dotmike

Wow! Same store and everything. Thank you for posting those! What date did you get them to do the price guarantee thing? I suppose it's too late now they've woken up to the mistake at other TRU stores, but other retailers might price match.

Inspired by the report of Toys R Us pricing incompetence over the ship, I did a bit of late night shopping... Unfortunately, my nearest TRU at Hurstville (Sydney) hadn't made the same mistake: Oh well, I feel even a mispriced $127 for the QAR was still borderline too much anyway. I'll save the money for the Pearl and make do with the smaller sets I got from Target. (BTW, Target Hurstville has shelves overflowing with POTC as of tonight, which is unusual, as they're normally the worst LEGO stocking dept store around.)

Just scan it using a price checker scanner. The server that supplies the prices is the same one as the cash register. Sadly, I'd guess you'll find it the same as every other Toys R Us: they aren't a chain known for their generous discounts!

I understand where you're coming from. I held the QAR box in my hands for the first time today, and felt a tinge of disappointment. I'm not sure I'd even be sad if the scalpers cleared the Target shelves before I get there later in the week. Something else to bear in mind: The Black Pearl is coming... I suspect the QAR was released first and by itself as it's the Pearl which would get chosen over it if the two were on the shelf together. The Black Pearl is a very iconic ship, whereas QAR is just a nice ship with skulls and sails.

$144 if the "worst coupon ever" is valid! Hmm, $199.99 RRP vs $144. Not bad. Almost within a "I don't mind too much" price gouge over $119.99 USD RRP. I wonder if any pressure is being put on LEGO Australia / retailers to reduce prices? If so, keep it up! There's a lot of room to manoeuvre.

Yes, I couldn't agree with you more. Especially as many business articles hold the resurgent success of TLC due somewhat to its improved supply chain, but also partly due to the increased appeal on the part of the designers to the mature part of their audience. That applies to both for choosing quality sets for their children and also adults purchasing larger, more expensive sets for themselves, not just the smaller cheaper sets likely to be bought for youngsters. However, their bean counters know what they are doing. They price according what a market will bear, and Australia appears to be able to bear much higher prices than the US. Judging by the toy aisles, I doubt LEGO is hurting at all from any reduction in buying. With the high Aussie dollar, they must be raking it in. Actually $45 now for Standard shipping (13 business days) and $100 for Express (6 days), according to this page. Presumably one of the dept stores here will have it as an exclusive for a while. Anyone know who? That at least will save shipping. If it was Myer (less likely) then you only have to wait a while for one of their inevitable 20% off + extra for Myer One card holders sales. More likely it will be David Jones or Toys R Us. They are far more stingy with their sales, though TRU occasionally has the "spend $100, get 20% off" coupon, which would help greatly for a set like this. Otherwise, to get the cost down further, it's a case of finding a good US Bricklink seller who will de-box and charge a fair postage rate. I won't even mention the B&ignoble word, they are dead to me now.

Yeah, I read that and was concerned, but at a Target counter a checkout human assured me it would be valid for anything in the store during those dates. And it is actually being listed on "bargain shopper" sites like Buckscoop as a genuine $5 voucher. I agree the wording is ambiguous. I think it's emphasising there is a minimum spend for those items, rather than that you can only buy those items. I also think it would indeed be valid for a 20% sale price reduction, as it's a $5 voucher not a further %. I'll try to get further confirmation nearer the time it's valid if I decide to try to buy anything, although at this point I think you guys have made me very scared... Since I find it difficult enough explaining my hobby of playing with "children's toys", redeeming this as a male would take the cake!

Really sucks about Barnes & Noble and their pre-order fiasco. I hope that's the case, although don't Target normally start their sales on Thursdays? (The 16th is a Monday.) If it was that week the timing would be good for another offer where Target are currently giving a $5 voucher when you spend $50 or over between now and Sunday. It's automatically printed at the end of the receipt: Now, it's only redeemable between 12 May - 18 May. So if you did need to buy something unrelated from Target now and got some voucher(s), then if the sale was on during that period you could buy something like The Mill for: The Mill: $79 (Target's regular price) - 20% - $5 = $58.20 Which is a 27% saving over the LEGO Australia RRP. Takes a tiny bit of the sting out of the very high local prices. (If the timing's right, maybe ask relatives if they have unwanted $5 vouchers, that's where mine are coming from.)

