Selling Lego on Amazon.com

[Tonka858]

6 hours ago, Sozial said:

This is the thing I truely hate about this business.

On average we have approx 200 damage lego sets always on hand. Some flip on ebay as soon as they come in others, I can't give away

3 minutes ago, NIevo said:

Has anyone had decent sales lately?  Mine have all but dried up.  Everything I look at either doesn't have a buy box or if it does they are all through FBA sellers.  Even items I have lots of stock and lowest price by a good margin I can't get a BB for.

If your doing standard size sets you should be using FBA, 

[Bricklectic]

28 minutes ago, NIevo said:

Has anyone had decent sales lately?  Mine have all but dried up.  Everything I look at either doesn't have a buy box or if it does they are all through FBA sellers.  Even items I have lots of stock and lowest price by a good margin I can't get a BB for.

dry as the sahara. Economy related or late February doldrums?

What do we all think about undercutting Amazon on price for zombie's sets? There used to be chatter to the effect that Vory's or Amazon clamp down on sellers that do that.

[gmpirate]

I'm all FBM now.  Good variety so I can move at a decent daily pace but overall the volume is just not there like it used to be.  I blame Amazon more than anything economic.  Suppressed listings, no buy boxes, and no listings at all.  I've been in this game a long time and have always rolled with the punches and adjusted strategies but I'm not sure I'm going to fight my way through what is going on now.  It doesn't really matter the return if you can't move the product.

Tough to bet on a listing if Amazon carries it because how long will they continue with it?  No worries, I'll buy Lego exclusives.  Ooops, no listings for those now.  Retiring Lego exclusive?  Oops, Amazon suddenly has it.  GWP's?  nope.  Best I can do right now is maximize my pricing through FBM.

[behopkin]

13 hours ago, NIevo said:

Has anyone had decent sales lately?  Mine have all but dried up.  Everything I look at either doesn't have a buy box or if it does they are all through FBA sellers.  Even items I have lots of stock and lowest price by a good margin I can't get a BB for.

Can't speak on Amazon but non-existent sales on Ebay as well. Has been a steady decline the last two years, but within the past 2 months sales have truly gotten terrible, getting scary. 

[Darth_Raichu]

10 hours ago, gmpirate said:

I'm all FBM now.  Good variety so I can move at a decent daily pace but overall the volume is just not there like it used to be.  I blame Amazon more than anything economic.  Suppressed listings, no buy boxes, and no listings at all.  I've been in this game a long time and have always rolled with the punches and adjusted strategies but I'm not sure I'm going to fight my way through what is going on now.  It doesn't really matter the return if you can't move the product.

Tough to bet on a listing if Amazon carries it because how long will they continue with it?  No worries, I'll buy Lego exclusives.  Ooops, no listings for those now.  Retiring Lego exclusive?  Oops, Amazon suddenly has it.  GWP's?  nope.  Best I can do right now is maximize my pricing through FBM.

Yep, plus their price ceiling algorithm that is not backed up by competitiors' data.

Recently they sent out 3rd party survey for Amazon FBM and I gave them my thoughts.  Probably no real person on Amazon will read them, but maybe if more sellers give them feedback they can listen.  The email's subject is "Help us improve your FBM experience"

[Sozial]

14 hours ago, NIevo said:

Has anyone had decent sales lately?  Mine have all but dried up.  Everything I look at either doesn't have a buy box or if it does they are all through FBA sellers.  Even items I have lots of stock and lowest price by a good margin I can't get a BB for.

52% down compared to last year 

[cobrakai]

1 hour ago, behopkin said:

Can't speak on Amazon but non-existent sales on Ebay as well. Has been a steady decline the last two years, but within the past 2 months sales have truly gotten terrible, getting scary. 

Pretty much been straight downhill since about Easter of 2021.  Sales always increased for me from 2014 up until the big Covid spike. Since then, down 30-50% every year. 

