Subject:
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Where did the lego's go?
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.general
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Date:
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Tue, 25 Feb 2003 04:13:56 GMT
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Viewed:
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695 times
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On one of my many recent ventures to the local shops I have noticed
something that seems to be happening almost universally. Lego's are
disappearing. I don't mean that they are selling off of the shelves but
that they are just not there. I stopped at one store the other day and
found that instead of my normal Lego diplay, nearly every shelf had been
taken over by those of Mega-Blocks. When I did find the 3 shelves dedicated
to Lego, all I saw was Galidor and Bionicle sets with about 3 bins of lego
creator. Gone were my beloved Star Wars, and Castle sets; and there wasn't
an Extreme, or Orient Express set to be found anywhere.
It being late in the evening I was able to talk for a few moments to the
employee stocking the shelfs. I asked "Where did all of the Lego's go?"
His reply nearly knocked me out of my socks. He said that they pulled it
because the Mega-Blocks sold more because they sold for cheaper prices and
the kids and parents buying them prefered the Mega-Blocks over the Lego
brand. I was nearly appalled, so I left only to stop at another store the
next day. What I found was disheartening at best. The entire Lego display
had been taken over. Where Lego signs hung, were rows upon rows of
Mega-Blocks being sold. Again I asked: "Where did the Lego's go?"
I was lucky enough to have two responses to this question that fateful day.
One was from an employee who nearly gave me verbatum the same response that
the previous store had given me, and the second was that since they are
basically the same product it made sense to order less of the lego product
and use the space to promote both. I wannted to maim...no Mega-Block was
going to stand up to my Legos! Not now not ever. So I bit my tongue and
stomped off, determined to find out what was going on here. I spoke with
the manager of the store and exaplined my concern that Lego was paying for
the space on the floor and they were moving a copycat product into their
territory. I was told that it was all about what sold and what didn't and
Lego does not sell and the Mega-Blocks do. So I asked why didn't Mega-Block
pay for it's own display? He said: "Why should they it's all the same to
me." I wanted to write a letter, I gave the manager a blank stare and headed
back to the car with my head hung low.
On my last stop I stopped by the one store in my area that literally
dedicates a corner of the store to Lego, and found that the Mega-Blocks had
moved in and taken over 3 former Lego displays. I saw two sets of kids
running around looking at the shelves one carrying the Alien Mega-Block set,
and one with a Dragon set. Both ran right up to their respective parents
and said that is what they wanted. I was heartbroke. I politely stopped
one Mother of one of the children and asked her what was the draw of the
Mega-Blocks over the long standing Lego sets. I was graced with a short but
pleasent conversation about what appeals to her child vs. what she would
have normally bought. She had grown up with Legos and her brothers had all
of the sets when she was younger. But now the times had changed and her
kids just didn't like the lego sets anymore, because they were all the same.
I thanked her for her time and moved on.
I went home and took the time to look up a few things on the internet and
stopped by E-Bay for a few minutes to see if the consensus was the same. A
few of the auctions listed were listed as Lego but when I wrote a few
inquisitive e-mails all of the seller's were quite frank in stateing that
most if not all of their auctions included a mixture of both.
So what I did next was in my opinion the most sane thing to do in the world.
I peeled through my collection looking for any hint of a Mega-Block. I
nearly fainted. I'm a Lego enthusiast, I know I am but I was duped, and I
was duped bad. On a recent auction I purchsed from Yahoo! Auctions I found
that more than half of the blocks were Mega-Block; and they looekd and
worked just like any of my other Lego's would. The colors were a spot on
match except I noticed that on a few of the more used ones the colors were
fading.
Since then I have tried to separate what I could from one another and move
on from my differences over the Mega-Block brand and the Lego's that I love.
I will move on building the things I do, and hope to have a nice Star-Wars
Mini-Diorama in progress over the weekend. I won't let the Mega-Block
fiasco get me down, but I do have to start to wonder "Where did the Lego's go?"
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Message has 7 Replies:
 | | Re: Where did the lego's go?
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| I'm curious: what part of the country (I'm assuming you're in the USA.) do you live in? I see more than my fair share of Mega-Blocks here in Indiana, but I haven't seen any kinds of take-overs like you described. I feel badly for your state/region (...) (22 years ago, 25-Feb-03, to lugnet.general)
| | | Re: Where did the lego's go?
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| In Vancouver (Canada) at the Toys R Us they put LEGO on one side of the asile and the Megablocks on the other. Of course it's someone from the LEGO who sets up the display, so they wouldn't settle with anything less. In my experience in buying used (...) (22 years ago, 25-Feb-03, to lugnet.general)
| | | Re: Where did the lego's go?
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| (...) I was expecting to get to the end of your long message and see "it was all a dream", since much of it seems pretty fanciful to me. Here in San Francisco every TRU and Target has *plenty* of shelf-feet of Lego; several Targets even have an (...) (22 years ago, 25-Feb-03, to lugnet.general)
| | | Re: Where did the lego's go?
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| "Jason Haskamp" <Niccalo@comcast.net> wrote in message news:HAuJr8.11p@lugnet.com... <snip dramatic story> I have to say this sounds like a bit of a troll to me, but I appear to be biting to a degree. Where in the heck do you live? What are "the (...) (22 years ago, 26-Feb-03, to lugnet.general)
| | | Re: Where did the lego's go?
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| In lugnet.general, Jason Haskamp writes: Where Lego signs hung, were rows upon rows of (...) One of the blessings of living in Denmark is that there are just LEGO, no clones. Well, at least that is what it used to be, but recently MegaBlocks have (...) (22 years ago, 26-Feb-03, to lugnet.general)
| | | Re: Where did the lego's go?
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| In lugnet.general, Jason Haskamp writes: <snip> This may be a regional thing. I've noticed that in my area (Edmonton, AB) that the lower end shops (Zellers & Walmart) are tending to have less Lego and more Megabloks. Zellers gives them about equal (...) (22 years ago, 26-Feb-03, to lugnet.general)
| | | Re: Where did the lego's go?
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| In lugnet.general, Jason Haskamp writes: <snip> Yhis is indeed a grievous situation. There's only one solution: we must go to our local stores and buy out their entire stock of Lego. Everywhere. Then wait for the next shipment and do it again--this (...) (22 years ago, 19-Mar-03, to lugnet.general)
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