all this happened, because TLG found it cool to take over BL, right?

All was fine, before these Danish folks got their hands on BL, correct? Or is there the greater global trade/legal picture, I simply don't understand, because I am living in a world where 2+2 (still remains to) add up to 4?

Back in the days, I got really cool “stuff” (= marvels, and of course, just for >me<) from countries now listed as "busted". When BL was existing in a world, where the >item< along with its individual price was central and not the "maintaining/ensuring global supply chains at competitive costs adhering to all the legal crap", it was just ... nicely flowing.

Wow. Every day, this world really takes more crazy turns, just because the Big Ones are playing money chess. And are, of course, playing along the world's legal rules. Who ever invented those. Why don't they just focus on their very own ... schemes? 

Well, what do I know.

So here is to the "sources" that remain existing after Extinguish Day.

And here is to all those who will be extinguished from BL . With no nod, no smile, but with a very deep bow. Sincerely thanking you guys!!! You never know, there maybe other channels. 

Thorsten

 

 

[MAB]

7 hours ago, Toastie said:

And all this happened, because TLG found it cool to take over BL, right?

All was fine, before these Danish folks got their hands on BL, correct? Or is there the greater global trade/legal picture, I simply don't understand, because I am living in a world where 2+2 (still remains to) add up to 4?

The world of online selling has changed. LEGO and bricklink has to comply or not operate. Some of the countries have no stores, more than half of the countries being removed have less than 10 stores. They would need to have their IT systems updated to collect and remit tax records for each country, and that is likely to be a different system for each one. In some cases they would need to have a legal representative in the country. Are they really going to go to the expense for a couple of stores?

It is funny you say 2+2=4 as 2 is the number of stores affected in Chile and Colombia, 4 in total. The total number of stores affected worldwide is under 400. That is less than the number of stores in quite a few individual European countries. I can understand the costs of compliance make it unprofitable and probably loss making to allow stores in some countries.

When it comes to buyers, it appears to be about 2% of accounts affected. But those stats are less reliable due to the number of spam accounts and accounts with no purchases / feedback. I think a lot of those are due to be removed when the merge deadline is up at the end of the year. At one stage, over 100 new accounts were being created in Vietnam every day, yet barely any were being used to buy (so no feedback) but many have "me" pages advertising gambling sites and were sending loads of messages until the block on new accounts spamming was implemented. 

 

[Yoggington]

The operator of the only BrickOwl store in Mexico posted to reddit the other day, an email he received about regulations that will potentially impact him. They have offered a workaround instead of forcing the store's closure.

He was posting it to highlight the difference between the approach of Bricklink vs. BrickOwl, but I think it does offer an insight into why Bricklink made this sweepign change all of a sudden.

[MAB]

It does highlight differences.  It is good that they email sellers affected (whether 1, 100 or 1000 that are affected). But it also shows quite a different approach where brickowl is stepping back and essentially saying deal with payments between yourselves using whatever payments you want. Which is great until something goes wrong and there is no buyer protection for the customer.  Whereas BL has been tending towards more consumer rights by forcing new stores to use PayPal or stripe rather than bank transfer, and it wouldn't surprise me if they go further that way towards only allowing online and onsite payments. The BO approach is dealing with it by stepping back and not getting involved. I doubt a bigger company would get away with that. I can't see ebay or amazon marketplace telling customers to pay a stranger using bank transfer.

I'd also be surprised if Mexico gets removed in the near future from bricklink. Surely BL would know about it and would have rolled it into this group unless they already had a solution for Mexico planned. One very slightly bigger lot of bad news is better than a big one followed by another smaller one a few months later.

[Plumber]

@MABAll of the reasons you surmise for this action are all reasons why TLG should never have bought BL in the first place.  The direction of travel is clear, by the end of the decade BL will be merged with BaP and likely neither will exist in the current form as TLG stifle the trade in used parts/sets to boost their direct sales.

There is a very simple reason why first world countries have so many more stores per capita then ROW and just to cut out the less privileged nations is despicable and totally at odds with TLG moralising.