[behopkin]

17 minutes ago, cobrakai said:

Pretty much been straight downhill since about Easter of 2021.  Sales always increased for me from 2014 up until the big Covid spike. Since then, down 30-50% every year. 

Had about a year in 2021 where I sold older sets in the 8-10 year range that still did well...but if I didn't have that I'd be looking at a period of about the past 3 1/2 years of decreased sales every year within the 30-50% range as well. No question it's concerning and appears to be getting worse.

[cobrakai]

1 minute ago, behopkin said:

Had about a year in 2021 where I sold older sets in the 8-10 year range that still did well...but if I didn't have that I'd be looking at a period of about the past 3 1/2 years of decreased sales every year within the 30-50% range as well. No question it's concerning and appears to be getting worse.

I think a lot of factors have lead to this.  The covid spike distorted demand obviously.  Inflation caused a lot of issues and was not addressed soon enough with higher interest rates.  The big toy companies all increased production based on the COVID demand that did not last, which led to massive amounts of excess toys everywhere.  Then media properties like Star Wars/Marvel/DC started to drastically decrease in quality and popularity, which drives a lot of toy/Lego demand. And of course kids are now on their tablets/smartphones/video games more than ever and have much less interest in toys. 

[Bricklectic]

Inflation, genuine economy worries, and the absolute #1 factor by MILES is the PLETHORA of amazing new releases priced significantly less that PY. 

Every collectible category from watches to comic books have plummeted in the last year or 2. Please explain why Lego should be immune?

[Bricklectic]

I just took out a leveraged short position against the S & P. If the economy goes south and affects Lego, at least I'll recoup some via profits on my hedge.

[spener90]

A short position. Is it in a specific stock of sorts? I’m not optimistic about the market currently, but short positions can get ugly quickly.

[Bricklectic]

22 hours ago, spener90 said:

A short position. Is it in a specific stock of sorts? I’m not optimistic about the market currently, but short positions can get ugly quickly.

spy options or the like. If market stays in a month I double money. If it goes up I lose everything. Selling call spread near the money

[$20 on joe vs dan]

On 2/28/2025 at 9:37 AM, Bricklectic said:

Inflation, genuine economy worries, and the absolute #1 factor by MILES is the PLETHORA of amazing new releases priced significantly less that PY. 

Every collectible category from watches to comic books have plummeted in the last year or 2. Please explain why Lego should be immune?

uh...Pokemon is having it's best demand going on 6 months now...You CANNOT find anything for retail price and turds that have been shelf queens for years are now double prices last year. It's absolutely nuts with YT of costco stampedes and fights.

[gmpirate]

Anyone hear getting gated again.  I was just talking to some sellers this morning that there are sweeping gates that have been going on on many brands.  They are not big time into Lego by any means, but they were gated there "again" after being ungated after the holidays.  Also, where previously you had to provide receipts with purchases showing quantities of 10 to get ungated on products, the bars were raised into the hundreds.

This game is getting pretty risky.  Amazon is either gating sellers, not allowing listings, or taking the listings for their own stock post retirement.  It's been fun, been doing it since the early 2000's, but getting hard justify taking a large position with this stuff anymore.  Cool new GWP but without a viable platform to sell it on what do you do?  There's no listings for the items I would buy anyway.  😔

[chaozz]

I know a lot of people have been getting gated in Adidas the last couple weeks.

[smittypop2]

I was gated in Monopoly, Universal??, Just Play and Hasbro Gaming in the last month. 100 units was the requirement for each one. I have a decent amount of Monopoly, but the rest is no big deal. I have not tried to list any of that stuff since then and still have some Monopoly at FBA that seems to be still be for sale. The problem with many items is that they are not listed correctly by title or brand and Amazon doesn't immediately block a bunch of that stuff. I do agree it is getting a lot riskier to have large amounts of inventory sitting around and hoping Amazon doesn't hard or soft gate that particular brand. I guess we will see, but I do anticipate we are nearing the end of our usefulness to the future Skynet.