Selling Lego on Amazon.com

[river41]

14 minutes ago, landphieran said:

I'd guess these are coming out to a lot of people. I'm not entirely convinced this is driven by LEGO at this point. I'm leaning towards an authorized selling third party looking to eliminate competition.

the copy posted said that they were retained by Lsi (lego systems inc ) 

[Bricklectic]

7 minutes ago, yyyybird said:

you mean the letter is not addressed to the business address on your amazon store front page?

same was true for the other guy i know who got this.. it was addressed to his house, not his business address which he thought was strange

[river41]

12 minutes ago, Bricklectic said:

Maybe we should make a brickpickr gofundme page.. i really feel like they dont have  the right to disallow sales of lego. However that may be a moot point as there really are 2 issues at hand here. One is the core issues raised in the letter, namely, Lego does not want ANY unathorized resellers selling lego on ANY platform and they are claiming firs sales doctrine doesnt apply. They may or may not be correct about this. 

However, there is a second issue that is probably the more relevant one and that is the tenuos ability to sell lego on amazon.com specifically. As we know amazon is not a court of law, and they can instantly gate or restrict accounts from selling lego. If lego/vorys contacts them and lets them know of their opposition to seller x/y/z, first sales doctrine nonwithstanding, they can easily shut you down. 

I feel like issue #2 may be the more problematic one as its harder to fight

actually i am not convinced you are correct. Many brands try to get amazon to disallow any resellers and very few succeed (nike and apple come to mind)

There have been published reports in the wsj that when brands requested amazon to restrict resellers form their brand ,amazon refused 

 

[Bricklectic]

1 minute ago, river41 said:

actually i am not convinced you are correct. Many brands try to get amazon to disallow any resellers and very few succeed (nike and apple come to mind)

There have been published reports in the wsj that when brands requested amazon to restrict resellers form their brand ,amazon refused 

 

interesting, thanks for sharing. Hopefully youre correct. Lego is pretty powerful though. Not sure if nike/apple powerful.

[Shortbus311]

Correct 

If you have a bricklink store you should sell a copy of Santa's sleigh and the Disney Castle tonight before you receive the cease and desist letter. That way if you do decide to hire an attorney and fight it then you can at least argue that you sold the possible sets in question on a authorized store on Lego's own reselling site as well as Amazon.

Sent from my SM-G996U using Tapatalk

[Bold-Arrow]

4 minutes ago, Shortbus311 said:

If you have a bricklink store you should sell a copy of Santa's sleigh and the Disney Castle tonight before you receive the cease and desist letter. That way if you do decide to hire an attorney and fight it then you can at least argue that you sold the possible sets in question on a authorized store on Lego's own reselling site as well as Amazon.

Sent from my SM-G996U using Tapatalk
 

I dont sell on BL 

[Bold-Arrow]

Did some ready on a FB group I’m part of. Few authorized sellers tried on behalf of the brand to send C&D letters to 3p sellers for not being authorized / MAP violations and mentioned Vorys as being one of the firms they used . None of the those ppl were happy with the outcome since Vorys didn’t do anything beyond sending the letter . I don’t know if Lego would actually pursue legal action but it might be a very interesting case , aren’t they on record saying they don’t oppose the secondary market ? Anyhow it might not be Lego and if it is well we will see where it goes . 

26 minutes ago, Bricklectic said:

same was true for the other guy i know who got this.. it was addressed to his house, not his business address which he thought was strange

So what is your other guy doing ? Feel free to PM 

[Mark Twain]

16 minutes ago, Bold-Arrow said:

I dont sell on BL 

It may be prudent to sign up and open a store just to have it on record that you have registered and are in compliance with Lego's own online marketplace. Here's a link to BL's seller terms of service. 

[Darth_Raichu]

20 minutes ago, Bold-Arrow said:

Did some ready on a FB group I’m part off. Few authorized sellers tried on behalf of the brand to send C&D letters to 3p sellers for not being authorized and mentioned Vorys as being one of the firms they used . None of the those ppl were happy with the outcome since Vorys didn’t do anything beyond sending the letter . I don’t know if Lego would actually pursue legal action but it might be a very interesting case , aren’t they on record saying they don’t oppose the secondary market ? Anyhow it might not be Lego and if it is well we will see where it goes . 

LEGO obviously invested a lot of money chasing the adult / collectors market.  They should have some awareness regarding post retirement value, which is one of the factors used by people to justify spending $600 on a model of ship that sank 100 years ago.  Destroying that 3rd party market is going to do more harm long term.

On the other hand, there is a chance LEGO is now run by a bunch of recent Harvard MBA graduates who only care about short term profits.  If this is the case, then all bets are off

[Bold-Arrow]

43 minutes ago, Bricklectic said:

interesting, thanks for sharing. Hopefully youre correct. Lego is pretty powerful though. Not sure if nike/apple powerful.

did your friend has an AZ filed against him for missing pieces , etc . 

