LEGO, Quo Vadis? Some Thoughts on a New Business Model

[TeriXeri]

Interesting, just found this article about a potential future way of customizing your own City set : 

https://spielwaren-investor.com/2020/05/13/ein-personalisiertes-lego-set-traum-vieler-fans-koennte-realitaet-werden/

If real, I think it's awesome.

 

 

Edited May 14, 2020 by TeriXeri

[Mylenium]

9 hours ago, TeriXeri said:

Interesting, just found this article about a potential future way of customizing your own City set :

Yeah, it might be interesting in that you finally may be able to get all the bits and pieces usually scattered across multiple sets in one box. A big deterrent for me with City sets is always that you get so much extra junk when you may just want a specific vehicle or animal mold.

Mylenium

[MAB]

14 hours ago, legotownlinz said:

I didn't say Lego should stop making their own sets, of course they still need sets for the toy market and the Lego stores.

Your assumption that customers buy Lego sets when they can't buy custom sets might be wrong if there are better alternatives. I started this topic because I'm considering to collect clone brand sets that I can better use for my city/train layout. Just take a look at these sets and compare them to Lego's train offerings. Do you really think that Lego will not loose market share if they don't improve?

I wish I could build the Bluebrixx train sets with Lego bricks. The instructions can be downloaded but it requires dozens Bricklink orders and costs a fortune. I guess it's more likely that 99% of the customers buy from Bluebrixx and not from Bricklink or Pick-a-Brick. I'd like to avoid clone brands, but I don't know how to do it. Buying Lego sets only gets less and less reasonable. Am I really the only one who is unhappy with the current situation?

What do you mean by market share? Market share of the toy market in general or market share of a highly niche area of buildable realistic trains? I don't think LEGO cares about having a large range of trains, why improve in one niche area if it is going to affect product production in another more profitable area. If a kid wants a train, they can buy a LEGO train. They don't get much choice, but they probably don't care.

Edited May 15, 2020 by MAB

[legotownlinz]

16 hours ago, howitzer said:

You make it sound like trains have been discontinued, but there are several sets available currently, and even PoweredUp-scheme includes a new train motor, so obviously TLG is interested in producing train sets in the future too. So what's the exact problem here?

Isn't it obvious, do I really have to explain it (again)?

 

What do you mean by market share? Market share of the toy market in general or market share of a highly niche area of buildable realistic trains? I don't think LEGO cares about having a large range of trains, why improve in one niche area if it is going to affect product production in another more profitable area. If a kid wants a train, they can buy a LEGO train. They don't get much choice, but they probably don't care.

This topic is about Lego and its competitors in the market for Lego-compatible products. Trains are just an example, it's the same for other themes too. 

 

[MAB]

1 hour ago, legotownlinz said:

Isn't it obvious, do I really have to explain it (again)?

 

This topic is about Lego and its competitors in the market for Lego-compatible products. Trains are just an example, it's the same for other themes too. 

 

In that case, if you are talking about the whole buildable toy market, then LEGO are clearly the leader in the marketplace as they are the No.1 toy brand across all toy areas. They cannot possibly cover every niche area, so not doing many different buildable trains or any other particular themes is not a problem. They dominate the whole market by not specialising in one theme or area. Other companies may specialise in, for example, buildable trains but those companies will always be niche and probably suffer because of it. They may be of interest to adults that want that niche product, but it wouldn't surprise me if LEGO sells more trains than they do, despite having a much smaller catalogue of trains for sale.

[TeriXeri]

LEGO currently is selling 5 system Trains (City Passenger, City Cargo, Disney, Hogwarts, Hidden Side) , 3 of those being fully ready and motorized.

Also still sells both Power Functions and Powered Up Train Motors, Rails and Switches.

Winter Holiday Train was on the market for 3 years from 2016-2019 and only just retired in December 2019.

More trains will certainly come, but the City Trains seem stay on the market for around 4 years before officially retiring/replaced by a new one.