I'm having a hard time finding any worthwhile purchases for free S@H shipping. Some of the exclusives/hard to get items I was interested in were the Architecture series. They seem very hard to find in Australia, but at $140 for Fallingwater vs $90 USD = $83 AUD from other sources (eg, B&N, Bricklink), the price difference can pay for a lot of non-free shipping. However... if this suddenly popped up on the store in the next 20 hours, I'd place an order pronto! Unlikely though, as it's officially to be released May 10.

I feel your pain. I was very much hoping that the Cars sets would be out for a Sunday birthday present, as a certain 7 year old has had his eye on the Mater + Lightning combo since I showed him Flickr pictures from the toy fair a few months ago. Not just SA, but I think Australia in general is slow to get LEGO. Pretty much the only time you see an Aussie in the forums joining in the discussion or reviewing a new set is when they've had it express posted from the US or Europe. Maybe what LEGO Australia should do, if it's going to keep charging such obscene prices here, is at least ensure early delivery... Put our meagre (and premium priced) allocation at the beginning of the global run for distribution. That way, the "can't wait, must have it ASAP!" people (raises hand, guilty as charged) are happy to pay the high premium, to get the boasting rights of early ownership. I got series 2 and 3 of the collectable minifigs from Germany and the US respectively, enjoyed the privileged mystique of being an early Aussie owner, and by the time they appeared locally in Target they were overpriced ancient history. If they'd been out in Australia earlier, I might have actually paid the $10 per minifig cost (oh, didn't you hear, that's going to be LEGO Australia's new price for Series 5, since they've heard we enjoy paying inflated prices so much!) to get them at the same time as our northern hemisphere brethren. Anyway, off to Barnes & Noble to add a few Cars sets to my POTC order, as they still have 10% preorder available until tomorrow, and if they ship (express) on Monday they'll probably get here earlier than the local shelves anyway, and much, much cheaper: Flo's V8 Café = $119.99 AUD when it appears in TRU next week or so, and $49.20 AUD where I'm actually buying it from (B&N).

POTC sighting in Australia! About half the sets seen in Toys R Us Hurstville (Sydney). More details here.

Looks like the pirates have landed in Australia! I sighted these at Toys R Us Hurstville (Sydney) this afternoon: The obscenely high (relative to the US) retail prices were as indicated in this thread a few pages back, but if you spend $100 and use the Toys R Us coupon, you can get 20% off. The sets that were on the shelf at Hurstville were 4182 The Cannibal Escape ($59.99), 4183 The Mill ($79.99), 4192 Fountain of Youth ($39.99), and 4193 The London Escape ($99.99). With the discount coupon (assuming you buy at least $100 worth), these prices become respectively $48, $64, $32, and $80. They didn't have the other sets on shelf, though Hurstville is a dinky little TRU, so the other sets (QAR, Captain's Cabin, Whitecap Bay, and Isla de Muerta) may be at bigger TRU stores. Personally, I have an pre-order from Barnes & Noble due to be sent next week, so I'll just wait for that. But if you're impatient, you can at least get into POTC for less than retail price. The Toys R Us coupon lasts until Sat 30/4/2011.

Myer tomorrow (Saturday) has a "3rd toy free when you buy 2 toys" sale. PDF Assuming you wanted three $100 items, that means you could pay $200 for $300 worth of stuff, which is effectively a 33.3% discount. Now if only the Maersk Train, Queen Anne's Revenge, Scorpion Pyramid, or any of the POTC and other high priced lines were actually out in Myer / Australia.

Oh, it wasn't really any magic! AussieJimbo got it in one: Anyway, I won't weigh in any further on the local price gouging as I think we're all in much the same mind about the robbery on the high seas. Except... to point out that Barnes & Noble still have their 10% off preorder sale (officially released May 1), and that if you buy e-gift cards from Plastic Jungle (Groupon don't seem to have any at the moment), you can get a further 9% off that up to an amount of $150 (3 x $50 gift cards, the max B&N allow you to use).

