Lego Licensed Parts available from Bricks & Pieces

[anothergol]

3 hours ago, Fuppylodders said:

Have you even looked on the website recently, at the amount of back orders, out of stock items? And that wasn't even just happening because of covid, it had started before then.

But it's all automated. What's the time of the automated process, especially for the low quantities of reindeers, compared to the design & preparation time before launching the process? It wouldn't double the time/labor to produce 2x more, that's for sure.

 

2 hours ago, Eleric said:

If you sort through used bulk or part out sets you will really make money only on about 5-10% of parts because they are not common. 

I agree that it might kill "new parts sellers" on BL, but "used parts sellers" don't need that to disappear. I avoid used parts like the plague (that they might litterally be carrying) because BL has no gradation system, and BL sellers sell crap (not all of them, but you never know). I'd rather buy a chinese copy, the only risk is that it'll be badly painted, but it won't be as bad as what many sellers dare to sell.
I don't even understand how Lego hasn't seen used parts as a problem. I suppose that Lego assumes that it's purely a market for adults, but parts that have gone through unknown hands/mouthes, that's unsafe for kids.

3 hours ago, Flak Maniak said:

I end up taking piles of cart screenshots; that's the kind of barbarism I'm reduced to, by Lego's digital incompetence.

Yeah that's the #1 tip to B&P buyers, always take screenshots. It has improved a little, though - remember when simply going back in your browser was deleting your cart.
I so wish B&P was turned into a proper BL shop.

[anothergol]

4 hours ago, Megbricks said:

Having a service like this is rare, we are very fortunate.

True, and I realized it recently when I wanted to buy bulks of parts that are unique to clone brands, mainly wedge tiles. I asked around & couldn't find anyone who could get them for me, I had to buy a few sets to get a couple of them.
That's also why I suspect that Lego has bought BL in order to stop both BL & the Studio app to be used for clones. BL's system is perfectly suitable for any kind of part, & thus other brands. Studio has a part designer (which hasn't evolved/been fixed since Lego bought it, I wonder why), which isn't really useful (except for prints) to anyone but clone brands, I can imagine Lego willing to stop that.

[Ponga91]

16 minutes ago, anothergol said:

BL's system is perfectly suitable for any kind of part, & thus other brands.

Right after purchasing BL, LEGO imposed the rule that only Lego official parts are allowed to be sold on BL.

[anothergol]

50 minutes ago, Ponga91 said:

Right after purchasing BL, LEGO imposed the rule that only Lego official parts are allowed to be sold on BL.

Yeah I know, but I wonder if they ditched BrickArms because they weren't Lego, or because they were about modern weapons. BL was already anti clone brands.
In parallel Lego has that program (what's the name again?) to work with other businesses, and they don't seem to have a problem working with other people for compatible stuff (like those controversial lighting kit clones). But perhaps Brickarms were too directly competing.

Edited January 20, 2021 by anothergol

[Grover]

I'm very happy that TLG provides B&P.  I would encourage all of you to make sure to tell operators how much you appreciate the service every time you call in as I do.  Discussion here is not nearly as direct as people commenting to the operators who pass along that information. 

Production of more parts would solve the issue, but it's difficult to think that TLG has that much production capacity left (if they're not running near capacity they're not very efficient and thus losing money).  If particular elements are very popular and require more production, it probably takes quite a while to get onto the production schedule, order more feedstock, etc.  I would love for them to do this, but I find it unrealistic for a company to simply produce more stock to leave it sitting around in the case it's not purchased, and on-demand production has a definite lag time.

I don't like the 'big brother' type mentality, but I also think there's nothing wrong with holding people to their terms of service.  When you buy from B&P you agree not to resell the parts.  If you do, they should cut you off.  They may take the attitude that they can't prove that elements on BL stores are from B&P, I don't know.  The best arrangement is to more widely advertise B&P so that people buy from B&P and not BL.  BL will then be relegated to OOP elements and people won't be getting ripped off paying $20 for reindeer on BL when they can pay $5.44 on B&P.

