How are Bricklink sellers able to sell NIB current sets for less than retail price?

[Kit Figsto]

The title pretty much says it all, but to elaborate, I was looking on Bricklink today and found some examples of sets that are either currently available (or were recently retired) available for sale, still new in box, for sometimes less than the price you would pay at the LEGO store.  For example, if you go and look at available listings for new copies of 75192, you have to go to the second page before you can find any that are $850 (the current retail price for it).  Some of the listings are over $100 under the currently retail price! 

Most of the stores have a ton of feedback, all of it being positive, and the average Bricklink consumer is definitely going to be privy to sellers who may have resealed boxes or are selling knockoff bricks and trying to pass them off as real (compared to an average eBay buyer that may not be as knowledgable about LEGO, whereas I would guess most Bricklink users are AFOLs or others that are "in the know" about LEGO).  Because of that, I don't think they're scams, because these users would've been called out and/or banned.  So, how are people able to sell these for so far under retail price?  Are they somehow able to buy them at wholesale price?  Are they stolen? (not really sure how you'd shoplift a UCS Falcon, so at least in this specific case, that seems unlikely)  Factory backdoors?  Something else?

I would assume that with smaller sets (say, under $50 or so), there's a chance people buy a bunch of them on sale, but with D2Cs or really large sets, sales seem a lot less common.  Again, I'm only talking about new in box sets here.

Anyway, just curious about this.  Hopefully this topic is in the right spot!

[dmoos001]

Lego Store Employee discounts from what I have heard... the good ole fell off the truck for things is always there as well.

[LegendaryArticuno]

Factoring in shipping costs, you will never really save buying full sets on Bricklink.

[MAB]

There are many possible reasons. It may be that they bought it then regretted it and cannot return it, they may be in a country where LEGO stores are franchises and not run by LEGO and give discounts, they may have bought it to get freebies, employee discount if they work or used to work in the factory, ...

4 hours ago, LegendaryArticuno said:

Factoring in shipping costs, you will never really save buying full sets on Bricklink.

Sure you can, it just depends what price you are comparing to.

[Feuer Zug]

Clearance. I've been known to raid stores when they put LEGO on clearance. Half off a set is enough for me to clean the shelves at times. Those Marvel $10 mecha with minifigs are a great example. A retailer put them on end of season clearance for $4 each. I loaded a trolley with them. Found some DC and Star Wars Brickheadz for €3 a piece. Tried to clean them out, until I found out they a pallet of Flash, Cyborg, Rey and Kylo Ren each in the back. I wasn't that crazy.

[MAB]

18 minutes ago, Feuer Zug said:

Clearance. I've been known to raid stores when they put LEGO on clearance. Half off a set is enough for me to clean the shelves at times. Those Marvel $10 mecha with minifigs are a great example. A retailer put them on end of season clearance for $4 each. I loaded a trolley with them. Found some DC and Star Wars Brickheadz for €3 a piece. Tried to clean them out, until I found out they a pallet of Flash, Cyborg, Rey and Kylo Ren each in the back. I wasn't that crazy.

I found Flash and the single pack Kylo Ren did OK. I think I paid £3.25 each and they sold for between £9-11 each before postage. But yeah, Cyborg not so good for resale.

We don't get heavy discounts on decent sets any more though, stuff seems to disappear at 30% off, and rarely gets to 50% let alone 75% like it used to.

[Feuer Zug]

6 hours ago, MAB said:

I found Flash and the single pack Kylo Ren did OK. I think I paid £3.25 each and they sold for between £9-11 each before postage. But yeah, Cyborg not so good for resale.

We don't get heavy discounts on decent sets any more though, stuff seems to disappear at 30% off, and rarely gets to 50% let alone 75% like it used to.

Probably a reason those Brickheadz were such a deal. I don't find clearance deals like that often, but you never know. Sometimes even the Tesco sales are good enough.

[Johnny1360]

Like I usually wait for a sale, all sets at one time or another will be available for a small discount 20% or better, at alternate stores. I have seen people clean the shelf of on sale sets as well, I assume to resell. Anyway I am sure most sellers operate the same as any other retailer, so discounts should be expected from time to time. I am also sure there are many aspects that I am not even aware of.

[MAB]

33 minutes ago, Johnny1360 said:

Like I usually wait for a sale, all sets at one time or another will be available for a small discount 20% or better, at alternate stores. I have seen people clean the shelf of on sale sets as well, I assume to resell. Anyway I am sure most sellers operate the same as any other retailer, so discounts should be expected from time to time. I am also sure there are many aspects that I am not even aware of.

