Is anyone experiencing a lackluster sales season?

[redcell]

you're missing the point.

no one like's cinderella.

everyone loves elsa.

 

Now you're just being a contrarian idiot and trying to pick a fight.  If you think I'm wrong, you should by all means put every single dollar that you have to spend on Lego next year on Elsa's Frozen Palace and max out all of your credit cards to buy even more.  After all, if everyone loves Elsa so much, it has to be a sure thing...right?

[Deez_Brickz]

Now you're just being a contrarian idiot and trying to pick a fight. If you think I'm wrong, you should by all means put every single dollar that you have to spend on Lego next year on Elsa's Frozen Palace and max out all of your credit cards to buy even more. After all, if everyone loves Elsa so much, it has to be a sure thing...right?

Where is the like button in mobile view?

[Brickerbrack]

So back on topic.  I've noticed a uptick in orders this week for lower end sets < $50.  I'm moving a lot of clearance finds for nice profits, except Chima.  Gonna build a fort I guess.

 

Did manage to unload all the SGE I had for $7 profit each.  Looking like I will be stuck with the 4 Frozen Friends Collections I have, or gifts for my daughter's classmates...

 

I wasn't in the game last year, so I can't compare, but I am happy with this year.  I'm not going to go buy a Ferrari, but will have some profit to reinvest in better sets.

[ravenb99]

So back on topic.  I've noticed a uptick in orders this week for lower end sets < $50.  I'm moving a lot of clearance finds for nice profits, except Chima.  Gonna build a fort I guess.

 

Did manage to unload all the SGE I had for $7 profit each.  Looking like I will be stuck with the 4 Frozen Friends Collections I have, or gifts for my daughter's classmates...

 

I wasn't in the game last year, so I can't compare, but I am happy with this year.  I'm not going to go buy a Ferrari, but will have some profit to reinvest in better sets.

Sold a lot more small sets the last 2 days as well. Which is nice. Sold a lot of random clearance sets i purchased during the year. Happy to get rid of the 1 and 2 set ones that i didnt have anything to combo with

[Darth_Raichu]

What a difference 1 day made.  By this time yesterday I was looking at 15 orders.  Right now I have 5.  On the bright side, I can use the nap zzzz

Doh spoke too soon.  Woke up to a bunch of orders with "Please send ASAP" notes tacked to them

[KShine]

It doesn't matter. It can be the greatest set anyone has ever seen, but if stores have it and every reseller on ebay and Amazon has it in quantity, the price won't go anywhere.

 

Correct - I am amazed that seemingly intelligent people could be arguing that the reason is about the popularity of Characters (Elsa, Cinderella, or even Darth Vader).

 

If they are available to purchase at the store - buyers wont be buying your sets for double MSRP. If the SW advent calendars run out on any given year (whether it be Vader or Jar Jar) they will.

 

It is mostly about production numbers, and LEGO is more than a bit unpredictable when it comes to this.

[Dbroncoboy]

Amazon is "God" in our business. eBay prices generally follow regardless of their lack of connection. The fact that Amazon didn't blow out any stock this year hurt the QFLL. Last year by Dec 2nd I'd rekon 40% of the most popular sets were out of stock. This year by the 9th I'd rekon that number is 20% or lower. (It's a subjective # obviously)

 

Bottom line is: If Amazon has it in stock your probably not going to make money unless you bought in for 30%+ off, regardless of the number of sellers in the market. Any item Amazon and Quidsi are OOS on I haven't had any problem making money. Batcave, OH, X-Wing etc all rose extremely fast after being OOS, IMO the competition is being greatly overblown, Amazon and the other retailers are our competition, the other individuals are small fish in a very large lake.    

 

EDIT: For retired sets, yes competition from others hurts. Sorry, should have clarified I was talking about flipping more than anything else. Even last year retired sets took a dive during december, I remember a post about it, I've had better luck moving retired sets in the fall and spring. 

 

I'm going to call out some fail in my own post here. While I think the amount of small time people jumping in has a small impact, the big timers have really impacted the market this year. Even with Amazon going OOS they help keep the prices down because of the sheer volume they know they have to get moved. People with close to 500 units of multiple sets are willing to sell many sets at smaller margins and hold prices down for weeks.

 

Not a complaint, just means you have to think outside of the box a little bit :-) 

[mscheaf]

For me at least the xmas selling season is over. Too close to xmas and all the lowballers are out in force just giving everything away. Hopefully I can sell a few more things after xmas, but I am switching back to investing mode now. Was really really hoping for about twice the amount of sales to fund more exclusives. Oh well, maybe some day in 6 years or so when I FINALLY start making money from this I will be able to increase what I buy. Until then it looks like I am just destined to be the smallest of small time with 4 or 5 each of the exclusives.

[KShine]

Looking back - 3 of the last 4 years, I had more sales during the second half of December than in the first half - so don't give up on the season just yet.

[mscheaf]

Looking back - 3 of the last 4 years, I had more sales during the second half of December than in the first half - so don't give up on the season just yet.

 

Yeah I am hoping for some late dec early jan stuff, but not counting on it. I don't want to be a qfll. It is stressful and not fun and the profits are slim. I was just doing this because this is my first year of real investing and I was hoping to use it to fund more purchases since the 12k worth of exclusives I have are going to be sitting around for a few years at least.

