Price discrimination between Official and Licensed sets.

[ziljin]

I am sure most of us is aware that the Star Wars Battle Packs being cheaper than Castle/Pirates Battle Packs minus the one minifig and extra bricks to make some turret/vehicle. And Ambush in Cairo, Army Men on Patrol and Desert Attack are sort of like Battle Packs.

So I bought Battle of Alamut and this set is amazing. But its 80USD and has 821 pieces and isn't riddled with BURPs. That's like 20USD cheaper than say Troll Mountain Fortress or King's Castle Siege and has even more pieces.

Seems like Licensed sets are cheaper for the consumer despite being more expensive for TLG.

[ProducePrincess]

I'd say this only goes for themes like indiana jones and POP.

Most starwars sets are ridiculous, for example the new swamp speeder should only be a 20 dollar set but it costs 40.

Indiana jones was a great theme for fairly priced sets . The river chase came with a boat ,tree, and amphibious car for 26.99 .A better deal than many unlicenced sets in my opinion

[LuxorV]

I'm fairily sure this issue has already been discussed in other topics.

Nonetheless, I'll add a personal opinion on this. If you browse the S@H site, you'll easily recognise that most of the small to medium Licensed sets have inflated prices (from 5 to 20 $ or € more than the normal sets); on the other hand, especially for PoP and Indy, bigger sets have more reasonable prices. I think this is a simple marketing strategy: TLG will sell lots of smaller sets but less bigger ones. So they make you pay more for the best sellers and try to keep fairily low the huge ones in the hope of selling a good amount of them too.

LuxorV

[not-in-use-anymore]

I'd say this only goes for themes like indiana jones and POP.

Why me?

I've never actually looked at the prices, but I am starting to think some sets are very overpriced.

[Lilsniffs]

A lot of sets now are overpriced. I've always wanted to build my own Lego City, and the small Impulse sets for City work, the buildings like Cafe Corner are way to overpriced for someone like me to get.

[prateek]

I've been noticing too. Even City sets are becoming more overpriced. They are almost the same as SW sets. On the other hand, I'm happy that they kept the PoP sets low, because I really like them

[Rick]

If you browse the S@H site, you'll easily recognise that most of the small to medium Licensed sets have inflated prices (from 5 to 20 $ or € more than the normal sets); on the other hand, especially for PoP and Indy, bigger sets have more reasonable prices.

Thanks. Due to my lack of interest in licensed sets, I never seemed to notice that. But indeed, whereas the smaller sets are hideously overpriced, the biggest sets are actually pretty good value for money.

[Big Cam]

There are discrepancies everywhere but as a rule of thumb,. licensed sets are ridiculously more expensive per piece than standard system sets.

The extra minifiguire is what drive the price up in the example you quoted.

[The Green Brick Giant]

Discrimination? Someone needs to look up what that word means.

Plus certain sets are cheaper because the pieces are cheaper to make, they have less guys, ect. You can't compare the price of things. Also One PoP set seemingly being cheap to you doesn't prove anything. Because it's not cheap, the new Kingdoms Castle has 900+ pieces and is $100, so the PoP is about the right price. Then just look at Star Wars, it will become so expensive soon that children won't be able to buy the sets and the line will have to end. $25 for a landspeeder?!

[ZO6]

As others have said, Licensed sets generally are more expensive. However, most themes (even non-licensed ones) seem to have some sets that are noticeably more expensive and others that are fantastic value. There is simply a lot of different factors that determine the price of a set, and the parts to price ratio just does not tell the whole story most of the time.

[fred67]

Ok, my two cents... licensing is a symbiotic relationship, and depends on the success of both LEGO and the rest of the franchise.

At this point, it seems like POP and Toy Story are REALLY good prices compared to similarly sized sets (both licenses and unlicensed).

My two cents is that this is because the movies have not even come out yet (POP and TS3), and so the licensing fee is actually quite small, if anything, and the company holding the rights (Disney) considers loss of revenue on licensing to be a promotional cost for the movies and the potential ongoing licensing fees.

Star Wars LEGO sets leaves me scratching my head... it used to be that, if you wanted a bargain - the best price per brick, you'd buy a larger set. But now the prices seem to have gotten all topsy-turvy. The TIE Defender, for example, while a really cool ship, seems WAY over priced. But the low end sets... something like the Battle Packs, or the Land Speeder, seem like downright bargains when you put them in perspective and try to value the minifigures. People actually complained about the Land Speeder, for example, but you get FIVE classic Star Wars figures AND a classic ship to go with it. The Battle Packs, with four guys in each pack, seem like an awesome deal... but the TIE Defender seems like an absolute rip off by comparison. And I don't think I've ever seen LEGO raise prices ON AN EXISTING SET like they did with the Battle Packs last year... but then I don't have that much experience, over all.

But it's true... looking through the Spring catalog, the POP and TS sets seem like absolute bargains by comparison to even non-licensed sets. If the movies are very successful, though, look for licensing fees to go up. I would be willing to bet the contract was short term, and depending on the success, would be renewed for higher fees. This benefits both LEGO and Disney.

[ziljin]

Price Discrimination

Anyway, Well all of the sets have amazing price/piece ratios except Desert Attack but that is essentially a battlepack. So if Prince of Persia does continue it will probably become expensive? =(.