Subject:
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Re: Bulk Pricing (Interesting comparison?)
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.lego.direct
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Date:
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Wed, 14 Feb 2001 19:15:55 GMT
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Viewed:
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849 times
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Bones Dragon wrote:
> Now like I said, I don't expect TLC to offer the bulk packs as
> cheaply as the blue tubs, since they probably don't make much
> of a profit off them... but the current pricing scheme for the
> bulk packs seems silly to me, especially when offering the
> standard colors. Personally I'll order "bulk" for the rare colors,
> but still rely on blue tubs for the standard colors. But as I said,
> they can obviously do better...
I don't think it's "obvious" they can do better. I think the buckets and
tubs (pretty much only available in the US and Canada I think) are
almost a loss leader. I don't think they actually are a loss leader, but
I strongly suspect they are taking a lower profit margin (taking into
account the low development cost of these sets) than for regular sets. I
think they need to have the tubs to compete with Mega Bloks, I also
doubt that they lose many sales of $20 sets to people buying $20 tubs. I
think it's possible that Larry and the other train summit folks have a
better idea of how the blue tub fits into things, but I don't expect
them to share any knowledge they have. I also don't expect TLC to ever
share that information (though it is possible that they would share that
the blue tub does indeed have a lower profit margin target). Bulk packs
are going to have a higher overhead (the advantage the tub has is that
they need exactly one stock item, well, maybe a few with the various
buckets, but you get the idea, any kind of bulk system is going to need
more than ten offerings).
Having said all that, I do hope we will at some point see 2nd tier bulk
packs which have 1000 bricks at a cheaper price point. I wouldn't be
surprised if TLC isn't offering those out of the gate until they get a
feel for what types of things are in demand, and what the overall demand
is. The unfortunate thing is any such research will be imperfect because
they can't have a good idea of how many sales didn't happen at all
because of the price points. I'd like to see 1000ish piece bulk packs
with a mix like the tub (or perhaps split it into 1x and 2x packs) for
the colors people are going to want in quantity: red, blue, yellow,
green, white, black, light grey, dark grey, and tan at a minimum. Also
nice would be orange, sand red, sand blue, light blue, sand green, and a
few other colors. I don't expect pink etc. to be available this way, but
it would be nice to see the current bulk packs extend to many of the
unusual colors (excepting the Scala colors, though it would be nice to
have more elements in those colors).
--
Frank Filz
-----------------------------
Work: mailto:ffilz@us.ibm.com (business only please)
Home: mailto:ffilz@mindspring.com
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Message has 2 Replies:
 | | Re: Bulk Pricing (Interesting comparison?)
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| (...) Well as far as the overhead I think the two might be closer than you think. There is a lot of air in the Tubs so the tubs take up more space/part plus the lack of packaging on the bulk packs lower their overhead right away. My guess is that (...) (23 years ago, 14-Feb-01, to lugnet.lego.direct)
| | | Re: Bulk Pricing (Interesting comparison?)
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| "Frank Filz" <ffilz@mindspring.com> wrote in message news:3A8AD96B.7A79@m...ing.com... [snip] (...) I would guess that outside of the AFOL market (individually and through LUGs and LTCs), there is likely little demand for bricks by the 1000s. (...) (23 years ago, 14-Feb-01, to lugnet.lego.direct)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | Re: Bulk Pricing (Interesting comparison?)
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| (...) Time for me to hop on the soapbox too. :) When I first heard they were going to make "bulk" packs available, my hope was that they'd do something like "1000 assorted white" for $30, and so on. The term "bulk" usually implies "large quantities (...) (23 years ago, 14-Feb-01, to lugnet.lego.direct)
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