2011 and 2015 did have an additional City Cargo Train , but since 2019 had the Hidden Side Cargo Train release, I can understand they didn't make another City one.

Edited May 15, 2020 by TeriXeri

[howitzer]

6 hours ago, legotownlinz said:

Isn't it obvious, do I really have to explain it (again)?

 

This topic is about Lego and its competitors in the market for Lego-compatible products. Trains are just an example, it's the same for other themes too. 

 

No, it isn't. As I and others have stated, there are multiple train sets currently for sale, and many more have been available in the past. Trains were never really in a big focus for TLG anyway, as they can't really compete for attention of serious train enthusiasts with companies such as Märklin and while trains certainly have their place in TLG's selection, they are and always will be a niche at best. Kids don't care for realism and wide selection and AFOLs are a niche market for TLG so trains are more like niche of a niche. Nobody forces you to buy Lego only though, so if some other company offers products more suited to your needs, go ahead. Or make your own train designs, that's what Lego is at it's core after all.

[legotownlinz]

13 hours ago, howitzer said:

No, it isn't. As I and others have stated, there are multiple train sets currently for sale, and many more have been available in the past. Trains were never really in a big focus for TLG anyway, as they can't really compete for attention of serious train enthusiasts with companies such as Märklin and while trains certainly have their place in TLG's selection, they are and always will be a niche at best. Kids don't care for realism and wide selection and AFOLs are a niche market for TLG so trains are more like niche of a niche. Nobody forces you to buy Lego only though, so if some other company offers products more suited to your needs, go ahead. Or make your own train designs, that's what Lego is at it's core after all.

I don't want this discussion to focus too much on trains, train are just an example for the problems Lego is facing. Nevertheless I explain it again, I underestimated that it is hard to understand what train fans want without being a train fan:

We neither want a decorated Christmas train nor an out-of-scale, overpriced Disney train nor a haunted train nor trains designed for children aged six. We just want detailed, ordinary trains and train-related buildings. The last excellent set was the Horizon Express in 2013. The competition offers many train-related sets for AFOLs. Trains are a niche market, but this is true for castle, pirates, space, ...  and many other themes and for each of these themes there are alternatives. If it's just trains, it wouldn't be an issue for Lego, but dozens of nice markets are relevant.

If you believe Lego is performing well: Fine. You can continue to collect Lego sets just because they are Lego sets. I don't. And I guess many other people are more focused, too. I would like to know your opinion how Lego can improve, that's why I started this thread. If you want to prove me that I'm an idiot who doesn't value Lego's products, please leave the discussion, it will lead us nowhere.

 

Edited May 16, 2020 by legotownlinz

[MAB]

9 hours ago, legotownlinz said:

I don't want this discussion to focus too much on trains, train are just an example for the problems Lego is facing. Nevertheless I explain it again, I underestimated that it is hard to understand what train fans want without being a train fan:

We neither want a decorated Christmas train nor an out-of-scale, overpriced Disney train nor a haunted train nor trains designed for children aged six. We just want detailed, ordinary trains and train-related buildings. The last excellent set was the Horizon Express in 2013. The competition offers many train-related sets for AFOLs. Trains are a niche market, but this is true for castle, pirates, space, ...  and many other themes and for each of these themes there are alternatives. If it's just trains, it wouldn't be an issue for Lego, but dozens of nice markets are relevant.

If you believe Lego is performing well: Fine. You can continue to collect Lego sets just because they are Lego sets. I don't. And I guess many other people are more focused, too. I would like to know your opinion how Lego can improve, that's why I started this thread. If you want to prove me that I'm an idiot who doesn't value Lego's products, please leave the discussion, it will lead us nowhere.

 

If you want detailed but ordinary trains why not go for a completely different style of toy like Hornby or an equivalent? They are aimed more at the railway enthusiast than kids these days, so have a much wider selection. Even if they had a very modest range - say a choice of 5 modern trains and 5 vintage/ steam trains, that is 10 sets - most of which will not be of any interest to most kids. Currently kids that want a train can get a train. It may not be what an adult would want, but most kids that want a train don't really care what the train is, just that it is a train.