I also disagree on further limiting elements.  As a MOCer, I wind up needing more than 200 of certain elements (tiles for roofs, etc.) and trying to discern the difference between "popular" or "non-MOCing" elements and these would be a huge hassle.  I'd rather deal with scalpers than have limits reduced. 

[Anonknee Muss]

53 minutes ago, Grover said:

I'm very happy that TLG provides B&P.  I would encourage all of you to make sure to tell operators how much you appreciate the service every time you call in as I do.  Discussion here is not nearly as direct as people commenting to the operators who pass along that information. 

This is great advice, I did that just now,

I've been buying from B&P for almost 4.5 years, great service!

6 hours ago, Fuppylodders said:

It wouldn't be a new thing for a company to do. I'd fully support if they did, because there's a difference between buying some to make a profit and living on, then there's being absolutely greedy minded to stupidly inflate the prices because you're buying the whole stock and *CENSORED* everyone else over in the mean time for your own selfish needs. Sure, capitalism, but doesn't justify it.

Your solution is to 'just produce more'?

Have you even looked on the website recently, at the amount of back orders, out of stock items? And that wasn't even just happening because of covid, it had started before then. Covid just exacerbated it tremendously. Would it solve the issue? Sure as hell would. But TLG aren't int he game to produce more than is required or theyll get leftover stock. Which means storage space is required, and it pushes further away from being a liquid asset.
 

Actually back-orders have increased exponentially since Covid-19. Sure LEGO was busy before but nothing like we are seeing now.

[Fuppylodders]

2 hours ago, anothergol said:

But it's all automated. What's the time of the automated process, especially for the low quantities of reindeers, compared to the design & preparation time before launching the process? It wouldn't double the time/labor to produce 2x more, that's for sure.

I doubt everything is automated, although yeah, I do expect 'nearly' everything is. The swapping of the moulds won't be, they'll be stored somewhere. First off, yes, they could do double. And store the parts until they get bought. But, how many individual parts are they producing? How many parts are going out of stock? How many parts are required for sets to be produced? What about storing extras made for all those other out of stock parts? Do you realise how much storage space would be required for a world supply requirement? It's not just a few thousand. For TLG, it's a minor issue the reindeer going out of stock. They're likely balancing a huge amount of supply and demand issues at the moment. Given how massive of a company TLG is, I think you're not seeing the bigger picture they are faced with to simply 'make double'. Is double enough? How about triple? Would that disappear just as fast? They don't know, they likely have no urge to conduct any market research to determine how much they need to make to keep up with demand, they're playing it safe, and fitting extra in when they can. 

I really wish it was that simple, trust me I do, I just don't think it is or I'm sure we wouldnt be facing supply issues for them as we are as it also benefits TLG the more reindeer they sell. 

I can imagine the new tan horse having the same issue when it gets made given its a new coloured horse (correct me if I'm wrong, it's just the first time I seen the horse mould in that colour before). 

5 minutes ago, Anonknee Muss said:

Actually back-orders have increased exponentially since Covid-19. Sure LEGO was busy before but nothing like we are seeing now.

That's exactly what I said, just in different words 

Edited January 20, 2021 by Fuppylodders

[Garmetrowolf]

Anyone get their orders shipped since the beginning of the year? I'm still waiting for my order from January 5 to be sent out. 

[Aurore]

My order from January 1st has not shipped yet. Since they claim a 5 to 7 week delay for B&P orders to be shipped, I would not expect to receive it soon!

[CaptainSerMig]

Order placed January 2nd still in warehouse

[Anonknee Muss]

Customer service said there were problems with Royal Mail (the postal service they use in the UK for shipping B&P) so they are trying to ship out a large quantity with DHL, I think they said they will be shipped this week, for the UK at least.

[Ponga91]

Waiting for an order placed on December 17th to be shipped.

[Flak Maniak]

Man the silver armor from the Ideas Blacksmith (design ID 37614, previously in red in a Star Wars set) had better show up on B&P eventually...

