76023 - The Tumbler

[jaisonline]

2 minutes ago, MarxMarvelous said:

What is considered direct to consumer?

Exclusive tagged sets like UCS, Ferriswheel, VW van

[Guest]

6 minutes ago, jaisonline said:

Exclusive tagged sets like UCS, Ferriswheel, VW van

Oh. What's confusing about that is those are sold at retailers just like any other set.

[jaisonline]

17 minutes ago, MarxMarvelous said:

Oh. What's confusing about that is those are sold at retailers just like any other set.

In our country, only select U.S. retailers and usually online.  Mom and Pop stores, EE, Yoyo.com, etc... aren't allowed to sell D2C sets.  Not sure about non-US. 

[Serejai]

1 hour ago, c_rpg said:

I'm not against flipping, but surely the release of the new Batman vs Superman movie will only increase the value? Why not wait another couple of months?

It depends entirely on how well you know what you're doing, and what purpose the funds serve.

For example, let's say I have $200 and my goal is to make the largest profit possible in two years. I know what I'm doing, I have access to products, etc. I go out and buy a single Tumbler. Now, I can either sell it for 10% profit within a month... or hold it for two years and maybe sell it for 2-3x what I paid for it. Let's go ahead and be extremely generous here and say that the Tumbler will sell for $1,000 in two years.

So, option 1) hold the Tumbler for two years, then sell for $1,000. Total profit is $800 over two years.
Option 2) sell the Tumbler now for $220, then continue cycling that money once a month for 10% profit. Total profit is about $1,750 over two years.

In this case, flipping the Tumbler is more than twice as profitable as holding it as a long-term investment - assuming you can reinvest that money once a month (which is quite easy to do).

That being said, I am holding onto mine. Why? Because at some point you end up with more money than you can reasonably spend, in which case investments start to make more sense. If you only have $200 and want to make money, selling quickly is your best bet by a large margin because there's always something else you can buy. If you had a million dollars laying around that was devoted just to LEGOs... there wouldn't really be any point to selling quickly, because there's no way you could spend all the money you had laying around in the first place. This is the same reason why savings accounts and the stock market works; at some point you end up with too much cash to reasonably spend, so it becomes better to store your "leftover" cash in something that will gain interest... as opposed to just sitting in a normal bank account.

[alfredheunghk]

lego shop US was available again several times in the past 8 hours.

is it still a false alarm???

Edited February 10, 2016 by alfredheunghk

[wotguvnotmeguv]

More Smyths fun and games.

Blackpool and Salford stores are no longer listed on site as expecting stock. Everywhere else is either in stock (8 stores), low stock (7 stores) or "Estimated In Stock: 09 Feb-14 Feb" (40-odd stores).

[MikeB]

17 minutes ago, wotguvnotmeguv said:

More Smyths fun and games.

Blackpool and Salford stores are no longer listed on site as expecting stock. Everywhere else is either in stock (8 stores), low stock (7 stores) or "Estimated In Stock: 09 Feb-14 Feb" (40-odd stores).

The Blackpool and Salford stores aren't open yet. They have never shown expecting stock. 

[Guest xuesongc]

34 minutes ago, Serejai said:

It depends entirely on how well you know what you're doing, and what purpose the funds serve.

For example, let's say I have $200 and my goal is to make the largest profit possible in two years. I know what I'm doing, I have access to products, etc. I go out and buy a single Tumbler. Now, I can either sell it for 10% profit within a month... or hold it for two years and maybe sell it for 2-3x what I paid for it. Let's go ahead and be extremely generous here and say that the Tumbler will sell for $1,000 in two years.

So, option 1) hold the Tumbler for two years, then sell for $1,000. Total profit is $800 over two years.
Option 2) sell the Tumbler now for $220, then continue cycling that money once a month for 10% profit. Total profit is about $1,750 over two years.

In this case, flipping the Tumbler is more than twice as profitable as holding it as a long-term investment - assuming you can reinvest that money once a month (which is quite easy to do).

That being said, I am holding onto mine. Why? Because at some point you end up with more money than you can reasonably spend, in which case investments start to make more sense. If you only have $200 and want to make money, selling quickly is your best bet by a large margin because there's always something else you can buy. If you had a million dollars laying around that was devoted just to LEGOs... there wouldn't really be any point to selling quickly, because there's no way you could spend all the money you had laying around in the first place. This is the same reason why savings accounts and the stock market works; at some point you end up with too much cash to reasonably spend, so it becomes better to store your "leftover" cash in something that will gain interest... as opposed to just sitting in a normal bank account.

I did this in fall 2014 when the tumbler first came out flipping it for roughly 40 bux profit per... flipped about 30 of them. Now that its retiring Im stocked up on tumblers for the long haul.

