Subject:
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Re: A change in attitude: was Big Brother is Watching (and reading, too!)
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.general
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Date:
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Mon, 25 Oct 1999 01:32:44 GMT
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Viewed:
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1420 times
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Ray Sanders wrote in message <3813510A.B54BDB9D@gate.net>...
> I agree. Anything that actually succeeds will have to be based on a
> sound business model. TLG needs to make money and see a positive
> creative outcome as a result. Perhaps we need a buying organization. A
> single point of contact with TLG, or a funnel (if you will) for all the
> bulk/non-standard orders.
>
> One other point that I don't believe anyone has mentioned:
>
> TLG *may* have a concern that selling bulk new bricks may open a
> competitive channel. That is, people could buy bulk bricks, train
> windows, etc. and assemble retail sets that would compete with TLG in
> the market place. I believe that preventing this type of usage needs to
> be a condition of any deal that can happen with TLG. Creating MOC etc.
> are fine, combining parts to sell new sets would not fly. One mans opinion.
But that concern can be addressed. I don't think anyone here would complain
if the price per part for bulk orders was structured so that TLG had a
higher profit to expense ratio than they do for sets (counting the full cost
of sets including design costs). If that is the case, and I buy bricks from
TLG and put a set together that sells a million copies, they just made more
money than if they produced and sold a million copies of an equivalently
sized set of theirs.
This is also part of why the price per part for bulk tubs is less than for
sets. Their design costs are minimal (new tub design and molds every 10
years or whatever, a handful of pieces of artwork every few years or so, a
miniscule number of man hours to decide the brick distribution) compared to
a set (several man weeks or whatever to design the set, possibly a special
small production run to produce a brick in a new color to be used in the
prototype, several man weeks or whatever for the design staff to produce the
box artwork and the set instructions, probably longer to set up the
production line). The Freestyle/Classic sets cost a little more because
there is a little more artwork (nifty poster, parts list on the side, etc),
a greater diversity of parts, non-basic bricks (higher mold costs and
distributed design costs), smaller runs, etc.
Frank
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