Lego Licensed Parts available from Bricks & Pieces

[Clone OPatra]

I feel totally deflated about the new B&P at this point. Old B&P was a major point if excitement in the LEGO hobby for a while, but now with the amount of mucking about with it that they're doing, I can't bring myself to want to check it anymore. No clarity on when new pieces will be added / if they ever will, constant availability changes. It's no surprise, but it's really LEGO's loss.

[Ponga91]

In Italy it says “standard parts service not available. Hope to be available again in May”.

G***amn it. This is becoming more frustrating every time…

[SoupOrFishOil]

That's indeed disappointing. I hope these are just growing pains.  I don't buy much directly from Lego except for BnP these days. It would be nice at the very least to have a banner up above saying that they are only offering bestsellers while they catch up on orders with an ETA of when we can expect other pieces back. It would still be lame but at least there would be some communication. 

edit: Oh, May? I guess that's not so far away, but when in May....

Edited April 20, 2022 by SoupOrFishOil

[RichardGoring]

I just don't see how a service that has been running for so long, for such a large company, is causing them so many problems.

But at the same time, I can see that Bricks and Pieces wasn't at all profitable, and so it was either change it or lose it. But the apparent lack of planning, testing, or structure to it is so odd. This isn't a service that needs to be new or one that requires a punt or risk. It's stable and long-lived. Just bizarre.

[TheLegoDr]

I used to buy from BnP more often than Bricklink thanks to quantities needed plus shipping charges. But it seems that is more difficult these days. I guess we will see how it goes once backlogged orders get caught up. I finally received my early March order, so still about 6 weeks it seems.

[jonwil]

LEGO are clearly still feeling the effects of the biggest global health crisis in recorded history.

Its entirely possible that B&P is not back to where it was pre-pandemic in terms of workforce (because of Danish Covid rules, because of Covid rules imposed by the company or just because of staff shortages due to people being off sick with Covid or whatever)

 

[Maple]

So people who were defending this F-up, what do you have to say now?

Yet again another needless change by LEGO that is a huge mess. Just hire more people!

[RichardGoring]

Just as my last Bricks & Pieces order (March 10) has arrived today, they have paused it. Oh well, I've not had time to plan out the parts I need for a couple of planned MOCs, so not personally in any rush for them to open. But I do hope it comes back online soon, and with the 2022 new pieces too.

[Borex]

Since i heard about the changes i stopped looking at the bnp service just to keep my good mood. It’s all so unnecessary. We had so much good fun with it. Strolling through set numbers and then the feeling of victory if you found something you needed. 

[Anonknee Muss]

4 hours ago, RichardGoring said:

I just don't see how a service that has been running for so long, for such a large company, is causing them so many problems.

They are also sufferring from a crippled QA department yet they pledged $1B to some silly over-hyped Meta-verse. Disappointing.

[upliftingbricks]

I wouldn't expect it back till near the end of May. There were delays of 5-6 weeks so Id expect it back in that time frame once that backlog is cleared. It seems like a sensible thing to do to me and likely why they took new parts away to reduce order volume but obviously that wasn't enough. Why they didn't close B&P and say it would be back merged with PAB after 5-6 weeks is beyond me. Smacks of bad Product Management.

They use to close B&P for 2 months from Dec-Feb so just treat it like that. Hopefully when its back they wont need to close it again and new parts will be back. Maybe they wont be its all guess work but we all know by now that when there are changes on the Lego site it takes a while to get through the evitable issues. 

[Maple]

3 hours ago, Anonknee Muss said:

They are also sufferring from a crippled QA department yet they pledged $1B to some silly over-hyped Meta-verse. Disappointing.

Completely agree. I don't think they stuck in all 1 billion, but even half a billion is insane when LEGO has so many actual world problems they don't want to bother addressing.

[Lion King]

4 hours ago, Borex said:

Since i heard about the changes i stopped looking at the bnp service just to keep my good mood. It’s all so unnecessary. We had so much good fun with it. Strolling through set numbers and then the feeling of victory if you found something you needed. 

Completely agred. 

[Megbricks]

10 hours ago, Clone OPatra said:

I feel totally deflated about the new B&P at this point. Old B&P was a major point if excitement in the LEGO hobby for a while, but now with the amount of mucking about with it that they're doing, I can't bring myself to want to check it anymore. No clarity on when new pieces will be added / if they ever will, constant availability changes. It's no surprise, but it's really LEGO's loss.

I kinda feel the same. I usually don’t complain but now it became meeeeh. I don't check it anymore. Well not as often as i used to. I am Starting to receive orders from 5-6-7 weeks ago… oh well. I guess my wallet will thank me. :)

[RichardGoring]

What will happen first? Bricks & Pieces reopen, Bricklink Designer Program round 2 sets delivered, or BDP round 3 sets for sale?

Or, wildcard moment, Hasbro reveals that it's going to buy LEGO, which is why the Optimus Prime set is going to happen this year?

[Maple]

35 minutes ago, RichardGoring said:

What will happen first? Bricks & Pieces reopen, Bricklink Designer Program round 2 sets delivered, or BDP round 3 sets for sale?

Or, wildcard moment, Hasbro reveals that it's going to buy LEGO, which is why the Optimus Prime set is going to happen this year?

Excuse you, but some of us are still waiting for our round 1 sets. 

[RichardGoring]

38 minutes ago, Maple said:

Excuse you, but some of us are still waiting for our round 1 sets. 

Ha! I didn't think there was even a chance of that happening, so didn't even consider using it as an option. 

[Roebuck]

10 hours ago, Maple said:

 Just hire more people!