[wotguvnotmeguv]

26 minutes ago, MikeB said:

The Blackpool and Salford stores aren't open yet. They have never shown expecting stock. 

Aha - didn't know that. Thought all stores had been showing one of the three messages. As you were.

[c_rpg]

12 hours ago, Serejai said:

It depends entirely on how well you know what you're doing, and what purpose the funds serve.

For example, let's say I have $200 and my goal is to make the largest profit possible in two years. I know what I'm doing, I have access to products, etc. I go out and buy a single Tumbler. Now, I can either sell it for 10% profit within a month... or hold it for two years and maybe sell it for 2-3x what I paid for it. Let's go ahead and be extremely generous here and say that the Tumbler will sell for $1,000 in two years.

So, option 1) hold the Tumbler for two years, then sell for $1,000. Total profit is $800 over two years.
Option 2) sell the Tumbler now for $220, then continue cycling that money once a month for 10% profit. Total profit is about $1,750 over two years.

In this case, flipping the Tumbler is more than twice as profitable as holding it as a long-term investment - assuming you can reinvest that money once a month (which is quite easy to do).

That's an interesting strategy, however this implies you have a consistent supply of MSRP products and are able to sell them at a profit consistently. I agree that this is more profitable, but I highly doubt that most of the resellers are commited enough to take it to such a high level. It requires a lot of work and it is a lot more risky. It's always interesting to see other people's ideas about investing

Also, I'm not trying to argue or anything, but how do you get to a profit of 1750$? Wouldn't it be closer to 1120$?

[c_rpg]

13 hours ago, alfredheunghk said:

lego shop US was available again several times in the past 8 hours.

is it still a false alarm???

Hmmm you are right, it's available right now in the EU also. Some leftover stock they found perhaps?

EDIT: aaaaand it's gone. That took less than 5 minutes.

Edited February 11, 2016 by c_rpg

[fantomas007]

13 hours ago, Serejai said:

It depends entirely on how well you know what you're doing, and what purpose the funds serve.

For example, let's say I have $200 and my goal is to make the largest profit possible in two years. I know what I'm doing, I have access to products, etc. I go out and buy a single Tumbler. Now, I can either sell it for 10% profit within a month... or hold it for two years and maybe sell it for 2-3x what I paid for it. Let's go ahead and be extremely generous here and say that the Tumbler will sell for $1,000 in two years.

So, option 1) hold the Tumbler for two years, then sell for $1,000. Total profit is $800 over two years.
Option 2) sell the Tumbler now for $220, then continue cycling that money once a month for 10% profit. Total profit is about $1,750 over two years.

In this case, flipping the Tumbler is more than twice as profitable as holding it as a long-term investment - assuming you can reinvest that money once a month (which is quite easy to do).

That being said, I am holding onto mine. Why? Because at some point you end up with more money than you can reasonably spend, in which case investments start to make more sense. If you only have $200 and want to make money, selling quickly is your best bet by a large margin because there's always something else you can buy. If you had a million dollars laying around that was devoted just to LEGOs... there wouldn't really be any point to selling quickly, because there's no way you could spend all the money you had laying around in the first place. This is the same reason why savings accounts and the stock market works; at some point you end up with too much cash to reasonably spend, so it becomes better to store your "leftover" cash in something that will gain interest... as opposed to just sitting in a normal bank account.

OK, but you need to take into account also other factors:

- time spending with buying/selling 24x more items than just holding and selling 1 tumbler after 2 years. Time is money, since during that time, which you spent by neverending buying, packing and shipping, you can earn money by other activity (for example deeper checking of lego discounts, etc).

- you are in much more danger to be banned, since you need to buy 24x more items.

- there is no guarantee that you can sell a set immediately with 10 % profit in any month - most of the sales are limited to after EOL period, than the rise is chaotic and not guaranted.

I am thinking in my strategy little different - to find the moment, when the rise of the set is not so rapid (i.e. less rapid than a rise of other set, which is retiring). I know that every set is rising, but question is how long to wait. If a set has MSRP eur 100, after 2 years has value of eur 200, should i wait another year for value eur 250, if i can sell it now for 200 and invest this money to 2 retiring sets (100/piece), which has a potential to reach eur 150 after 1 year? The punch line is to estimate, which rise will be faster - the rise of the set from 2. to 3. year after EOL, or rise of just retiring set in first year. And there is much more combinations - rise between 3. and 4. year, etc. Its just about a feeling and experience.

[TheGallows]

On 05/02/2016 at 7:46 PM, InfamouzDeep said:

13 hours ago, Serejai said:

It depends entirely on how well you know what you're doing, and what purpose the funds serve.

