Petition for the prices of LEGO

[N7LEGO]

Hello there !

Many of you have noticed that they are 2 prices for the LEGO sets: the "US" prices and the "rest of the world" prices.

We are a lot, here, in Europe, to think that it not normal to pay for exemple 419 euros in Europe for the set 10188 when in the USA the price is 341 euros, including taxes so it means that there's a difference of 80 euros ! It also means that for the same amount in the US, we could have 2 or 3 sets instead of just 1 everywhere else in the world. I don't say that it's not fair, because prices in the US are already high, it's expensive for what we got (I know, quality, competition, etc...) but personally, I'd prefer to pay 400 euros for 2 sets like in the USA than to pay 350 euros only for 1 set.

TLC has always been close to its customers and very kind with them so I'm sure that if we had a lot of signatures on this petition, they could reconsider their prices for their prices.

http://www.avaaz.org...e/?fEIYKeb&pv=3

Thank you for having read my topic and I wish you a nice day.

Edited May 29, 2013 by N7LEGO

[khatmorg]

I hate to break it to you, but it's never gonna happen. The difference in retail prices between the US and everywhere else is not something that's exclusive to LEGO unfortunately.

Edited May 29, 2013 by khatmorg

[N7LEGO]

I know it but for most of the product I compare, the differences are not that high.

[Spider-Man]

I'm sure there is a lot of economic ramifications that lead the price difference, so I'm sure TLG doesn't just like us over here more. I know it doesn't mean all that much coming from an American but if you really have a big issue with the prices the best way to petition would be to simply stop buying them. Simple supply and demand will tell you that enough people are buying the products at this price that the TLG is fine with keeping the prices where they are at. It might not seem fair, but it's business and in business it's all about maximizing profit (which TLG has been very good at the last few years).

[1974]

TLG don't care. Also, online petitions are useless

[N7LEGO]

Business ? Have they thought that if the sets were cheapest, we would buy more of them ?

I have a better impression to have value for money when we can buy 2 or 3 sets for 200 euros than just 1.

[Gremer]

The reason the prices are so high is due to population differences. The US has a higher population, and get lower prices because more people can buy LEGO. Britain has a lower population, and prices have to go up because less people can buy LEGO sets. Same thing with France and Germany, etc.

[N7LEGO]

The reason the prices are so high is due to population differences. The US has a higher population, and get lower prices because more people can buy LEGO. Britain has a lower population, and prices have to go up because less people can buy LEGO sets. Same thing with France and Germany, etc.

That's right but today it's not about France, Germany, Belgium. etc but about Europe. I live in Lille and I often see german or dutch people in our LEGO Store. European people move a lot. I also often visit the LEGO Store in Koln (Germany) or in London and I know other AFOL's who do the same. So it shows that AFOL's are ready to travel to visit LEGO Store. They should consider the european market like just one big market and not several little ones.

[Peppermint_M]

Socioeconomic situations vasty differ across Europe and mean the prices are what the prices can be. You may meet other AFOLs from different countries but I think very few of them are just there for the LEGO store, it might simply be a bonus place to visit when on a trip already.

[Kivi]

The reason the prices are so high is due to population differences. The US has a higher population, and get lower prices because more people can buy LEGO. Britain has a lower population, and prices have to go up because less people can buy LEGO sets. Same thing with France and Germany, etc.

Exactly. Even though it is all EU, it is actually very country-specific when it comes to final retail prices. So it is not one big market just as US is. Take into account all other country-specific things such as logistics, promotional material etc. and you can clearly see the difference.

[Hey Joe]

I'll be moving back to the States in a few months and would happily pay EU prices for everything if free health care was included.

Can we start a petition for that?

Joe

[Faefrost]

The pricing for a given region is not based on currency conversion. It is the costs of bringing the product to retail market in that region / expected sales + reasonable margin. The US pricing is lower because they have lower fixed costs of doing business and a higher expected total number of purchasers, so the fixed costs get spread around more. Europe has extremely high fixed costs of doing business. Transport. Real estate. Regulation. Work rules. Etc. these do add up. Australia goes the opposite way. The fixed costs are more reasonable, but they get split out amongst a much smaller population base so they get more concentrated per unit.

One of the big tip offs is transportation costs. Just look at fuel prices. European are almost 3x what they are in the US. Fuel and transport will be a huge element of the cost of bringing goods to market.

[BrickG]

This again?

Simply put using currency conversion as the motivation behind complaints of cost inequality is dumb. There's a lot more factors than that.

Austrailia vs the US for example. Probably the most common one I personally see. Australians continually complaining because their stuff is so expensive based on nothing but direct conversion of currency. There are tons of reasons why their crap is more expensive and people often ignore them and ignore all economic reasoning.

In this example you could go deep into the reasoning for hours but I'll just bring up some of the obvious factors.

1) Australia's minimum wage AND median wage is about double of what people in the US make. They get about twice as much money on average. So what does this do? It raises the prices!

2) Australia has a lot more government benefits than the US which for a developed country has very very few. Get sick in Australia? Probably won't go bankrupt. Get sick here? Probably will :P.

3) In Australia's case there are high shipping costs. Australia is a large country/continent that's sparse and out of the way. The USA is kind of out of the way too but the population and population density is so much higher than Australia that it makes up for any extra costs of transportation.

Anyways, you guys are more talking about the differences between European countries. And trust me, more often than not there are very real economic reasons for the price differences. They're NOT arbitrary. If you can go across a border to get cheaper Legos then do that. But don't think there's no reason it's more expensive somewhere else. There usually is. From shipping to population density to local economies to any number of reasons...

