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> I've seen a few -- but very few -- LEGO builders offering their own • original
> creations on eBay and elsewhere, and I wonder whether there is a decent
> market for such things? What do you think?
Well, the Guild of Bricksmiths http://www.bricksmiths.com/ demonstrates that
there is a niche market for these things, but until I hear of GoB members
giving up their day jobs, I'd assume that there isn't a "decent market".
MOCs have to sell for a higher price than Lego's own sets, simply because
Lego can get the bricks cheaper and Lego has all the economies of scale on
its side. This is illustrated very nicely by Dan Siskind's Blacksmiths Shop,
which I believe sold as a MOC for US$150 while Lego can sell it for US$40.
Therefore, you aren't going to sell a MOC to your average Lego customer;
your customers will have to be serious Lego fans to be prepared to pay a
premium for something extra special.
> Probably the items that would sell the best would contain a modest amount • of
> pieces, a relatively low number of special (i.e., expensive) pieces and • high
> number of cheap pieces, and ones that use a lot of colors and are
> well-photographed. Also ones that reflect the most popular themes (Town,
> Vehicles, Robots, etc.).
> 1. Would you ship them assembled or not? If not, would you supply
> instructions? Or at least some high-quality photographs are various • angles
> and building stages?
Personally I think you might want to rethink these strategies. If you are
selling a MOC, you are selling two things: some bricks and a design. Since
you are expecting the customer to pay a premium, what are they getting for
that premium? If you are using a small number of relatively common bricks,
your customer is likely to have them already, and isn't likely to pay a
premium for that. Clearly having some hard-to-come-by parts is likely to
make the customer feel happier about the high cost.
If you expect them to pay a premium for design, then you probably have to be
offering a design better than they could come up with themselves, and they
would reasonably expect to be shown how to build it. So this more-or-less
forces you to provide instructions. While your customers are probably
reasonably good builders, the drawback of giving just a few photos at
various angles and stages is the problem of knowing which bricks must be
left aside for a later part of the construction. For example, most people
are quite capable of building a wall of a certain length and height, but
what if they use a1x16 brick in the wall instead of the two 1x8 bricks that
you had intended. Then when there is a need to span the roof and the 1x16
brick is really needed, they are left with two 1x8s that won't do the job.
So, if you want to reduce the number of steps in the instructions, you may
need to provide a list of parts to be used in each large step.
The other reason that I speculate that small sets might not sell so well as
MOCs is that if you show me a good enough photo of a small set, I bet I can
build it for myself with the parts I have. I think it would be hard to
protect your design secrets in a small set, and that is a large part of what
people will be paying for. Obviously a larger more complex set is going to
be harder to build based on a photo or two.
> 3. Would you disclose that your set was never issued by LEGO, and that it • is
> in fact your own creation? What would be the best way of doing that?
Of course, you must disclose it. I suspect it would be fraudulent
misrepresentation to do otherwise.
> 4. Would you ever include used pieces, or only new bricks? Might this • pose
> problems if you needed very unusual parts (how would you find them)? • Would
> you disclose to the customer whether the bricks were new or used, or just
> not say anything? Perhaps one should disclose, "Set comprises 103 pieces,
> not more than 5 of which are used -- all else are new."
I think you would soon have unhappy customers if you did not indicate the
presence of used parts up front.
Kerry
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