Modern space is somewhat niche, but there has proven to be a viable market there and LEGO has filled it well with one-off sets aimed at adults / older teens such as the Mars Rover and Saturn V rocket. It doesn't really matter to LEGO if they don't have much in the way of classic space, pirates or castle on the shelves, even if other companies do, because the kids are busy buying City, Ninjago, Creator, etc. 

[The Brick Boss]

52 minutes ago, MAB said:

If you want detailed but ordinary trains why not go for a completely different style of toy like Hornby or an equivalent? 

Or you could go for one of the old Creator trains such as the Emerald Night or the TGV. 

[Mylenium]

4 hours ago, MAB said:

because the kids are busy buying City, Ninjago, Creator, etc. 

...but LEGO are still missing out on potential other themes. Not trying to flog a dead horse here, but Knights, Roman Legions and Vikings really don't sound too far-fetched from a European perspective, given how it is ingrained in our culture and history. This stuff would sell pretty well, at least regionally. Trains may be another story, but even there I beg to differ. There are entire forums clearly dominated by the LEGO train sub-genre/ theme even today and contrary to common belief there are many "young padawans" there, so it's not going to die off nor is it perhaps as niche as people seem to think. I'm not part of that scene, but it's alive and kicking, so there must be something to it. Whether it's a realistically viable business model for LEGO to expand their product range in this segment is another story, but seeing how desperate some people are even for the tiniest bit of news and how much stuff is being sold on custom third-party markets, it makes me think that indeed LEGO are neglecting these people and by the same token are not grabbing some money they could rake in easily...

Mylenium

[legotownlinz]

Cobi is very successful with ship models, e.g. the Titanic, another niche market ignored by Lego.

[howitzer]

9 hours ago, legotownlinz said:

I don't want this discussion to focus too much on trains, train are just an example for the problems Lego is facing. Nevertheless I explain it again, I underestimated that it is hard to understand what train fans want without being a train fan:

We neither want a decorated Christmas train nor an out-of-scale, overpriced Disney train nor a haunted train nor trains designed for children aged six. We just want detailed, ordinary trains and train-related buildings. The last excellent set was the Horizon Express in 2013. The competition offers many train-related sets for AFOLs. Trains are a niche market, but this is true for castle, pirates, space, ...  and many other themes and for each of these themes there are alternatives. If its just trains, it wouldn't be an issue for Lego, but dozens of nice markets are relevant.

If you believe Lego is performing well: Fine. You can continue to collect Lego sets just because they are Lego sets. I don't. And I guess many other people are more focused, too. I would like to know your opinion how Lego can improve, that's why I started this thread. If you want to prove me that I'm an idiot who doesn't value Lego's products, please leave the discussion, it will lead us nowhere.

 

I get your point about the Disney train and others, surely they are not something that an actual train fan wants. But I don't think realistic trains are really comparable to pirates/castle/space, as the three latter themes have always been set firmly in the realm of fantasy instead of realism. Trains are also somewhat difficult to sell to kids, considering that you need to spend quite a bit of money to buy tracks and trains to get the most out of it, while other parts of the City are much more playable with low investment. I remember that as a kid I would've loved to have large Lego-train (maybe even the monorail) but the sets were far too expensive for my family to be really considered.

Over the years TLG seems to have done probing of the market with various sets attempting to recreate some of the feeling in the classic themes, like Benny's Spaceship and recently Barracuda Bay, but at least the former doesn't appear to have been large enough success that it would mandate full-blown space revival and the impact of the latter is yet to be seen. I certainly hope it's enough to start a new line of pirate sets as that theme is completely absent from the current selection.

