Selling Lego on Amazon.com

[Islego]

What they did is so heartless to do to people especially considering some people depend on this as their main source of income, taking away someones ability to feed a family at this time of year(they ain't sending back sets tomorrow so basically they are "stealing" from people for an unspecified time, maybe permanently) especially without any warning or transparency is about as harsh as you can treat a fellow human being without breaking laws and socially accepted morals.

Now something that no one has mentioned yet is let's look at this from a logical point. If you were a decision maker at AZ or Lego who are the first resellers you would want to eliminate. For me it would be the folks that sell currently available items, they are direct competition and when AZ sells out they cause the available price to increase and give the optics of opportunistic price gouging. This agrees with the recent "currently unavailable" thing also. And since we have seen that even small timers have been spared the axe I think the actual listings you sell has a significant impact on the purge algorithm.  Santa's sleigh, and Republic tank purge seems to agree with this. And on the listing I sell on which are all long retired sets at least 2+ years ago, I am still seeing the same names and most based on feedback do not seem to be heavy volume.

So my question is, for those who did or didn't are you selling currently available or very recently retired sets, and for those small timer who survive for now are you almost entirely selling very old long ago retired sets?

I will add that it also benefits AZ to have all third party sellers think that today (any day) could be their last, it will drive prices down and keep people from opening their mouths when they have an issue with seller central support. This is a new level of cruelty even for AZ. 

 

Edited December 5 by Islego
fix overwrite

[legorunner]

26 minutes ago, Islego said:

So my question is, for those who did or didn't are you selling currently available or very recently retired sets,

I was only selling sets that retired at least a year ago. I've only quick flipped active sets once, and that was 5+ years ago. 

To clarify: I have in the past sometimes sold sets in Q4 that retired the previous year, but this year all of my active inventory had exit dates of 12/22 or earlier. 

Edited December 5 by legorunner
Clarity

[Islego]

6 minutes ago, legorunner said:

I was only selling sets that retired at least a year ago. I've only quick flipped active sets once, and that was 5+ years ago. 

It is clear that there is no single metric to this. However I would not consider 1 year long ago retired, especially if it was last year at December 2023, January 2024 a set first went out of stock. In that case it would not have officially been retired on Lego.com until sometime early mid 2024. As usual we have not enough data to make a determination and once again AZ has proven they DGAF about anyone except their money. After citizens united money/corporations are people right so that last sentence is correct right?

Edited December 5 by Islego

[scatttcat]

25 minutes ago, Islego said:

So my question is, for those who did or didn't are you selling currently available or very recently retired sets, and for those small timer who survive for now are you almost entirely selling very old long ago retired sets?

 

Super small timer (ranged 13-15k a year), only sold sets 2-3 years post-retirement, never quick flipped. 

Got accepted to sell via Amazon in 2021 (via the invoice method), then was forced to re-apply in mid 2023 (but did so with no issues). 

Guess I "deserved" to get dropped, sigh. Really stings though. I was already having a ****-holiday season and this just was a cherry on top. 

[Islego]

It seems that many things were considered, length of selling, how much sold, consistency throughout the year, what we sell, so many factors. Or it was just random, hate to say it but once it was decided this would happen, random to me I would actually be ok with, that is the only true fair way for something like this. No I don't think a big seller like toyworld or revend is more entitlement to access the market!

Edited December 5 by Islego
Added info

[swada33]

48 minutes ago, scatttcat said:

Super small timer (ranged 13-15k a year), only sold sets 2-3 years post-retirement, never quick flipped. 

Got accepted to sell via Amazon in 2021 (via the invoice method), then was forced to re-apply in mid 2023 (but did so with no issues). 

Guess I "deserved" to get dropped, sigh. Really stings though. I was already having a ****-holiday season and this just was a cherry on top. 

Sorry, my friend. I lost my day job a month ago, so this definitely falls into a "sting" for me as well. I'm also pretty small time - I started tapering off 2 years ago, so down to about 10k this year with 99% retired sets.

[legolassie]

3 hours ago, Pseudoty said:

Just curious what brought you here, the Reddit thread?

I have been on here for years and my old account is locked for some reason...have yet to see the reddit thread.

[Bold-Arrow]

Just now, legolassie said:

I have been on here for years and my old account is locked for some reason...have yet to see the reddit thread.

i thought that was you, but I wasnt sure 

[Lego Lass]

12 minutes ago, Bold-Arrow said:

i thought that was you, but I wasnt sure 

 

14 minutes ago, legolassie said:

I have been on here for years and my old account is locked for some reason...have yet to see the reddit thread.

I've also been here for years, just not very active. Hi legolassie!

[gmpirate]

Idk, I have a friend who is into 7 figures of sales and he really doesn't hold for more than a year or two.  He's not a QFLL of new sets, but if he finds sets that have had production ceased on sale/clearance he will flip them right away.  He also has only been doing Lego 3 years.

I think the only thing we can point to right now is "overall" sales volume.  We all seem to split our sales across FBA, FBM, consistent selling, heaving 4th dependent, etc. in different ways otherwise.  Some have been long time sellers and some not.

Edited December 5 by gmpirate

[Legolassy]

46 minutes ago, Lego Lass said:

 

I've also been here for years, just not very active. Hi legolassie!

Fixed  

[redcell]

9 minutes ago, gmpirate said:

Idk, I have a friend who is into 7 figures of sales and he really doesn't hold for more than a year or two.  He's not a QFLL of new sets, but if he finds sets that have had production ceased on sale/clearance he will flip them right away.  He also has only been doing Lego 3 years.