[joch29]

1 hour ago, gmpirate said:

Maybe I'm not special, I don't get notices from UPS either and I actively use the account.

Yep, just call Vinny!

you can easily get notified of packages coming by signing up on fedex and ups website with your address. fair warning, it gets a little annoying when you get tons of text notifications that a bunch of packages is coming each day. 

[river41]

2 minutes ago, Bold-Arrow said:

did your friend has an AZ filed against him for missing pieces , etc . 

I seriously doubt lego has access to that information

[Bold-Arrow]

1 minute ago, river41 said:

I seriously doubt lego has access to that information

I am not looking at it from that POV, more of black hat tactics by said law firm. At this point in time, I don't even think Lego is targeting 3PS across the board. 

[Darth_Raichu]

1 hour ago, Bold-Arrow said:

no to address and name , 

How the heck did Vorys get your personal address and information?  Technically your business is the entity selling LEGO on Amazon

[jbacunn]

45 minutes ago, Bold-Arrow said:

Did some ready on a FB group I’m part off. Few authorized sellers tried on behalf of the brand to send C&D letters to 3p sellers for not being authorized and mentioned Vorys as being one of the firms they used . None of the those ppl were happy with the outcome since Vorys didn’t do anything beyond sending the letter . I don’t know if Lego would actually pursue legal action but it might be a very interesting case , aren’t they on record saying they don’t oppose the secondary market ? Anyhow it might not be Lego and if it is well we will see where it goes . 

So what is your other guy doing ? Feel free to PM 

Amazon has opened the flood gates on Lego sellers. It would make sense that big authorized sellers are not happy about this and looking for ways to thin the herd.

[Bold-Arrow]

1 minute ago, Darth_Raichu said:

How the heck did Vorys get your personal address and information?  Technically your business is the entity selling LEGO on Amazon

No idea. I received a C&D before to my business address , but the law firm had the wrong company ( similar names ) and that was before Amazon displayed that info. That was a very easy fix. lol 

[Bricklectic]

2 minutes ago, jbacunn said:

Amazon has opened the flood gates on Lego sellers. It would make sense that big authorized sellers are not happy about this and looking for ways to thin the herd.

the letter is saying they were retained by LSI.  Lego themselves not 3rd party sellers.

[keymomachine]

1 hour ago, gmpirate said:

Maybe I'm not special, I don't get notices from UPS either and I actively use the account.

It's not quite the same as shipping account, though maybe it is. Here are links to the two services:

https://www.ups.com/upsmychoice/

https://www.fedex.com/en-us/tracking/advanced.html

[jbacunn]

8 minutes ago, Bricklectic said:

the letter is saying they were retained by LSI.  Lego themselves not 3rd party sellers.

Maybe LSI stands for Lego Sellers International? 

[Bricklectic]

Just now, jbacunn said:

Maybe LSI stands for Lego Sellers International? 

now were just grasping at straws here

[Bold-Arrow]

Just now, Bricklectic said:

now were just grasping at straws here

it is hope that kills you 

[Darth_Raichu]

10 minutes ago, Bold-Arrow said:

No idea. I received a C&D before to my business address , but the law firm had the wrong company ( similar names ) and that was before Amazon displayed that info. That was a very easy fix. lol 

That is the part that bugs me.  That other C&D letter (had it been sent to the correct business) was an example of addressing business related issues. ie sending the complaint letter to the business, not the individual.  

[redcell]

2 hours ago, Mark Twain said:

Very true, but still, the Bricklink thing makes me wonder. If the brand, in this case Lego, owns and operates a marketplace run exclusively by 3P sellers to sell their products in new and used conditions, doesn't that by definition mean that they have given 3p sellers authorization to sell their product on the internet and make the majority of their argument moot? Anyone with a bank account can open such a store on Lego's marketplace and Lego charges and collects fees for this reselling, would this not qualify as an authorized reseller of their product? Also, how can they possibly enforce QC standards when they allow the sale of new and used versions of their products on said marketplace?

You seem to be assuming that just because these C&D letters are targeting Amazon sellers that Lego isn't doing anything with regards to Bricklink.  I suspect that Bricklink will be a part of whatever strategy they are pursuing.  In fact, I think that Bricklink will be the real canary in the coal mine that will provide early insights on what exactly they're up to given that they have control over Bricklink.

[Bold-Arrow]

I should do a reveal stream on twitch .... if you can't laugh you will cry 

[Darth_Raichu]

15 minutes ago, Bricklectic said:

the letter is saying they were retained by LSI.  Lego themselves not 3rd party sellers.

It is possible for authorized sellers to complain to LEGO / LSI about unauthorized sellers and LSI hired Vorys to shut them up / calm them down / show some action