You hold up Ebay and Amazon as exemplars - they are exactly the same as TLG, profit above all else because, lets be blunt, this is all about the money.  The increasing trend of big business attempting to homogenise the world in order to streamline their own activities holds a great deal of responsibility for the rise of extremist politics as people try to push back in the only way they can.

You suggest that TLG are doing this because they cannot guarantee consumer rights in some markets, how does withdrawing help with that? The sellers and buyers in those countries now have no option but for the majority  to trade only with domestic market where consumer rights continue to exist or not exactly as before.

You, like me, are located in the UK, a nation that has, in the main, separated from the EU, from your remarks I gather you trade on BL.  If I were you I would be very worried about how long it will be before UK are on BL's black list, as has  already been mentioned we are already nation non grata with a number of organisations!

[MAB]

3 hours ago, Plumber said:

You, like me, are located in the UK, a nation that has, in the main, separated from the EU, from your remarks I gather you trade on BL.  If I were you I would be very worried about how long it will be before UK are on BL's black list, as has  already been mentioned we are already nation non grata with a number of organisations!

I am not at all worried. The UK is a massive market for bricklink. The user numbers (as a proxy for buyer numbers) are almost 10% of the total, and for stores, the UK has over 10% of those registered (just over 2000). So they need to have a single local expert / tax compliance partner to cover 10% of their business. BL made sure that they were fully tax collection and reporting compliant very quickly so that their UK marketplace was not unduly affected. I don't know what other organisations you think are going to have issue with UK sellers on BL , the important thing is that HMRC know that BL is collecting and remitting VAT on imports when UK buyers purchase from abroad, and is also collecting VAT on the service charges for UK based sellers, and reporting sale volumes for UK based sellers for tax reasons. It is nothing to do with the EU. They (or the individual nations) care about their citizens being correctly taxed when selling, and their citizens paying the correct VAT when they import. Bricklink already does that for UK sellers selling into the EU.

It is the same for all the EU nations, Norway, Australia, New Zealand, Canada. BL have local partners that they use to deal with marketplace tax compliance. And similar in the US for sales tax collection.

If they have to employ someone to provide local compliance expertise in a country where they have 10 bricklink stores, the cost per store is enormous. Even worse where there are two stores.

3 hours ago, Plumber said:

All of the reasons you surmise for this action are all reasons why TLG should never have bought BL in the first place.  The direction of travel is clear, by the end of the decade BL will be merged with BaP and likely neither will exist in the current form as TLG stifle the trade in used parts/sets to boost their direct sales.

The direction of travel is that it is acting in a more professional way, and not circumventing tax laws. If LEGO want to destroy bricklink then the secondary market will not go away. I already sell far more used sets on ebay than I do on bricklink. B+P is also not bricklink, so there would be little difference for used sets. Parts is a bit harder, but if there was no BL sell-by-parts independent alternative (although there already is) then I would probably sell parts bagged by the 100 or whatever on ebay. LEGO does not hold anywhere near the number of elements compared to what bricklink has and nothing I have seen suggests that they want to retain retired parts for future sales. They recently reduced prices of parts to clear stock of parts that were being removed from B+P, suggesting the opposite.  Further, if they wanted to boost their direct sales, they would close B+P to drive people to have to buy sets rather than parts.

3 hours ago, Plumber said:

There is a very simple reason why first world countries have so many more stores per capita then ROW and just to cut out the less privileged nations is despicable and totally at odds with TLG moralising.

Any successful business concentrates on markets where it will make profit rather than losses. Why would they they open stores in locations where people cannot afford their product as that would lead to losses, and why would they reduce the cost of their product in those areas to make those stores viable when if they did people would buy it there then export it to the richer nations and undercut LEGO's business elsewhere. LEGO is a luxury product, not an essential that is being withheld from poorer nations. If this was food or healthcare, the situation would be different.