I think the only thing we can point to right now is "overall" sales volume.  We all seem to split our sales across FBA, FBM, consistent selling, heaving 4th dependent, etc. in different ways otherwise.  Some have been long time sellers and some not.

DId that friend get shut down or is he still able to sell?

[severalads]

was reading amazon seller forum, and to be fair - posts started appearing about 3 months ago when sellers were reporting that they were unable to apply to sell Lego:

Here

And here

So seems like those were early signs of Lego becoming hard gated.

Then 2 months ago first reports started to come about sellers, who already were selling, having had their ASINs deactivated/gated

So it is possible that Lego started to apply similar way of policing its brand - like Adidas or Hugo Boss - when you need to be on brand's "white list" to keep selling, rather than simply being ungated (for Adidas in UK for example, Adidas "ungates" you by sending your info to Amazon).

Question is, how do you appear on their "white list"? I think it's similar in US - in UK there are almost no LEGO brand distributors. I only found two.

One is toymasters - who is the biggest PITA on amazon, they always sell ALL retired sets and will undercut anyone on price. They have endless stock. They said they would only accept me as their customer if I have a b&m store. Thanks but no thanks.

Another one was AIS - with my 6 figures annual turnover I was too small for them.

And even these above guys, they may themselves have authorisation, but can they pass on that authorisation to their clients? Depending if Lego allows them to.

Really hoping for some reversal of this stupid amazon action, but from reading forums seems unlikely...

[gmpirate]

17 minutes ago, redcell said:

DId that friend get shut down or is he still able to sell?

Alive and well

[gmpirate]

Well, I hope this site doesn't go more quiet than its been.  That would be a real bummer.

[Banjoman]

Can someone please share the Reddit thread or forum?

[Mark Twain]

I think something else may be going on here, or at the least contributing to things. Some folks on the FBA forums are noting an increase in pending orders piling up. I have 30+, some going back to early November. This doesn’t make any sense. It’s almost like something was retooled in FBA that stalled fulfillment.

[landphieran]

28 minutes ago, Mark Twain said:

I think something else may be going on here, or at the least contributing to things. Some folks on the FBA forums are noting an increase in pending orders piling up. I have 30+, some going back to early November. This doesn’t make any sense. It’s almost like something was retooled in FBA that stalled fulfillment.

I don't think this is any different than last year. It usually takes until mid December for Amazon to catchup on orders. The long lasting    pending orders are often people using wrong CC information or their CC bounced and the transaction never clears. It could also be someone purchasing items that are in pending FC transfer and stuck there for a long time.

[Bricklectic]

38 minutes ago, landphieran said:

I don't think this is any different than last year. It usually takes until mid December for Amazon to catchup on orders. The long lasting    pending orders are often people using wrong CC information or their CC bounced and the transaction never clears. It could also be someone purchasing items that are in pending FC transfer and stuck there for a long time.

Bingo. I believe the FC transfer is mostly to blame. Most cc's are fine

[Migration]

Just out of curiosity for the sellers that got nuked, did you keep the $40 pro plan year round or did you bounce back-and-forth between that and the dollar per item plan?

[teamhappyfrog]

1 hour ago, Migration said:

Just out of curiosity for the sellers that got nuked, did you keep the $40 pro plan year round or did you bounce back-and-forth between that and the dollar per item plan?

I have the pro plan and got nuked, but Lego is only 10% of my inventory, but I just pumped a lot into it for december. I was actually in the middle of prepping a shipment when I got that email.

[legorunner]

1 hour ago, Migration said:

Just out of curiosity for the sellers that got nuked, did you keep the $40 pro plan year round or did you bounce back-and-forth between that and the dollar per item plan?

I've always downgraded early in the year and upgraded to pro in the late summer as I start sending more inventory in. 

[Banjoman]

Can someone please share the reddit thread or forum where the Amazon account situation was discussed?

[Tonka858]

On 12/5/2024 at 1:49 PM, severalads said:

was reading amazon seller forum, and to be fair - posts started appearing about 3 months ago when sellers were reporting that they were unable to apply to sell Lego:

Here

And here

So seems like those were early signs of Lego becoming hard gated.

Then 2 months ago first reports started to come about sellers, who already were selling, having had their ASINs deactivated/gated

So it is possible that Lego started to apply similar way of policing its brand - like Adidas or Hugo Boss - when you need to be on brand's "white list" to keep selling, rather than simply being ungated (for Adidas in UK for example, Adidas "ungates" you by sending your info to Amazon).

Question is, how do you appear on their "white list"? I think it's similar in US - in UK there are almost no LEGO brand distributors. I only found two.

One is toymasters - who is the biggest PITA on amazon, they always sell ALL retired sets and will undercut anyone on price. They have endless stock. They said they would only accept me as their customer if I have a b&m store. Thanks but no thanks.

Another one was AIS - with my 6 figures annual turnover I was too small for them.

And even these above guys, they may themselves have authorisation, but can they pass on that authorisation to their clients? Depending if Lego allows them to.

Really hoping for some reversal of this stupid amazon action, but from reading forums seems unlikely...

Even if you had a store, Once you saw the prices you would laugh and never login again.

 

 

[Bold-Arrow]

Fleeced someone out of $90 by selling them a Lego fleece. Eat that Reddit