Yes, Collectible Minifigures Series 4 is ancient history, the next big quest for the Australian AFOL is Pirates of the Caribbean... Was it confirmed anywhere yet what the Australian pricing for Pirates of the Caribbean will be? If it was I missed it, but I believe I am now in a position to offer it, and, one better, to indicate what pricing will be at the major retailers. I did some Sunday afternoon shopping today and while I didn't really expect the POTC sets to be on the shelves yet (like they are in the US in some Toys R Us stores), I did wonder if the sets were yet entered in the system ready for imminent release. Long story short, I persuaded the price check computers of Toys R Us, Big W, and Target to tell me what the pricing would be if I went to buy the set. The results were: The following table summarises the pricing. The first two columns are the US recommended retail price, first in US dollars and then in Australian dollars. Followed in column 3 by Australian recommended retail (Toys R Us usually sell at full retail, so that's a fair assumption), then Big W's prices, and finally Target, which currently has a 20% off sale on all LEGO. Set US RRP (USD) US RRP (AUD) Aust. RRP (AUD) Big W (AUD) Target 20% (AUD) 4181 Isla de Muerta 19.99 19.22 39.99 37.74 31.20 4182 The Cannibal Escape 29.99 28.84 59.99 54.66 47.20 4183 The Mill 39.99 38.45 79.99 78.84 63.20 4191 The Captain's Cabin 11.99 11.53 24.99 23.62 19.20 4192 Fountain of Youth 19.99 19.22 39.99 37.74 31.20 4193 The London Escape 49.99 48.07 99.99 97.00 79.20 4194 Whitecap Bay 79.99 76.91 139.99 128.00 111.20 4195 Queen Annes Revenge 119.99 115.38 199.99 166.00 159.20 Even at sale prices (and there's no guarantee Target's sale will still be on when POTC is launched), it's clear that between LEGO Australia and Captain Jack Sparrow, the former is the bigger pirate!

I can walk over to check, or I suppose a phone call is just as good. "Darling Harbour" actually sounds like a good name for a POTC set itself! Possibly a MOC in the making... But does this little kiosk shop actually get any early releases? Last time I was there, its rather small shelves were mainly filled with boxes upon boxes of Atlantis sets. The kiosk shop is next to the Sydney Aquarium, so I guess they feel that's the best place to sell Atlantis... Maybe they'll just sell POTC 4194 Whitecap Bay. They have a BIG mermaid in the aquarium, right?! It's possible e the aquarium being owned by the LEGO consortium puts them on an early release schedule, but I feel they're more likely to turn up early in either the store-within-a-store places like Myer in Melbourne, or at a retailer who habitually breaks embargoes for putting them out on the shelves. This may be what Toys R Us have done? Jumped the gun as soon as they got their shipment. Coincidentally, Toys R Us (in Sydney) was where I picked up Harry Potter about a week before the other dept stores - Myer, Target, David Jones - had them. Here's hoping for an April Aussie release.

I think (someone in the trade might be able to confirm) that the LEGO company has a policy where they will accept return of damaged boxes from retailers and replace them. So there's less incentive for the retailer to discount it to clear, as they know they can always get it replaced and sell it for full price. Having said that, a few years back I found a 6212 X-Wing Fighter box with a big gash in it at a Toys R Us. It had a yellow sticker discounting it from $70 to $35, so I bought it, even though I thought maybe someone had poked their fingers in to knick a minifig or a small bag. Turns out it was completely intact, so a bargain was had. However, I haven't seen those yellow "priced to clear" stickers for ages. (Not hanging around TRU might have something to do with it.) While we're on the subject of people in the trade knowing things, does anyone know if the rumoured April 16 release date of the Pirates of the Caribbean series would apply to Australia as well? If so, what do you think the chances are of Target getting them by the 20th to still qualify for 20% off? Although I suppose with the frequent sales floating around the major retailers over the past few months, at least one of them will have a sale on around the time of the Pirates of the Caribbean launch, whether it's April 16 or May 1.