Making stuff for niche markets is problematic though for a large generalist corporation like TLG, so probably they'll keep on going with touching many subjects without diving deeply into anything. At least for now it appears that mostly it's the licensed themes that keep the cash flowing for TLG, but I also do hope that they invent something original that is also a marketing success in the near future. Hidden side was an attempt but it doesn't appear to be that successful.

[legotownlinz]

27 minutes ago, howitzer said:

Trains are also somewhat difficult to sell to kids, considering that you need to spend quite a bit of money to buy tracks and trains to get the most out of it, while other parts of the City are much more playable with low investment. I remember that as a kid I would've loved to have large Lego-train (maybe even the monorail) but the sets were far too expensive for my family to be really considered.

This is certainly true, but Lego's problems are mainly in the AFOL market. The kids market is still fine, there no clone brands in most of the stores except base plates and a few brick boxes.

 

27 minutes ago, howitzer said:

Making stuff for niche markets is problematic though for a large generalist corporation like TLG, so probably they'll keep on going with touching many subjects without diving deeply into anything. At least for now it appears that mostly it's the licensed themes that keep the cash flowing for TLG, but I also do hope that they invent something original that is also a marketing success in the near future. Hidden side was an attempt but it doesn't appear to be that successful.

Thus I suggested to improve ordering bricks and not creating sets for niche markets. Let the AFOLs create and share their own sets!

[MAB]

3 hours ago, Mylenium said:

...but LEGO are still missing out on potential other themes. Not trying to flog a dead horse here, but Knights, Roman Legions and Vikings really don't sound too far-fetched from a European perspective, given how it is ingrained in our culture and history. This stuff would sell pretty well, at least regionally.

Are they missing out though? If they introduced those themes and either scaled back or removed others, would total sales go up? Of course, none of us know the answer. Introducing regional themes (or themes that will sell well in only some regions) is risky. They have recently said that themes will be sold globally, not locally. Plus increasing the variation of themes, but having them significantly smaller, may not be an answer either. It is more development for possibly only similar sales. 

 

2 hours ago, legotownlinz said:

This is certainly true, but Lego's problems are mainly in the AFOL market. The kids market is still fine, there no clone brands in most of the stores except base plates and a few brick boxes.

Really? There are many clone brands for kids on shelves, often mixed up with the LEGO sets here. 

2 hours ago, legotownlinz said:

Thus I suggested to improve ordering bricks and not creating sets for niche markets. Let the AFOLs create and share their own sets!

You can already do this at bricklink, brickowl, pick-a-brick walls in LEGO stores, online pick-a-brick, online bricks and pieces. Three of those are run by LEGO, one is owned by LEGO and the other independent. Why would they want to introduce another route? The fact that many AFOLs MOC their own trains, spaceships, pirate sets, whatever you like (see whichever EB sub-forum is relevant) suggests that those that want to do this, already do this. Similarly, MOC / instruction sharing sites have existed for many years, again suggesting people already do this.

 

 

Edited May 16, 2020 by MAB

[Vindicare]

On 5/14/2020 at 11:03 PM, Mylenium said:

Yeah, it might be interesting in that you finally may be able to get all the bits and pieces usually scattered across multiple sets in one box. A big deterrent for me with City sets is always that you get so much extra junk when you may just want a specific vehicle or animal mold.

Mylenium

This is me where those bigger sets are concerned. Take 60097 Capital City. While I like the barebones hotel, it won’t do much with my Modulars. But the hot dog stand, bus, & ice cream scooter thing are fantastic. Luckily I found the set for $90. And 60233 Donut Shop Opening, if I could pick & just get the Donut Shop, TV van, & coffee cart, with most of the minifigs...I’d be in heaven. 

[TeriXeri]

58 minutes ago, Vindicare said:

This is me where those bigger sets are concerned. Take 60097 Capital City. While I like the barebones hotel, it won’t do much with my Modulars. But the hot dog stand, bus, & ice cream scooter thing are fantastic. Luckily I found the set for $90. And 60233 Donut Shop Opening, if I could pick & just get the Donut Shop, TV van, & coffee cart, with most of the minifigs...I’d be in heaven. 

