Subject:
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Re: TLG investigation
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.general
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Date:
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Mon, 15 Feb 1999 20:47:59 GMT
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Viewed:
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1621 times
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Todd Lehman wrote:
> In lugnet.general, markt@lynx.bc.ca (Mark Tarrabain) writes:
> > Steve Scott wrote:
> > > If I was a Lego retailer, I would object to TLG selling direct to a group
> > > of people who have the means to sub-distribute (via the web) at a profit.
> > > Who's to say that any product sold to RTL'ers won't find it's way back on
> > > to the open market at a profit.
> >
> > This shouldn't be an issue. TLG can easily have a requirement of membership
> > in the club that the goods purchased are not allowed to be sold through any
> > other mass-marketing channels at a profit.
>
> What would it take for them to police/enforce such a requirement?
Well, for one thing, memberships would only be available to individuals, not
corporations. Although this wouldn't necessarily stop a person from doing this
altogether, it would put a cap on the amount of profit that they would be allowed
to make, since the federal government does not allow individuals to bring in more
than a certain amount of money per year without having to become a licensed
business.
> > Further, there could be little incentive
> > for a person to purchase from any individuals who were to try this because
> > they can easily become members in the club themselves and get discounts
> > directly from LEGO.
>
> What if someone wanted to buy 500 gray 2x4 bricks and there was a minimum
> purchase requirement of 10,000?
If the memberships were only available to individuals, there would be little need
for them to sell bricks in that quantity. While there may be many people here may
have a personal need for brick counts that high at one shot, most private
individuals do not (I, for one, sure don't). I would expect that you would just
have to settle for buying in quantities of a hundred or so, and making multiple
purchases to bring the count up. TLG would not be motivated to offer better
discounts for bloody huge quantities to private individuals because their profit
margins would fall unacceptably. It is completely unreasonable to expect any
company to reduce its profit margins to next to nothing, even for valued
customers. Further, I would never expect TLG to sell to members of this club for
less than they would sell the same quantity of stuff to a retail outlet. I used
to work in a toy department a number of years ago, and the markup on toys is
actually quite high. There's a lot of room for TLG to reduce their price for
valued customers without going below wholesale.
> > Mark
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Message has 1 Reply:
 | | Re: TLG investigation
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| (...) How far does that go toward stopping an individual from buying $25,000 in bulk bricks and reselling these to a local toystore for $25,250? (The profit is only $250 on the transaction. Not bad for about 1 hour of work. :-) Any restriction (...) (25 years ago, 15-Feb-99, to lugnet.general)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | Re: TLG investigation
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| (...) What would it take for them to police/enforce such a requirement? (...) What if someone wanted to buy 500 gray 2x4 bricks and there was a minimum purchase requirement of 10,000? --Todd (25 years ago, 15-Feb-99, to lugnet.general)
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