Edited December 5, 2025 by MAB

[Plumber]

7 hours ago, MAB said:

Any successful business concentrates on markets where it will make profit rather than losses. Why would they they open stores in locations where people cannot afford their product as that would lead to losses, and why would they reduce the cost of their product in those areas to make those stores viable when if they did people would buy it there then export it to the richer nations and undercut LEGO's business elsewhere. LEGO is a luxury product, not an essential that is being withheld from poorer nations. If this was food or healthcare, the situation would be different.

I have no problem whatsoever with TLG running  their stores, selling their product at prices they choose etc. in markets of their choice in order to maximise their profit if that's all that matters to them.  I'm  certainly not advocating  (and never did) parallel importing or suggesting price controls, no, this is not essential food or healthcare but this decision does effectively go a long way to withholding pre owned, more affordable, product from those nations. 

None of the above is the issue at stake here. What has happened here is  totally different, TLG have taken (bought) control of something worthwhile (and through the catalogue that TLG would never publish it goes much wider than BL marketplace itself) that was good for everybody (including themselves), that was born out of the best of motives and improved by the countless hours of work by millions of fans, something that many of us feel wasn't theirs to have (in a moral sense) and the acquisition of which left many of us with a feeling of deep disquiet. It seems we were right to be worried as they appear to be incrementally, systematically dismantling it this latest action being part of a growing list.   Their core business didn't need to do this to survive so one has to question their motivation and the only one that makes any sense to me is pure naked greed.

This dog in a manger attitude has been on increasingly open display for some years now and it leaves a thoroughly unpleasant taste.

As regards tax affairs, individuals (and entities) are responsible for their own tax affairs not TLG or anyone else, many tax authorities do  require businesses to routinely divulge sales records for the authority to cross check taxpayers submissions and yes they are asking for more detail from more organisations, but how hard can it be for a completely digital business like BL to produce a quarterly transaction report to hand over for ten or even two stores???

8 hours ago, MAB said:

Further, if they wanted to boost their direct sales, they would close B+P to drive people to have to buy sets rather than parts.

I would contend this is the final goal, starting with BL as BL is the workaround for AFOL/MOCers if B+P was closed down!  B+P has always been a half arsed operation with mainly only recent elements available on an adhoc basis, it has always been my belief that it is a convenient means of disposing of excess production volume rather than a core service to customers.

My comments here are not aimed at you personally but as the most vocal TLG proponent here (I assume you are not TLG?) some of the flak is gonna come your way out of pure frustration!

[Toastie]

Gentlemen (@Plumber and @MAB),

I must say, the way you two discuss this matter, just on the level of mutual respect despite the contrary views, is a true pleasure to observe. Even only reading your messages, your phrasing, your vocabulary, your - as it appears to me - trained discussion discipline is such a nice “difference”, when voicing frustration, even anger, totally different takes. I have been in the UK for some time (Oxford, Christchurch College) and I always had the impression that this art of having a (thorough) discussion is truly something, I love to learn. Never managed that, but OK, I am German. So thank you both for that!!!

Now, I am entirely with @Plumber - what a surprise. I am mostly struggling with TLG's apparent model function, when it comes to education, caring, all the programs they run, their concern for the environment, which >of course< includes handling of a secondary market, when you produce environmentally persistent items. In my recognition, this all blurs into smoke and mirrors behavior. The greed, sometimes even felt as grift, has completely drawn me away from TLG. All their legal moves, then this BL action, the fallout we see now, their pricing, the cheap route they are taking on so many - if not all - current sets ... it is really, really frustrating. Particularly when you know, what the same or (way) above quality competition is cranking out.

And now it is BL. My beloved source of secondary market items. I wonder when they'll pull the plug on all that ancient stuff, that surely has items "in" them, TLG is nowadays terrified of. The 4.5V series of items, where you can swallow essentially so many parts in one go. Just as an example. I believe this could be a legal route to just happily pull the plug.

I just see todays TLG as a totally capitalistic, even rude entity. And that is totally OK with me. All these large global companies are. Otherwise, they cannot exist in such a rude environment. It is what it is.

These are just my sentiments, and do not adhere to your discussion.

With respect,
Thorsten

[dr_spock]