| |
In lugnet.dear-lego, John Heins writes:
> I WANT, NEED and desperately yearn for just what I said, a tub with a BUNCH
> of technic beams and plates in ALL sizes. I want variety in SIZE AND color
> and LOTS of them. Just running off beams on a molder, packaging them in bags
> and dumping them in a tub does NOT require a complex multi-model assembly
> pamphlet (or much effort on TLC's part - just print up some labels).
John... you have a great point here, I agree with you whole-heartedly.
> It has taken a few years - and not a little $ to accumulate the limited
> selection of sizes and colors I now am using. Conversations with other
> teachers who use Legos as part of a school, camp or whatever setting (as
> well as the reaction of other fans of Legos) have convinced me that there is
> a clear pent-up demand for basic technic building components.......C'mon,
> I've seen lots of a half dozen beams sell on eBay.
> No offense, but if you took what I spent on scrounging old sets and pieces
> on new tubs of the same parts, TLC would be seeing some serious $ - instead
> of the garage sale scroungers.
Your two paragraphs above make a point that perhaps isn't always easy to
see. Let me put it in my own terms and see if we can't get the point across.
More than 1/2 of all my Technic pieces came from online auctions. That is
to say that the money I paid for them did NOT go directly to the LEGO
company. "But LEGO got paid when those sets were originally sold", you say.
Yes, you are right. But most of those pieces came from parted out sets.
Those sets sold at a price that probably saw the average price for a piece
end up much lower than the average price per piece that I paid for them at
auction.
Still with me?
So for example, the pieces from the set (for which LEGO rec'd money when
they were sold) averaged perhaps 10 - 20 cents per piece.
But at auction, for certain pieces, I have paid as much as a dollar per
piece (16 stud technic beams) or even more.
Now, doesn't it make sense for the LEGO company to offer these type of
pieces, in bulk packs, at some price mid-way between the average found in
the retail sets and the price paid at auction. If they offered a technic
beam for say 50 or 60 cents each then I'd buy exclusively from them. So
long as that was the only piece I was buying and wasn't forced to buy parts
packs with other, perhaps unwanted pieces in them.
Is my math wrong here? Can someone help me understand this better?
I'd *rather* spend money by buying directly from the company. But for
economic reasons, I don't. I buy exactly what I want, no more, no less,
from 3rd party resellers. A missed opportunity on the company's part? I
suspect so.
The point being, that if given the opportunity, I would probably spend the
same amount of money on bricks, but more of that money would go directly to
the company, rather than resellers. If the company doesn't want this money,
I can't force them to take it. :)
> This could be a simple, logical "product extension" - providing simple basic
> components in a range of colors. If Lego can do it for regular bricks and
> Duplos, why not with Technic pieces. The kids in my classes are enthralled
> with the older technic sets - and rather disappointed with the sets that
> pass for "Technic" now. While Roboriders and Bionicle do provide some
> uniquely interesting parts (and I'm sure that eventually I'll find some real
> great uses for some of them), There is a marked shortage of "REAL" Technic
> beams and plates in current offerings.
The stuff that passes for Technic now seems to try to push the boundaries of
how rounded and shaped a model can be, rather than how it can replicate a
real machine. Flash over function.
> I feel like screaming "THIS IS SOOOOOOO SIMPLE!!!!!!!!............SOOOOO
> LOGICAL!!!!!" why doesn't Lego get it?
I'm so glad to hear you scream out that question. I thought I was the only
one who thought this way. I don't know the answer to this question, but I'd
sure like to hear it from them. If they really don't ever intend or want to
provide these type of products, then why not simply issue a statement that
says so. They seem to relish in announcing new things on LUGNET, so why not
deal with this issue?
Signed,
Confused and bewildered
a.k.a. Allan B.
|
|
Message has 1 Reply:
 | | Re: How about "Technic Tubs" ???...???
|
| (...) YES! YES! YES!!!...!!! and isn't this ironic, people BEGGING a company to let them buy their product....... Ironically, I see a parallel in another hobby. I have a few old convertibles that GM no longer makes parts for. For a while, I'd pay (...) (23 years ago, 15-Oct-01, to lugnet.dear-lego, lugnet.technic)
|
Message is in Reply To:
| | Re: How about "Technic Tubs" ???...???
|
| (...) I most emphatically did NOT suggest anything regarding a universal set. While I also have more than a few copies of both the 8277 and the sub - and paid an obscene amount for a some large vintage sets, this is NOT what I had in mind. I WANT, (...) (23 years ago, 14-Oct-01, to lugnet.dear-lego, lugnet.technic)
|
29 Messages in This Thread:
  
- Entire Thread on One Page:
- Nested:
All | Brief | Compact | Dots
Linear:
All | Brief | Compact
This Message and its Replies on One Page:
- Nested:
All | Brief | Compact | Dots
Linear:
All | Brief | Compact
|
|
|
|