Same here about the point of larger sets, and only really liking parts of it.

I actually do like the Hotel in the Captial City set, and the little buildings in the new Monkie Kid theme, but my collection mostly has 3-in-1 sized builds and no Modulars.

I know some people buy and sell sections of sets via Ebay and such but to me I rather buy sets first-hand.

But as long as 3-in-1 provides nice buildings I'm not too worried, I still want to get the 2020 Toyshop when I find a good deal on it, maybe 2, since 2020 doesn't really have other 3-in-1 buildings , and that set looks like a good pack.

 

 

Edited May 16, 2020 by TeriXeri

[legotownlinz]

2 hours ago, MAB said:

You can already do this at bricklink, brickowl, pick-a-brick walls in LEGO stores, online pick-a-brick, online bricks and pieces. Three of those are run by LEGO, one is owned by LEGO and the other independent. Why would they want to introduce another route? The fact that many AFOLs MOC their own trains, spaceships, pirate sets, whatever you like (see whichever EB sub-forum is relevant) suggests that those that want to do this, already do this. Similarly, MOC / instruction sharing sites have existed for many years, again suggesting people already do this.

I've explained it before: All these options are complicated, expensive or both. You can't upload part lists to Pick-a-Brick. Part availability directly from Lego is limited. Bricklink splits your part list into many orders with a shipping fee for each.

I have first hand experience with all of these I can can tell you it is a mess and expensive. These offers are for die-hard AFOLs, but unusable for the average customer who saw a nice design and just wants to order it.

I'd see the following criteria for custom orders to be widely accepted:

• Average price of 10 cent per part
• Direct order from a web platform without dealing with part lists
• Easy to understand rating system so that customers understand how extensive the design has been tested
• Stable set of available parts designers can rely on
• Availability of all important parts

[Vindicare]

4 hours ago, TeriXeri said:

Same here about the point of larger sets, and only really liking parts of it.

I actually do like the Hotel in the Captial City set, and the little buildings in the new Monkie Kid theme, but my collection mostly has 3-in-1 sized builds and no Modulars.

I know some people buy and sell sections of sets via Ebay and such but to me I rather buy sets first-hand.

But as long as 3-in-1 provides nice buildings I'm not too worried, I still want to get the 2020 Toyshop when I find a good deal on it, maybe 2, since 2020 doesn't really have other 3-in-1 buildings , and that set looks like a good pack.

 

 

I like the hotel as well, it has a good look to it & is easily MOD’d to fill it out. It just doesn’t do much for me as my town is now dominated by the Modulars. I love the buildings in the Monkie Kid theme also. I’m going to try to find a place for the one that comes with the Monkey King Warrior Mech in my Ninjago City stuff. 

[The Brick Boss]

5 hours ago, Vindicare said:

This is me where those bigger sets are concerned. Take 60097 Capital City. While I like the barebones hotel, it won’t do much with my Modulars. But the hot dog stand, bus, & ice cream scooter thing are fantastic. Luckily I found the set for $90. And 60233 Donut Shop Opening, if I could pick & just get the Donut Shop, TV van, & coffee cart, with most of the minifigs...I’d be in heaven. 

I definitely agree there. I have a table town too. But my buildings are more spread out. So modulars won't do in my town. I do use Creator houses though. 

Edited May 17, 2020 by Brandon Pea

[Aanchir]

10 hours ago, Mylenium said:

...but LEGO are still missing out on potential other themes. Not trying to flog a dead horse here, but Knights, Roman Legions and Vikings really don't sound too far-fetched from a European perspective, given how it is ingrained in our culture and history. This stuff would sell pretty well, at least regionally. Trains may be another story, but even there I beg to differ. There are entire forums clearly dominated by the LEGO train sub-genre/ theme even today and contrary to common belief there are many "young padawans" there, so it's not going to die off nor is it perhaps as niche as people seem to think. I'm not part of that scene, but it's alive and kicking, so there must be something to it. Whether it's a realistically viable business model for LEGO to expand their product range in this segment is another story, but seeing how desperate some people are even for the tiniest bit of news and how much stuff is being sold on custom third-party markets, it makes me think that indeed LEGO are neglecting these people and by the same token are not grabbing some money they could rake in easily... 

