Subject:
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Future Trends, Past Mistakes,
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.dear-lego
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Date:
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Fri, 19 Mar 2004 03:59:33 GMT
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After reading about continued losses and seeing various moves to improve market
share and such, I offer a few of my own humble observations. My own kids love
Legos, I teach various classes at elementary schools using Legos (Simple
Machines and multi-stage robotics courses). We give Legos as birthday gifts. I
feel that Legos provide a great way for kids to learn - in many ways.
Legos are considered a "premium" brand. High value but costly. This applies to
the whole range - from Primo, through Duplo and Lego to Mindstorm. Megablock has
a greater share of pre-school BECAUSE they cost less. In all of these
categories, kids need a "critical mass" of pieces to reach a point where they
can really "free build." It can be expensive to accummulate a large number of
pieces ( a point I've heard repeatedly from parents). It is particularly
difficult - and expensive - if someone has a particular project in mind to get
needed parts. This applies to kids too - NOT just fanatical adults. I run a
"free-build" class for K-1 where I simply provide bins of parts to use. Few
kids have access to such a volume of pieces - they are thrilled and have a great
time.
Solution - offer a larger variety of "bulk" pieces - at a reasonable cost. The
old 1200 piece bins were great - even if they were limited in colors and pieces.
I suspect that "theme bins" would be great sellers: Castle, Space, Pirate,
Vehicles, Buildings. The current offerings along these lines are a start - but
still expensive.
It is difficult to get specific pieces in quantity. We are lucky to be close to
Lego stores that offer Pick-a-brick bins. My youngest has had a field day over
the past month building "stained glass windows" using various color clear
pieces. He could not do this without access to large numbers of these pieces.
His friends think his creations are great but do not have access to Legos on the
same scale he does. He also likes to build castles - and is fortunate that we
have a huge collection of sets spanning the past decade or so - providing him
with the parts to build what hew wishes. Shop at home has limited selections but
too often they are inadequate. You really can't build adequate roofs with the
limited selections of 45 degree slopes now available. NO odd width bricks are
available in quantity.
Solution - expand shop-at-home. How costly is it to regularly mold and pack up various pieces? If your ordering software and pick and pack operation can handle it, your costs are minimal. So you pick out of a few hundred more locations. It's NOT that hard to do (I'm an industrial engineer, I've set these things up). ASK people what pieces they want. BTW, what ever happened to design your own creation online and we'll pack the pieces? You think that TLC might notice the huge secondary market selling legos by the piece. It PAYS people to buy sets and sell pieces off.
Technic seems lost between too-simple and too complex with the "old style vs new
style" (studded beams vs smooth) adding to the confusion. Most of the kids I
teach in 3rd and 4th grade are intimidated by the complex sets but bored by the
easy ones. I suspect that a large market exists for sets along the line of the
DACTA Machines sets, allowing constructions of increasing complexity. Think of
an "Incredible Machines" (the computer game) set in Legos.
Mindstorms was never marketed apropriately. Masss market couldn't deal with
them and they sat on shelves while DACTA focused ONLY on the RIS sets. I teach
classes on Robotics in stages: An Intro class starts with microscout based
constructions and moves on to RDS set based robots. An advanced set focuses on
RCX set based constructions. The local Middle School used RCX's as part of a
tech class in 7th grade. These were a bit demanding for most kids in the
limited time allowed for that section. A donation of RDS and Micro Scout sets
was enthusiastically received. BUT the school itself had no way of buying these
sets through their approved vendors. With the demise of RDS sets and the
Microscout sets, I find that kids who are enthralled with these sets are left in
the lurch - they are no longer available.
Solution - A range of Mindstorms products from simple (a la MicroScout and RDS to MORE advanced - a high end RCX with more inputs, outputs and sensors). It seems like TLC has chosen to let this whole product line die from lack of support and expansion. Too Bad. At the same time, it would help to have a "Technic Bucket" of gears, Wheels, beams and more available to supplemenmt basic sets. It took me 3 years of purchases on eBay and elsewhere to put together the sets I use for classes. Look at the market on EBay for such parts. TLC isn't making money on those sales.
Attempts to license existing properties StarWars, Harry Potter and more seem to
have mixed results. Are they worth what they cost? As used, it seems that TLC
fails to exploit such licensing agreements by issuing new sets on a regular
basis - instead milking current lines until they end up crowding shelves on
markdown.
Just a few thoughts (from someone with a few hundred thousand pieces).
John H.
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