Subject:
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Re: Georgia LEGO Outlet is Cool!
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.dear-lego
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Date:
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Mon, 27 Mar 2000 14:25:21 GMT
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Matthew Teets wrote:
>
> In lugnet.dear-lego, Mike Stanley writes:
> > On Sun, 26 Mar 2000 14:23:58 GMT, "Ben Roller"
> > <broller@mail.clemson.edu> wrote:
> >
> > > In lugnet.dear-lego, Larry Pieniazek writes:
> > > > Is this a matter for blame? I didn't call the store, the store called me!
> > >
> > > I would say that it IS a matter of blame, for the store. Lego is not playing
> > > very nicely in the local economy by mailing off inventory before it's even on
> > > the shelves. There are enough customers here in the local area(1) that would
> > > have bought just as much as some Tom, Frank or Larry.
> >
> > Hrmmmm - I'm a little miffed I didn't get a call (I could have used
> > some 6078's) but I don't agree with this. Just think about it. They
> > know the stuff is coming in. They call two people who agree to buy
> > all of some items. Those items come in and are immediately shipped
> > out to those people. Nobody is paid to unpack them, sort them, put
> > some on the shelf and some in the back room, nothing. They come in,
> > they go out. The transaction is recorded at their leisure, involving
> > no employee time that could be used to interact with walk-in
> > customers.
> >
> > Seems like a win-win situation to me. The store's job is to move
> > product - they moved it with minimal effort.
>
> I'll make a brief point with my problem with all this. When I found out about
> the Lego Outlet I found some rather rare sets and posted them to the web.
> Then I went back and did a complete inventory and posted everything to the
> web. I go to the Outlet every two weeks and buy a decent amount of stuff and
> try to post any new things I see. This is what generated large phone orders
> in the first place. I myself cannot place a phone order, I live in Georgia
> and company policy says they cannot accept phone orders or ship within
> Northern Georgia, so I cannot be on their call list either because there is no
> way to accept my order if they did call me. At this point, most of the really
> cool stuff gets bought by phone customers leaving less desirable and/or
> popular product for their shelves. At this point, why should I bother going
> to the store when the selection might be better at my local KB store on
> clearance. At this point I no longer post inventories/price lists to the web
> so no one other than the people who call constantly get any idea what they can
> order. What point is their to having a physical outlet store at all when this
> might be better handled by a branch of S@H? What they now have is another KB
> clearance outlet full of Legos no one wants. Eventually the outlets will
> close and KB will be the outlets. I can't imagine this was the original
> idea. I'm angry because I personally tried to make an impact in keeping the
> Lego outlet open (It's in the middle of nowhere, even popular sets just sat
> there) by trying to increase their sales by posting the inventory and prices
> to the web, as well as help others find sets they wanted; all I feel I got out
> of it now was a good slap along side the head because of where I live and my
> efforts to help them. I hope their new way works better, and yes I'm also
> bitter at a few members of the Lego community for turning my rather humble
> gesture of assistance into another "Winner take all" event.
I suggest you take your complaint to the store. Even if they can't
change the policy of shipping within the state, they should at least be
willing to let you reserve items to pick up within a week, and therefore
should be able to call you (of course this does have a cost, but their
policy is absolute crud if they really have structured the store so that
it is a mail order buisiness for everyone except their neighbors).
That's an issue with the store though, not with the people who have been
calling the store.
What you do need to keep in mind is that these stores have just been
opened. TLC is experimenting with a new avenue of selling (discontinued)
product. As with any new venture, there will be bumps in the road. They
may very well decide that it is most efficient to handle the stuff
through S@H (with a web page announcing what they have) and then move
the stuff to KB when it sits for a month.
I will also repeat that if TLC figures out some decent way to handle
bulk special parts orders, a lot of this will disappear. If Lary had
been able to order 200 1x2x6 white corridor walls, at anything less than
the price of 25 Nebula Outposts, my guess is that he would happily leave
the Nebula Outposts for someone else (or until they didn't sell because
there weren't 25 people interested in the SET and they went on clearance
so cheap that TLC couldn't match the price per corridor wall [but don't
start any ranting about deep discount clearancing, the purpose of that
is to move the product FAST and try to limit your LOSS as much as
possible - don't expect a store to eat more LOSS to provide a more fair
distribution on something people ignored, in fact, you should be glad
that at least these days AFOLs are buying the clearance stuff instead of
it either going to the trash compactor, or going to some discount store
for pennies on the dollar, and then the discount store reaping the
proffit]).
--
Frank Filz
-----------------------------
Work: mailto:ffilz@us.ibm.com (business only please)
Home: mailto:ffilz@mindspring.com
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Message is in Reply To:
 | | Re: Georgia LEGO Outlet is Cool!
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| (...) I'll make a brief point with my problem with all this. When I found out about the Lego Outlet I found some rather rare sets and posted them to the web. Then I went back and did a complete inventory and posted everything to the web. I go to the (...) (24 years ago, 27-Mar-00, to lugnet.dear-lego)
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