Mylenium

There's no limit to the number of potential other themes that LEGO could find success with, but there are limits to how many of those directions they can successfully cater to at any given time. You could just as easily argue that 30 years ago they were "missing out" on just as many popular and lucrative potential themes because they didn't have any themes like Ninjago, Friends, Dots, Star Wars, Speed Champions, Super Heroes, Super Mario, and Creator Expert.

It's valid to be frustrated if at a certain point in time, there's not a LEGO theme in a category you're particularly interested in or passionate about. But that doesn't mean that LEGO would necessarily make any more money by focusing on the areas of "potential" that stand out most strongly to you than those that stand out most strongly to them. I mean, I know loads of LEGO fans who are passionate about Bionicle and other buildable action figure themes, myself included — but I'm not somehow convinced that they are making a grave error by not making that segment of their fanbase their highest priority.

Bear in mind that LEGO is a European company that does the vast majority of their design work at their headquarters in rural Denmark. It's not like they don't have the means to learn what sorts of subject matter children in Europe tend to enjoy. Chances are, Europe is the region whose children LEGO designers and executives tend to encounter most frequently! If LEGO sales in Europe were in some kind of free fall, then that would be a more pressing reason to worry about "missed potential" within that market. But as of last year, they've remained an industry leader in Europe and even continued to grow their sales in Western Europe, all while tapping into the enormous potential sales in Asia that they've been "missing out on" for much, MUCH longer.

Edited May 17, 2020 by Aanchir

[Mylenium]

4 hours ago, Aanchir said:

while tapping into the enormous potential sales in Asia that they've been "missing out on" for much, MUCH longer.

Let me reply by firing the same question back at you: Have they, though? Given that there's a million competitors in that region, some of which are rather successful by themselves, it's a completely different discussion. And given the current political climate I'm not sure how future-proof an aggressive expansion in China, India and so on might be. The rest is of course irrelevant. We can all play the numbers game and armchair-CEO all day, but the simple truth is we all don't know. It just seems funny to me that a European company cares so little about actual European subjects. Even your claim about focus-testing with mostly European kids might not really make sense in this context then, as clearly some of these discussions would inevitably come up...

Mylenium

10 hours ago, MAB said:

If they introduced those themes and either scaled back or removed others, would total sales go up?

Let's put one myth to rest: When we're talking about regionally-themed stuff, we're talking about the cultural appeal and a potentially stable longtime market, not overall sales exploding. Of course there's only so many sets you can sell to people every year before they run out of money. My point is merely about continuity and I've said it a million times: If Playmobil, Schleich and a few other can sell e.g. knights-centric stuff by the bucket, then so could LEGO. This stuff just works and there appears to be no saturation point. Whether or not this would provide a viable long term strategy vs. LEGO's current approach of chasing short, but highly profitable hype cycles would be another debate entirely...

Mylenium

[MAB]

9 hours ago, legotownlinz said:

I've explained it before: All these options are complicated, expensive or both. You can't upload part lists to Pick-a-Brick. Part availability directly from Lego is limited. Bricklink splits your part list into many orders with a shipping fee for each.

I have first hand experience with all of these I can can tell you it is a mess and expensive. These offers are for die-hard AFOLs, but unusable for the average customer who saw a nice design and just wants to order it.

I'd see the following criteria for custom orders to be widely accepted:

• Average price of 10 cent per part
• Direct order from a web platform without dealing with part lists
• Easy to understand rating system so that customers understand how extensive the design has been tested
• Stable set of available parts designers can rely on
• Availability of all important parts

They may be complicated for you, but clearly not to others. Bricklink has been going about 20 years now so AFOLs must be finding it useful. Of course there is a learning curve and if people are not willing to put time in, then they won't get much out. Sometimes sourcing the parts for a project is half the fun of it.