[Marinho]

I made also 3 orders this year, and all of them are still in Warehouse. Operator confirmed that they are not "forgotten", but they have a big delay on sending them.

[Exetrius]

1 hour ago, Flak Maniak said:

Man the silver armor from the Ideas Blacksmith (design ID 37614, previously in red in a Star Wars set) had better show up on B&P eventually...

To be honest I am already very grateful (and surprised) that it was recoloured for a non-licensed set at all, but yeah, very much second this!

[Megbricks]

6 hours ago, Garmetrowolf said:

Anyone get their orders shipped since the beginning of the year? I'm still waiting for my order from January 5 to be sent out. 

I received 3 yesterday from end of décember  and Early january 

[Maple]

Placed mine Christmas Eve-ish. I expect it to come in 2-3 days after I get a covid vaccine, so maybe sometime in 2024.

[TheLegoDr]

I just received my order from 12/11, so the 5-7 week is accurate.

It wasn't in my order list, so I ended up ordering a lot of the same pieces again because they were taking so long and I thought it maybe got lost. Turns out it was just so far behind. I don't know why it didn't show up in my order summary though. Oh well. I'll have to find a use for the pieces somewhere.

 

I've never sold the pieces, but where does it say they can't be resold? It says they can't be used for marketing campaigns whatnot, but I've never seen it directly saying you can't resell the parts. (again I have no intention of doing that since I am a collector/builder, not a reseller).

[jonwil]

The 2 x 6 tile in dark azure (as used on the bike lane) is now available as is the green helmet from the Skate Park set.

 

[TWP]

On 1/19/2021 at 4:11 PM, anothergol said:

it's set 80023

Thanks, awesome! I don't see a lot of other interesting recolors, but maybe that's because I'm only interested in LBG/DBG/black/white and other space stuff

 

Btw, for the plethora of people saying they loose their carts on B&P, and those that want BnP to integrate with bricklink:  I would recommend the brickhunter tool. You can then just make a wanted list in bricklink with the pieces and quantities you need, and automatically import it into B&P. If your cart fails, then you can just re-import. I've used this tool twice now, and it is really amazing. BnP used to be a chore, but now I can get my order done in like 30 seconds, instead of 3 hours! It's like magic

(btw, I am in no way affiliated to brickhunter - I just think it's a great program. It may seem i'm overselling, but it is really that easy)

[Garmetrowolf]

8 hours ago, Megbricks said:

I received 3 yesterday from end of décember  and Early january 

Good to know. Thanks!

[mscott71]

On 1/20/2021 at 8:36 AM, Flak Maniak said:

What, you want the biggest toy company in the world to have a basically-functional website? What a strange thing to fantasize about!

I had a bit of back and forth with customer service over technical issues on the web site a few months ago - some time pre-Black Friday - that resulted in my getting a phone call from someone higher up to explain some of the things they were doing to fix problems on their web site.

The funniest part of the whole conversation was when he said "You have to understand that we're not a huge company like Amazon. We're just a family owned business." Sure they're not the size of Amazon but I'm pretty sure they've reached the size to be able to have a working ecommerce system.

[jonwil]

Is there any tool out there that can show what's in stock and what's not (something to make it easier than manually plugging in every number from my wish list to figure out just what's available right now?P)

 

[TheLegoDr]

31 minutes ago, mscott71 said:

I had a bit of back and forth with customer service over technical issues on the web site a few months ago - some time pre-Black Friday - that resulted in my getting a phone call from someone higher up to explain some of the things they were doing to fix problems on their web site.

The funniest part of the whole conversation was when he said "You have to understand that we're not a huge company like Amazon. We're just a family owned business." Sure they're not the size of Amazon but I'm pretty sure they've reached the size to be able to have a working ecommerce system.

That's laughable. They have profits in the billions. It isn't like they are some local mom and pop shop. Yes, family owned business. But still one of the largest toy manufacturers in the world...they should have a better online presence/IT department. Get Moss in there and fix it up!

[koalayummies]

9 minutes ago, TheLegoDr said:

Yes, family owned business.

Who are the yet unmarried Christiansens.