[dvsntt]

Pricing a single product for multiple internatioanl markets has more factors than an exec at LEGO deciding that "the US should just pay less." Of course the ecomony in each region is consdiered, but also the total gross sales, and net profit. It may be that sets don't sell as rapidly in the EU as they do in the US. To maintain projected, and expected daily, weekly, quarterly and annual profits, they must increase the profit margin per item. This is how Wal-Mart operates against the competition. If you have to make a dollar on a widget to pay your bills, Wal-Mart will undercut you making only 10cents on a widget and sell 10x as many as you. That may be one factor, but entirely speculative. They are also competing with toys at Wal-Mart, where products are incredibaly cheap. It may just be the price-point to atay compettive in the US market, while the EU will continue to pay more, having little other option.

[Drachmyre]

I'll be moving back to the States in a few months and would happily pay EU prices for everything if free health care was included.

Can we start a petition for that?

Joe

Nothing is free. I'm happy only paying 20% of my income in taxes. More money for Lego.

[Aanchir]

This again?

Simply put using currency conversion as the motivation behind complaints of cost inequality is dumb. There's a lot more factors than that.

Austrailia vs the US for example. Probably the most common one I personally see. Australians continually complaining because their stuff is so expensive based on nothing but direct conversion of currency. There are tons of reasons why their crap is more expensive and people often ignore them and ignore all economic reasoning.

In this example you could go deep into the reasoning for hours but I'll just bring up some of the obvious factors.

1) Australia's minimum wage AND median wage is about double of what people in the US make. They get about twice as much money on average. So what does this do? It raises the prices!

2) Australia has a lot more government benefits than the US which for a developed country has very very few. Get sick in Australia? Probably won't go bankrupt. Get sick here? Probably will :P.

3) In Australia's case there are high shipping costs. Australia is a large country/continent that's sparse and out of the way. The USA is kind of out of the way too but the population and population density is so much higher than Australia that it makes up for any extra costs of transportation.

Anyways, you guys are more talking about the differences between European countries. And trust me, more often than not there are very real economic reasons for the price differences. They're NOT arbitrary. If you can go across a border to get cheaper Legos then do that. But don't think there's no reason it's more expensive somewhere else. There usually is. From shipping to population density to local economies to any number of reasons...

Thank you for this post. I knew there were a number of factors other than currency conversion involved, but for the most part I've always had to speculate about why Australian prices are what they are (the population density thing was one thing I apparently guessed correctly). It's good to see a post that goes through some of the major factors in a clear, easy-to-understand fashion.

[fred67]

I know it's not popular, but I have to add that TLG is a commercial enterprise operating in a capitalist society... there is nothing wrong with that, but they will simply charge what they feel gives them the optimal profit. They are not 100% accurate, of course, but they do a lot of research into what they can get away with charging.

I'd also like to point out that, since the time they were teetering on the brink of bankruptcy, their increase in sales pales in comparison to their increase in profits (both have increased dramatically, though). What that means is they are increasing their profit margins - i.e. charging more for the sake of profit, not just to cover increasing costs.

Again, as a free market capitalist, I have no problem with that - you're free to buy building blocks from another brand if you don't like it. If you want the premium product then, like Apple, you have to pay the premium price.

It's true that they indulge in a lot of community projects, but companies generally do that as an investment (and they see a return on that investment - good will and good press go a long way). Don't forget that in most places they can write off these community projects on their taxes, too.

So what we have is a capitalist company working in a capitalist market maximizing it's profits... that's OK with me, but it certainly makes it harder to keep up with all the new, cool, sets, and I've had to cut back dramatically, even if I get the "cheap" U.S. prices.

As far as making up their profits in volume, it doesn't work as well. Increased volume means increased production and shipping costs - it's far easier to make $100 selling one product than to make $100 selling 10, and there's less risk of saturating the market. Again, they know what they are doing.

[Alternator]

I wont be signing the petition, even though the NZ prices would probably make your eyes water (typically even worse than Oz prices, although there is the rare exception to this).

The economics are fairly understandable on it (I've also been around long enough to watch places go out of business despite doing everything right); but people venting should also be a fairly obvious outcome to the large differences.

At the end of the day, I do think that some (within reason) comment on it by those impacted by the high prices is warranted - not all communication is done via sale/nosale (even if that is ultimately the only one that matters)..

[Zanki]

It's the same for anything. I follow Power Ranger merchandise. A normal figure in the US costs $7, in the UK, the same figure is £7/8. That's nearly a five dollar increase for the same piece of plastic. It's always been like this though. I'm just glad that in the UK, we get nearly all the same Lego (I still want those little bags with little sets in them here, I wanted the superhero line ones, but I don't think they released them here, I never saw them). The differences in the toy lines between the US and the UK is horrible sometimes. One year, we had to pay twice as much as the US for a morpher. It wouldn't have been too bad, but they took all the features out of the UK version, it ended up only making one sound, no lights, all the special features removed and it was made of cheaper plastic. Luckily for me I already had the Japanese version of the toy, but it was a big deal. We are very lucky this year to be getting two 20th anniversary toys. Normally they don't bother releasing any of that stuff outside of the US. I'm just hoping this year the morpher is the same as the US version. I don't care about the 20th anniversary morpher because my friend sent me one from America, but it would suck if they lowered the quality and upped the price. It costs $60 to buy one in America, I'm not looking forwards to seeing the price here.

[Cwetqo]

I talked with Jan Beyer and others about this and the answer is always the same: it's companys policy to be competitive in all important markets. That means that they adjust prices to specific market (which seems to be more competitive in the US) and operating cost on that market (which are low in US, because market is not fragmented as in europe and logistics is much cheaper).

This will not change. TLG is still profit oriented maker of children toys. AFOLs are important to them, but they make most profit with children