These offers are for die-hard AFOLs, but unusable for the average customer who saw a nice design and just wants to order it. 

For that sort of person, there are LEGO sets available from the LEGO store or elsewhere. 

Average price of 10 cent per part

Based on what prices? And why would you limit the number of larger parts (which typically cost more direct from LEGO) per set? If a set is designed and has a number of larger parts, and it did not meet your criteria, then it would not be allowed. By having such a strict limit, you are encouraging the use of smaller parts when larger ones would work and encouraging the use of many smaller, cheaper parts not because they enhance a design but as they will keep the price per part down.

Direct order from a web platform without dealing with part lists

Again, LEGO already does this themselves. They are called LEGO sets.

Easy to understand rating system so that customers understand how extensive the design has been tested

Who would be the testers? And what does testing mean? Stability, playability, difficulty of the build, ...? LEGO already test their own sets according to their in-house design rules and many people play test and review them online. For MOCs it is much harder to have a reliable test, since what people want out of a set varies from person to person.

Stable set of available parts designers can rely on

There is already a stable set, that is the current parts LEGO has in stock - B+P is a good indicator. If LEGO would be required to keep older parts in stock, then this means them continuing to produce parts that may not be needed in their own sets. So unlikely. Bricklink is relatively stable, unless a very popular MOC comes along and older parts get bought out. So this would stop a designer from using a retired part, even if there is plenty of secondary market stock as their design may go from being sustainable to unsustainable.

Availability of all important parts

As above, this implies you can only use currently produced parts. And aren't all parts important, if the casual user cannot use any other way of getting any non-important parts?

 

IDEAS already comes fairly close to what you are asking for. A designer designs something. People can buy it according to your criteria:

average price per part - this tends to be in line with regular LEGO sets.

direct order - yes, as a set.

easy to understand rating system - yes, it is tested by LEGO according to LEGO standards.

stable set of parts - yes, LEGO's current catalogue.

availability of parts - yes, LEGO's current catalogue.

 

There are two additional constraints:

that there is a business case to make the set, there is no point in LEGO testing designs or packaging sets that very few people will buy.

that there are no infringements of other companies licenses.

 

Bricklink's MOC shop came even closer, but it failed as AFOLs of the time didn't want it.

1 hour ago, Mylenium said:

Of course there's only so many sets you can sell to people every year before they run out of money. My point is merely about continuity and I've said it a million times: If Playmobil, Schleich and a few other can sell e.g. knights-centric stuff by the bucket, then so could LEGO.

They could, but do they need to and would it benefit the company? If sales of other themes go down as the people buying knights are no longer buying Ninjago or whatever, then was there a benefit? They could sell bucket loads of 20th century historical figures and sets, same with 19th, 18th, 17th, 16th, ... all the way back to Ancient Egypt and pre-historical. They could also do licensed tie-ins with Horrible Histories for their historical stuff. They could do every popular kids book. They could do every kids movie that comes out, they could do modern space, futuristic space, they could do retro-futuristic space, they could do vehicles through the ages. They could do City like sets based on animals instead of people. They could do science sets where the project equipment is built from LEGO parts instead of being pre-formed. They could do large action figures. Pick just about any toy on the shelf of a toy store and they could do it. That is without touching on collectables for adults. Pick any popular movie or TV franchise, past or present, they could do it. Every single one of the things I mentioned, another company is already doing it and making it work for them. 

[howitzer]

9 hours ago, legotownlinz said:

I've explained it before: All these options are complicated, expensive or both. You can't upload part lists to Pick-a-Brick. Part availability directly from Lego is limited. Bricklink splits your part list into many orders with a shipping fee for each.

I have first hand experience with all of these I can can tell you it is a mess and expensive. These offers are for die-hard AFOLs, but unusable for the average customer who saw a nice design and just wants to order it.