For example, let's say I have $200 and my goal is to make the largest profit possible in two years. I know what I'm doing, I have access to products, etc. I go out and buy a single Tumbler. Now, I can either sell it for 10% profit within a month... or hold it for two years and maybe sell it for 2-3x what I paid for it. Let's go ahead and be extremely generous here and say that the Tumbler will sell for $1,000 in two years.

So, option 1) hold the Tumbler for two years, then sell for $1,000. Total profit is $800 over two years.
Option 2) sell the Tumbler now for $220, then continue cycling that money once a month for 10% profit. Total profit is about $1,750 over two years.

In this case, flipping the Tumbler is more than twice as profitable as holding it as a long-term investment - assuming you can reinvest that money once a month (which is quite easy to do).

That being said, I am holding onto mine. Why? Because at some point you end up with more money than you can reasonably spend, in which case investments start to make more sense. If you only have $200 and want to make money, selling quickly is your best bet by a large margin because there's always something else you can buy. If you had a million dollars laying around that was devoted just to LEGOs... there wouldn't really be any point to selling quickly, because there's no way you could spend all the money you had laying around in the first place. This is the same reason why savings accounts and the stock market works; at some point you end up with too much cash to reasonably spend, so it becomes better to store your "leftover" cash in something that will gain interest... as opposed to just sitting in a normal bank account.

Everyone who could afford and wanted The Tumbler ... Must have one now... surely? 

This is not taking into account unhappy customers (for whatever reason) returns, loses, damaged items, and lot of time and effort, packing, sourcing packing materials and actually shipping.

For most this is just a hobby and their actual jobs pay better than the time spent doing this for a QF. 

[alfredheunghk]

38 minutes ago, c_rpg said:

Hmmm you are right, it's available right now in the EU also. Some leftover stock they found perhaps?

EDIT: aaaaand it's gone. That took less than 5 minutes.

can you buy now in lego shop in germany (because the page shows cannot be found)

and i don't know whether it is new stocks or left stocks.

need to be confirmed by brick bros who bought today.

[TigerG]

Fortunately everybody does have different investement strategies and there are pro's and con's to all of them. Most importantly you need to find the right strategy for you. If you find selling + packing + shipping very time consuming and you don't like the thrill of the never ending bargain hunt a quick money cyle is probably not for you. If you need liquidity and/or tend to be impatient than a long term hold is not for you. Each to their own!

[Flowie]

It can not ne ordered  Page can not be found

[Manse1001]

Stock suddenly appeared on the Smyths website at my local store so I proceeded to order, got an automated email from the Smyths about 15 minutes later saying they could not fulfill my order, I then spoke to my local store who said they never had any instock today or the last few weeks . . . . ?!

Begs to asks the question if the stock on the website is actually legit in terms of numbers or like someone mentioned a few posts back, are they fudging stock numbers to entice people in to their stores in the hope they will purchase others items whilst there??

[c_rpg]

Yeah it was only up for a few minutes. I had one in my cart, but the page would not load. After restarting my browser it was gone.

[Guest]

15 hours ago, jaisonline said:

In our country, only select U.S. retailers and usually online.  Mom and Pop stores, EE, Yoyo.com, etc... aren't allowed to sell D2C sets.  Not sure about non-US. 

Gotcha, that make sense then, thank you

 

58 minutes ago, c_rpg said:

Yeah it was only up for a few minutes. I had one in my cart, but the page would not load. After restarting my browser it was gone.

 

This is doing quite the dance. Waltz, moonwalk, funky chicken, you name it.

Edited February 11, 2016 by MarxMarvelous

[jackanape]

1 hour ago, Manse1001 said:

Stock suddenly appeared on the Smyths website at my local store so I proceeded to order, got an automated email from the Smyths about 15 minutes later saying they could not fulfill my order, I then spoke to my local store who said they never had any instock today or the last few weeks . . . . ?!

Begs to asks the question if the stock on the website is actually legit in terms of numbers or like someone mentioned a few posts back, are they fudging stock numbers to entice people in to their stores in the hope they will purchase others items whilst there??

I've ordered from Smyth's twice to collect. First time I ordered two to collect with no issues, second I ordered two and one got cancelled but the other was fine. Only reason that one got cancelled is because people got there ahead of me - as if people physically buy them off the shelves before your order gets put to one side, or if someone else orders click and collect first.

So I doubt there is any malicious intent really - either people got there ahead of you (and the person you spoke to wasn't aware of it) or a system glitch.

[Rimmit]

4 hours ago, TheGallows said:

For most this is just a hobby and their actual jobs pay better than the time spent doing this for a QF. 