I have been there and it is not a very big room so do not think it would help to hire more people as there is no room for them unless they work in shifts around the clock and I do not think that is very likely. Employees trying to stay awake and picking parts in the middle of the night, it would be a nightmare to handle with all the faults 

10 hours ago, Borex said:

Since i heard about the changes i stopped looking at the bnp service just to keep my good mood. It’s all so unnecessary. We had so much good fun with it. Strolling through set numbers and then the feeling of victory if you found something you needed. 

8 hours ago, upliftingbricks said:

I wouldn't expect it back till near the end of May. There were delays of 5-6 weeks so Id expect it back in that time frame once that backlog is cleared. It seems like a sensible thing to do to me and likely why they took new parts away to reduce order volume but obviously that wasn't enough. Why they didn't close B&P and say it would be back merged with PAB after 5-6 weeks is beyond me. Smacks of bad Product Management.

They use to close B&P for 2 months from Dec-Feb so just treat it like that. Hopefully when its back they wont need to close it again and new parts will be back. Maybe they wont be its all guess work but we all know by now that when there are changes on the Lego site it takes a while to get through the evitable issues. 

Yes, hopefully it will be similar again after the break and startup problems

 

[MAB]

16 hours ago, Clone OPatra said:

It's no surprise, but it's really LEGO's loss.

I think it is more our loss than theirs. When it was a reasonably well kept secret, orders took under two weeks to arrive, part availability was good (variety and speed) and the prices were often very good. As more people found out about it, presumably it was costing them more to run it through staff costs. If it doesn't scale well in terms of costs to them and starts to affect regular orders, then it is not a surprise that they start to reduce the service leaving just the basics and removing the popular parts.

15 hours ago, RichardGoring said:

I just don't see how a service that has been running for so long, for such a large company, is causing them so many problems.

But at the same time, I can see that Bricks and Pieces wasn't at all profitable, and so it was either change it or lose it. But the apparent lack of planning, testing, or structure to it is so odd. This isn't a service that needs to be new or one that requires a punt or risk. It's stable and long-lived. Just bizarre.

Because the service changed in the sense it became popular. Just like there were rarely problems buying new sets in the first few months after release five or ten years ago, now there are sets that disappear quickly and are hard to find. 

A stable service becomes unstable when too many people use it, unless they make changes to cope with the additional volume.

[Chopper Bricks]

I just noticed, the "Build a Mini" thing is also gone from the site! I can't build any more or change the ones I had in my cart... I tried the french, german and british sites.

[anothergol]

1 hour ago, MAB said:

I think it is more our loss than theirs. When it was a reasonably well kept secret, orders took under two weeks to arrive, part availability was good (variety and speed) and the prices were often very good. As more people found out about it, presumably it was costing them more to run it through staff costs. If it doesn't scale well in terms of costs to them and starts to affect regular orders, then it is not a surprise that they start to reduce the service leaving just the basics and removing the popular parts.

Still their loss because.. they're not the only source for parts nowadays. While I can't buy legit parts, I buy clones.

[upliftingbricks]

4 hours ago, Chopper Bricks said:

I just noticed, the "Build a Mini" thing is also gone from the site! I can't build any more or change the ones I had in my cart... I tried the french, german and british sites.

That went a day after it came out. They got too many orders I think

[Maple]

8 hours ago, Roebuck said:

I have been there and it is not a very big room so do not think it would help to hire more people as there is no room for them unless they work in shifts around the clock and I do not think that is very likely. Employees trying to stay awake and picking parts in the middle of the night, it would be a nightmare to handle with all the faults 

 

I don't want to hear excuses. LEGO made $2 billion last year. Make a bigger room. Hire more people. EVERY other company on Earth work in shifts. There can, and should be a night shift. My dad worked in an ice cream plant, it ran 24/7. In fact if you shut it down it takes 3+ hours to do and takes even longer to start it back up. I think it was shut down three times in the last 50 years, once because it lost power. There was no need to change the old system if LEGO couldn't handle it.

[MAB]

2 hours ago, Maple said:

I don't want to hear excuses. LEGO made $2 billion last year. Make a bigger room. Hire more people. EVERY other company on Earth work in shifts. There can, and should be a night shift. My dad worked in an ice cream plant, it ran 24/7. In fact if you shut it down it takes 3+ hours to do and takes even longer to start it back up. I think it was shut down three times in the last 50 years, once because it lost power. There was no need to change the old system if LEGO couldn't handle it.

Then the issue is should they hire more staff to manually pick parts if they don't make much money from it, or should they just run a more automated service for a much narrower range of basic parts and not offer the wider range for sale. It wouldn't surprise me if they end up shutting down the bricks and pieces sales side of the operation, keeping the old PAB style selection and retaining the missing pieces section for what it was originally meant to be, for replacing missing and/or damaged parts in new sets. Or of course they could increase prices even further if they need new facilities and staff to man it. The delays have become a bit of a joke and customer services seem to have to deal with queries about when such and such a part will become available. Killing off the sales of new parts would reduce the amount of queries about part availability, speed up the service for missing parts and also encourage people to buy full sets for the parts they want or buy parts from bricklink, where sellers will often have bought the new sets for new parts at full RRP and LEGO takes a second cut through fees too.

I hope they don't close it down permanently, as it has been a useful source for parts, but it does seem to have grown way larger than it used to be (in terms of customers not parts) and hence broken itself. It also does seem to have shifted habits from buying sets to parts. I know of quite a few MOC builders (myself included) that rarely buy sets now for parts when you can buy the necessary parts direct.

 

[Frizzlefry25]

Yikes and I was just starting to use it more for MOC's and additional pieces. With the free shipping, it was cheaper than bircklink for many pieces, minus the wait! I'm four weeks and counting for the final pieces for a MOC, but have had two best seller orders delivered in less than a week! I don't see why they can make the same turnaround for both. I hope my order gets processed with everything going on.