If you cut the clear tape from both ends of the larger boxes, and carefully separate the glue from the flaps of the smaller boxes (ie, don't use the illustrated "thumb holes" to rip open the cardboard when you get a set), then you can make a box go flat pretty much undamaged. It can then be stored flat with many other boxes, perhaps under a bed, or up on a (large) out of the way shelf, on top of a cupboard, etc. When reconstituted by reversing the process, it will stay pretty close to the original. If you have children, then I can imagine in 30 years time they would be absolutely thrilled that the original boxes had been kept, along the lines of the emotional connection described in this article. It sounds like it, as I paid top dollar (4.95) at Myer Sydney CBD for my minifigs at the weekend, but from accounts here it seems a lot of other Myers had them discounted. Only the catalogue items were discounted.

Yes, Big W does sometimes have quite good "everyday" prices on LEGO sets, with another example being 7985 City of Atlantis. Big W's regular price on this is $96, which is approximately 20% off the RRP of $119.99 as you'd find at times of non-discounting Target, Myer, David Jones, Kmart. I bought a number of these sets (for the Greek column pieces - I built a Parthenon!), and was actually waiting for the inevitable sales at one of the latter retailers. As it turned out, I could have just walked into Big W at any time. So, for selected sets, Big W does have some keen prices. For other sets they're just a few bucks off retail. But these days, it's probably worth assuming that, importing aside, you should just be patient for a few weeks until a sale, since it doesn't seem you have to wait long for one of the discounting retailers - Target, Myer, David Jones - to have a 20% off sale of some kind (and Myer is my current favourite, with its 20% toy catalogue items + 10% extra Myer One card this weekend: 5766 Log Cabin for $36). Probably an indication that LEGO IS DAMN OVERPRICED IN AUSTRALIA and that more and more people are realising that if you pay full RRP you are an impatient idiot! (Guily as charged for the series 4 minifigs at Myer this morning, sigh.)

Myer Sydney CBD has the orange series 4 packets at the toy counter (level 4) but they are not included in their selected toy catalogue discounts, so $4.95.

If I may, can I ask a question about having a store that sells LEGO in Australia? In your dealings with LEGO Australia when ordering stock, do you get the sense they know that both retailers like yourself and customers like most of us here are unhappy with the pricing situation? I am of course assuming retailers are unhappy about it, as presumably the higher the RRP, the less you sell. Has LEGO Australia made any attempt to explain or even justify the gross discrepancy between prices here and prices overseas?

Thank you for that comprehensive writeup! Sounds like some great exposure for LEGO and the creations possible with it through those very popular attractions. Adding to the Sydney City "bargains": David Jones Sydney have the 10197 Fire Brigade at $209.96 (30% discount). About 22 of them! And one solitary Grand Emporium ($249.99) with slightly torn box surface - perhaps a return from someone's overzealous unwrapping? Personally, it's going to take a lower price than $209.96 to get me interested in the 10197 Fire Station for parts. $125-$150 and maybe we're talking.

Very interesting about Harry in Kmart. Although a highly desirable theme, I guess they are again clearing the decks of "old" themes to make way for the 2011 sets. Not that they need much clearing in my neck of the woods: a late night shopping trip in southern Sydney showed up very little Harry Potter. Kmart Hurstville has quite a few Dobbys and a few Quidditchs ($19 down from $28) only left, but the other nearest Kmart at Sylvania has no Harry Potter left at all. It's a pity: my Hogwarts Express would've looked nice with an extra carriage, and a few more floors on the Burrow! Hopefully other people in less Harry Potter fandom areas can benefit from the clearance. Thanks again for the info!

I guess if you can't flog Atlantis at an Aquarium, where can you sell 'em?! I assume none of the 2011 Atlantis sets were out yet, especially 7985 Temple of Atlantis? (This is going to be my great white whale.) And by overpriced do you mean actually above LEGO Australia's RRP, or everything marked at RRP which is of course overpriced anyway relative to almost everywhere else in the world.

At this morning's exchange rate, in US dollars that makes it $271.30 USD. The actual US retail price is $149.99 USD. So we're being asked to pay a price which is 80.9% higher. That is breathtakingly bad. Even with a 20% sale somewhere locally, it's still going to be $216 ($217 USD), which is 44.7% higher than a non discounted US price (and they have sales too, after all). Here was I thinking all the greedy children were in my house this Christmas morning! They're not, they're at LEGO Australia. Shame on you.