Exactly.  It's a hobby that pays for itself, and allows us to justify the cost to your spouse or significant other.  For myself, when I used to do this back in the mid 2000's it was actually to supplement my income.  However, now I have a well paying job, and it's primarily to justify me buying these several hundred dollar lego sets, as it is a bit of a splurge.

If you truly need to make significant cash from Lego's it becomes a full time job.  The amount of time spent tracking sales, market research, listing, packing, shipping, dealing with returns and customer complaints, etc. starts to consume a massive amount of time.  If you have a family and a full time job, it just becomes unfeasible to make more than a couple thousand a month at most with the time investment required, which brings us to which certain investment strategy is best for your lifestyle.

For me, the long term hold on the pricey sets is by far the best return for my time, and I suspect it is for any body who does not have the time to churn through packing and shipping 10-15 sets a day for a 10 dollar profit.  As you get older, money is no longer your most valuable asset. Time is.  Time is money.  And spending a couple hours packing and shipping  to make a 150 dollar profit is not worth it for most people in this game.  With a long term hold you can make potentially 200-300 dollars in a sell and the time it took is the same to pack and sell for a 10 dollar flip. These are vague estimates.  Your actual time may vary, but I tried to round to make math easier.

5 min. to buy the item (seconds with amazon 1-click) 

5 min. to pick up item from doorstep and store in basement, storage unit in home, etc.,

20 min. for market research and to list on ebay, amazon, brick link when it comes time to sell. 

10 min. Answer a couple emails on product

30 min. Pack and ship product 30 min.(includes time to put on label, and drive to post office and ship, shipping from home reduces this)

70 total minutes to buy an item and send it out.  200-300 dollars for an approximate hour of someone's time is much more appealing than 10-15 dollars for the same time span for someone that has a full time job, spouse, kids, etc. on top of legovesting.  The short term hold yields the same amount "work" time, however, your profit is much lower for the same amount of actual "work."  Your dollar per hour wage is that of a fast food worker.  If the flip is 30 dollars/hour you've at least moved into a realm of a more respectable "wage."  I've done fast food in my youth and college, and I can say I am glad I am past that point. 

Another obstacle toward the short term flip and an obstacle for anyone with an income is taxes.  If you are paying 25-35% on your tax return, suddenly, that 10 dollar profit is reduced to 7.50-6.50.  Now we are sub minimum wage.  At least a medium term hold would make it worth the effort at that point.  Again, this all depends on your tax situation. 

This is all dependent on if you have the capital to tie up thousands of dollars in Legos for long term.  Obviously if you are buying on margin the Long Term hold might not be the best for you.

The ideal goal is to have a continual stream of old "mature" stock that you can sell for the 200/hour wage, so you are constantly making a good wage.  I managed to achieve this in 2007, but sadly had to shut the biz down due to life changes, and am only getting it restarted.  It is my goal to build up a nice portfolio so when I retire I can do this as a retirement gig, when income and therefore taxes are lower.  It will also keep myself from being bored in the retirement years. 

The stock market, while risky, and basically gambling, is highly appealing to many because it takes SECONDS to buy and sell stocks.  Your per hour wage can be astronomical.  Sadly, stocks are incredibly risky, but with great risk there is potential for great reward.

Either way, there are many strategies,  you just need to pick the one that works best for your lifestyle, life goals, and how much you believe your time to be worth.

I apologize if that was off topic. Mods please move to whatever forum you believe this to relevant.

Edited February 11, 2016 by Rimmit

[dcdfan]

Where the hell is that Tumbler forum...?

[Val-E]

Merged with Arkham Asylum´s  for the short term....

[BRIX23]

Need some advice here.  Called Shop at Home last Friday on the advice of a local store employee to see if I could order.  To my amazement they thought they could.  Order just arrived today, but I have concerns about the the tape on one end. Two of the three strips look like they could have been lifted and then put back again. Should I be concerned something was taken?  I want to keep it mint, but don't know what to do.  Seal 41 btw . 

 

Edited February 12, 2016 by rshafer23
Photos

[Migration]

19 minutes ago, rshafer23 said:

Need some advice here.  Called Shop at Home last Friday on the advice of a local store employee to see if I could order.  To my amazement they thought they could.  Order just arrived today, but I have concerns about the the tape on one end. Two of the three strips look like they could have been lifted and then put back again. Should I be concerned something was taken?  I want to keep it mint, but don't know what to do.  Seal 41 btw . 

Cut seals and verify contents. It's the only way to know for sure. You'll probably make 5%-10% less when you go to sell but it's better than shipping a buyer a box of puzzle pieces mixed with mega bloks or a set with no mini figs.

Edited February 12, 2016 by Migration