A big difference now compared to 10 years ago is that people know LEGO is valuable on the resale market and as soon as decent sets have a discount they get cleared out. 20-30% is a pretty decent discount now on popular sets. A decade ago I wouldn't buy unless it has a 30% discount as it was almost guaranteed that every (non-D2C) set would get that discount at some stage. Some sets don't need discounting at all if the retailer knows they are selling well.

 

[Mylenium]

On 2/6/2023 at 11:06 PM, Kit Figsto said:

So, how are people able to sell these for so far under retail price?

The UCS Falcon was never LEGO-exclusive. It was only "exclusive" to some retailers. And those will simply offload it to other resellers when stuff clogs up shelf space. Normal practice in the retail space. Similarly, most LEGO stores are independent franchise operations (here in Germany they are GmbH, meaning LLC) and in theory they could sell their stuff for any price. They may just not be able to do this in reality because they sold their soul to LEGO and no doubt the contracts are pretty strict. Still, even they will eventually filter surplus stock to secondary markets if they can't sell it themselves. the rest is probably that grey area in-between where just driving over the border into another country changes the formula. Perfectly possible that you could load your van just on a day trip from Germany to The Netherlands or similar. Sets that are exclusive here could be sold in regular toy stores over there. And of course reputable sellers have all sorts of connections to other sellers and exchange stock all the time.

Mylenium

[Feuer Zug]

On 2/8/2023 at 7:59 AM, Johnny1360 said:

I have seen people clean the shelf of on sale sets as well, I assume to resell.

Not everybody is in it to resell. When they put the Brickheadz on clearance that I mentioned, I wanted them for the parts. Those new bricks with all the studs on the sides and plethora of tiles were a boon to me.

[Johnny1360]

Yes I do that as well but usually only pick up one or two sets, maybe more if they are small. I would never buy multiple copies of a large set though, even on sale, much less all of them on the shelf. I just don't need that many parts, many of which may or may not be useful and of course that is just my personal experience.

[Feuer Zug]

@Johnny1360 I rarely buy more than one of the big sets on clearance. But those small sets were so cheap and the parts perfect for me. I think I bought about 30 of the BrickHeadz. Paid less than €100. As mentioned, I didn't come close to cleaning them out. Clearing the shelves for a moment, yes. But what I did on a few BrickHeadz sets, others do with huge wallets and pallet jacks.

[Johnny1360]

Nice, I do the same thing, I once bought every Ninjago Ice Tank polybag on clearance, for the chain link pieces, ended up with about 16/17 bags for less than $50, now I have like 10 foot worth of chain and a bunch of other useful parts. Can never have enough chain links, lol.

 

Edited February 10, 2023 by Johnny1360

[Maple]

I buy my City sets from European ebay sellers. The sets are much cheaper in euros, and they have massive sales which means I save 45-65% on sets.

[MAB]

11 hours ago, Maple said:

I buy my City sets from European ebay sellers. The sets are much cheaper in euros, and they have massive sales which means I save 45-65% on sets.

Some City sets do seem to be crazy prices in the USA, but then some other themes seem to be quite cheap in comparison. It seems strange that LEGO would think they can get away with charging such high prices for City in the USA, or is it that they are just charging less for Marvel and Star Wars, as those themes are competing with other brand toys that are cheaper than LEGO whereas City has no major rival and they can charge what they like?

 

[Maple]

4 hours ago, MAB said:

Some City sets do seem to be crazy prices in the USA, but then some other themes seem to be quite cheap in comparison. It seems strange that LEGO would think they can get away with charging such high prices for City in the USA, or is it that they are just charging less for Marvel and Star Wars, as those themes are competing with other brand toys that are cheaper than LEGO whereas City has no major rival and they can charge what they like?

 

How do you figure a Marvel or Star Wars set is cheaper in the USA? They are almost exactly the same price, and again, in Europe your VAT taxes are included. USA taxes are not.

[MAB]

On 3/8/2023 at 3:19 PM, Maple said:

How do you figure a Marvel or Star Wars set is cheaper in the USA? They are almost exactly the same price, and again, in Europe your VAT taxes are included. USA taxes are not.

I mean charging less for Marvel and Star Wars than they would otherwise do compared to City, not compared to Europe.

Marvel and Star Wars LEGO themes both have to compete with many other Marvel and Star Wars toys from other brands, so it might be those that keep the prices of LEGO down.

[dr_spock]

Do Disney licensing fees vary from region to region?

 

[BrickG]

Some people are kind of professional "deal" finders. They go to the stores when they know a 50%+ off sale is going to happen for pretty much anything and anywhere, but I kind of knew a guy who did it with just LEGO. Theoretically they'd find the sales, buy lots, sell them when there's no sales happening. I bought some slightly older sets for like 50% off through facebook.

 

At least that's what they said. Might have stolen them :P.