Subject:
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Re: Another Legend dies....
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.trains
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Date:
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Mon, 16 Jul 2001 15:49:26 GMT
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Viewed:
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602 times
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In lugnet.trains, Reinhard "Ben" Beneke writes:
<SNIP>
> > In the end, I can't stand the fact that Lego is a "collector's item". The
> > fact of the matter is this - collectors drive up prices.
>
> Only the prices for the collectors item. I wish Lego to serve both groups as I
> said, but at the moment Lego works "against" the collectors. I see no advantage
> for TLC to do so: the collectors make the prices for used stuff high. this
> helps TLC to sell new stuff at high prices also: good for their profit.
<SNIP>
Ben,
I see the point that you are getting at. I am not a lego "Collector" really.
I buy legos and build with Lego's. But I am a collector of other things
(Star Trek Action Figures, Die-Cast Soildiers) and I can understand where
you are comming from. There is nothing worse to a collector than the
watering down of the product line with re-issues. Most companies that are in
the collectable market understand this and try not to effect their secondary
market value. The problem is that a company cannot be in both camps. It
cannot make both collectors and players (people who "play" with Lego's)
happy. The two goals are counter productive. They have to pick one, and
since they are a childrens toy company they are trying to make the players
happy.
It's shows that LD is working on a tight budget. They are trying to make a
rather major change inside TLC, which is a very difficult task. It seems to
me that their goal (LD) is to prove that the AFOL are a market that is worth
going after. IMHO What they want to show is that if TLC spends money to
develope new products/parts/packaging that appeals to the AFOL with a supply
chain that differs from standard (basically in story shopping is the
standard) that they will make money. They don't want to break even, they
want to make a nice healthy profit to show that it is worth while.
The problem is, as of yet we (AFOL'S) are still an untested market. They do
not know the price points, the market depth, our actuall numbers, etc... So
basically what they are doing right now is testing the market. They know
what themes are important to AFOL's as well as the more popular sets, so
they are releasing a few "test" sets to see how the market does.
Now this might seem strange to you (or us as a group) because we know that
we will go nuts over the new sets if they are nicely designed. We know that
we would buy just as many Guarded Inn's if they came with tan instead of red
tudor peices. We know that we will go nuts over (and probably buy out) the
Metroliner and club car, even if they come in dark grey, or even the white
Eurostar version as opposed to the origional. They don't know that, or are
not willing to take the risk. They know that the Guarded Inn, in its
origional form, was one of the most looked for sets, so why would they make
a change for the test?
Basically they know that there are "Collectors" out there, but they chose to
overlook them right now because they pretty much can assume that the
re-issue of the origional guarded in will sell well (better than they
thought) and will make their point (make the test succesfull). Since the
company is trying to target the 'players' as opposed to the collectors, they
don't really care about the secondary market value of a set. Since they do
not directly make money of the secondary sale, it does not really bother
them that they have lowered the price of the set.
As to the assumption that they can sell newer sets at a higher price because
of the after market value of a older set. This is bunk, really. We all know
that there is a price point at which most people will chose not to buy a
set. Since an MISB metroliner sells on ebay for us$250 does that mean the
reissue should sell for US$225? I think not. For most people in their target
market (the "players") that would cross the price point and they would not
buy the set. It would still have the initial result of lowering the
origional set price at first because of the market flood.
Cheers,
David
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Message is in Reply To:
 | | Re: Another Legend dies....
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| (...) Only the prices for the collectors item. I wish Lego to serve both groups as I said, but at the moment Lego works "against" the collectors. I see no advantage for TLC to do so: the collectors make the prices for used stuff high. this helps TLC (...) (23 years ago, 16-Jul-01, to lugnet.trains)
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