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[nb: I've set FU->.market.shopping, but set it as you will
based upon your point of order.]
Hi, everyone. It's time for your South African Shopper's Report!
Today I visited several venues in Cape Town. There are no major
toy chains here as they're known in NA/Europe/Asia/Australia; the
LEGO density is really, really low. This has several reasons, but
the major one is that LEGO products command about the same price
in an *absolute* sense ($1 = R9.25) as they do in the US.
This means that what one does find in South Africa is the cheap-o
knockoff. I've seen both "Shifty" and "Brick" brands here, but
only small sets going for R20 to R50. For more on those two
knockoff brankds, check out .clone-brands archive; but in short
the quality is pretty awful and the designs--and often even box
graphics--are totally and shamelessly stolen from LEGO. Compared
with what others have seen overseas in these two brands, the set
assortment has not changed in the last two years.
At the store called "Game," which is the closest South Africa
seems to have to a Wal-Mart, I did find actual, honest-to-goodness
LEGO. The LEGO was, however, restricted to Bionicle (Bohrok and
Toa Nuva[!]) and a lone Jack Stone set; all were priced at about
US retail (the Jack Stone set, the helicopter carrier, was at $17).
There were also two other brands that came in quantity: "OK - IQ
200" brand, which came in primary colors and seemed to have a
quality roughly like early MegaBloks; only one brick had leaked
out of a tub so I couldn't gauge brick adhesion. It came in
translucent plastic buckets of original design, and there was
also a "Junior" division that was not unlike Duplo in size but
had solid studs and sharper corners. The other brand was "Slic
Bric," which came in small boxes of 200 bricks each; I couldn't
find any open boxes so I don't know anything about its qualities.
So the LEGO holdings are meager at best here. I saw a couple of
ads in the classifieds for Technic sets being sold, as well as a
6950. But the asking prices were very high, even for used sets.
So as I'd expected, this is a disappointing LEGO market. But I
did seen a Bionicle ad on e-TV (channel 4), however, so the SAf
market is not quite ignored by the LEGO marketing juggernaut.
ObWeer: it's summer! Now I see what the Australians are so darn
happy about in the middle of December. Also, why the Cape is so
full of Germans, Britons, and Dutch. I hope the bulk of LUGNET
are enjoying their winter. (Of course, I'd gladly take the
winter if it meant staying inside building with my LEGO.)
best
LFB
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