I'd see the following criteria for custom orders to be widely accepted:

• Average price of 10 cent per part
• Direct order from a web platform without dealing with part lists
• Easy to understand rating system so that customers understand how extensive the design has been tested
• Stable set of available parts designers can rely on
• Availability of all important parts

While a service fulfilling the criteria you listed would certainly be nice from the customer perspective, I wonder who would operate it? I'm guessing you think TLG would, but I'm not sure it's any more feasible for them as it would be for a single third party.

They would have to keep in stock every part available, and as we know, every year some parts are retired from the sets while new ones are introduced. What would happen to those retired parts, would they have to keep producing them even when they'd not be used in sets anymore? At some point they'd have to retire some parts from this market too (it's impossible to keep producing every part forever) and this would mean discontinuing every design that used those parts. And this would repeat year after year. Currently it's the aftermarket that supplies parts for MOCing and I don't think it's possible for TLG to replace the service Bricklink stores are providing, considering the thousands of sellers and their stocks of long retired parts.

I'd argue that all the important parts are still available and probably will always be, though your mileage may vary on what's considered important. Maybe something like this could work with a list of core parts considered important and irreplaceable in TLG's inventory but making such a list of parts would be really difficult and drawing the line would be somewhat arbitrary no matter where it'd be drawn. I also don't think it would be very popular among designers as they probably don't want to limit their designs into a narrow selection of usable parts. Of course there are currently many parts that are technically available, but are far too expensive to be used in a design that's intended for sale, but even counting those out, there are tons of other useful parts that are out of production but available from the aftermarket cheaply, and it's these parts that are the problem. Either TLG would have to keep producing and stocking parts which are no longer used much, or they'd have to limit the parts selection so much as to render this service almost useless.

Ordering pieces for a large MOC from Bricklink can certainly be a hassle and sometimes pretty expensive too, but I don't think any other way to do it is feasible.

For the record, there was a ~4300 part MOC which I wanted to build, and I exported the parts list from Rebrickable to Bricklink to get a feeling of how much it would cost to build it. The result at the time was some 400-500€ (can't remember exactly) from 4 different sellers. I could have placed the orders there and then, and assuming those shops were to provide what they promised, I could've had the set ready for building in about a week or two. From first discovering the MOC in Rebricable I could've had the orders placed and paid within an hour, which I'd say isn't that long time, and the cost would've been similar to what new official sets cost when new (not discounted). So in my experience, even with all the hassles of Bricklink, it's very useful service for us AFOLs.

[legotownlinz]

2 hours ago, MAB said:

Average price of 10 cent per part

Based on what prices? And why would you limit the number of larger parts (which typically cost more direct from LEGO) per set? If a set is designed and has a number of larger parts, and it did not meet your criteria, then it would not be allowed. By having such a strict limit, you are encouraging the use of smaller parts when larger ones would work and encouraging the use of many smaller, cheaper parts not because they enhance a design but as they will keep the price per part down.

Do you understand the meaning of the word 'average' in 'Average price of 10 cent per part'? I have no clue how you came to your conclusions unless you overlooked 'average'.

 

2 hours ago, MAB said:

Sometimes sourcing the parts for a project is half the fun of it.

Interesting. Not for me.

 

1 hour ago, howitzer said:

They would have to keep in stock every part available, and as we know, every year some parts are retired from the sets while new ones are introduced. What would happen to those retired parts, would they have to keep producing them even when they'd not be used in sets anymore? At some point they'd have to retire some parts from this market too (it's impossible to keep producing every part forever) and this would mean discontinuing every design that used those parts.

Not every new part must be added to the stable set of parts. Of course the stable set is always a subset of the parts available at a given time. If a part of the stable set is retired, it should be announced early enough to give designers a chance to modify their designs. It is not necessary that each design is available on the platform forever, if part availability is guaranteed for two years it is certainly enough. 

 

Edited May 17, 2020 by legotownlinz