[cladner]

Now you're just being a contrarian idiot and trying to pick a fight.  If you think I'm wrong, you should by all means put every single dollar that you have to spend on Lego next year on Elsa's Frozen Palace and max out all of your credit cards to buy even more.  After all, if everyone loves Elsa so much, it has to be a sure thing...right?

not trying to pick a fight or any name calling and yes, i am often contrarian - its been useful.

my point is that we don't know what the demand will be except that it will be greater than cinderella - comparing the dismal performance of CRC to Elsa Ice Palace is like apples and oranges.

 

so far the frozen manufacturing apparatus is keeping up with demand and i would  expect TLG to produce massive quantities of frozen lego sets next xmas so you are likely correct that there will be limited opportunity for flipping next year.  i am going to be stuck with more frozen sparkle dolls than i would have liked this xmas but kids still have birthdays the rest of the year.

 

nevertheless we do know that at times TLG has been unable to keep up with the demand and if stars align and you have stock, the profit will be quick and easy.

 

cinderella's castle will do fine post eol - there are more adult cinderella fans than children fans which bodes well for the long term prospects.

i'm not worried about getting stuck with these - disney princess is one of my investment themes.

 

i will have a couple of dozen frozen sets on hand for next xmas for sure and if they don't sell, i will hold for eol.

only theme i would max my cc out over is new minecraft in november 2015.

[redcell]

not trying to pick a fight or any name calling and yes, i am often contrarian - its been useful.

my point is that we don't know what the demand will be except that it will be greater than cinderella - comparing the dismal performance of CRC to Elsa Ice Palace is like apples and oranges.

 

so far the frozen manufacturing apparatus is keeping up with demand and i would  expect TLG to produce massive quantities of frozen lego sets next xmas so you are likely correct that there will be limited opportunity for flipping next year.  i am going to be stuck with more frozen sparkle dolls than i would have liked this xmas but kids still have birthdays the rest of the year.

 

nevertheless we do know that at times TLG has been unable to keep up with the demand and if stars align and you have stock, the profit will be quick and easy.

 

cinderella's castle will do fine post eol - there are more adult cinderella fans than children fans which bodes well for the long term prospects.

i'm not worried about getting stuck with these - disney princess is one of my investment themes.

 

i will have a couple of dozen frozen sets on hand for next xmas for sure and if they don't sell, i will hold for eol.

only theme i would max my cc out over is new minecraft in november 2015.

 

You're still missing the point.  There is a healthy demand for CC as evidenced by the fact that the price has shot up to around $100 on Amazon a few times during the season when Amazon ran out of stock.  However, the price has not skyrocketed because that demand was pretty easy to anticipate and react to, which is exactly what TLG did by manufacturing large quantities of the set and what retailers did by ordering enough copies of the set to keep it on the shelves pretty consistently throughout the holiday season.  The reason that they did that was because it was easy to look at that set and conclude that it would be in high demand during the christmas season.  If that conclusion could be reached pretty easily for CC, how easy do you think it will be to reach a similar conclusion for the first Lego Frozen set?  And given that it is pretty obvious that the Frozen set will be in high demand next x-mas, what do you think TLG and retailers are going to do between now and then to prepare for that demand?  

 

Long-term, both sets will be winners...no doubt about that.  And your prior post was saying that nobody cares about the character whose castle sits at the center of Walt Disney World and is one of the central figures in the Disney universe.

[mykingdomforabrick]

I do wonder if the pre-black friday marketing hype for shopping isn't shifting consumer spending a bit earlier in the month.

Seems like peak's for me so far on items on average were the first week in December.

 

These past two days were much quieter then the month to date.  In fact even physical stores appeared calmer yesterday and today.

Consumer may only have so much $$ to spend - push them to spend that earlier in the season and there may be less in late december. 

 

Overall my lego items fared well,  some surprises, Ghost sold out and hit profit points,  some sets didn't sell out on amazon so no gains.

Good thing about lego is that it won't be dropping far -  it will sell at some point in the next year for the target price.

 

Non lego performed as expected.  I'd say may a hair under my hopeful-profit targets but still solid sales.

 

Also shout out to whomever gave the DD notification on the lego Monster trucks Junior 10655 set for $15 at SAH back in March.

Selling for $75 each.  

[Bold-Arrow]

I do wonder if the pre-black friday marketing hype for shopping isn't shifting consumer spending a bit earlier in the month.

Seems like peak's for me so far on items on average were the first week in December.

These past two days were much quieter then the month to date. In fact even physical stores appeared calmer yesterday and today.

Consumer may only have so much $$ to spend - push them to spend that earlier in the season and there may be less in late december.

Overall my lego items fared well, some surprises, Ghost sold out and hit profit points, some sets didn't sell out on amazon so no gains.

Good thing about lego is that it won't be dropping far - it will sell at some point in the next year for the target price.

Non lego performed as expected. I'd say may a hair under my hopeful-profit targets but still solid sales.

Also shout out to whomever gave the DD notification on the lego Monster trucks Junior 10655 set for $15 at SAH back in March.

Selling for $75 each.

where is the beef?

[mscheaf]

I do wonder if the pre-black friday marketing hype for shopping isn't shifting consumer spending a bit earlier in the month.

Seems like peak's for me so far on items on average were the first week in December.

 

These past two days were much quieter then the month to date.  In fact even physical stores appeared calmer yesterday and today.

Consumer may only have so much $$ to spend - push them to spend that earlier in the season and there may be less in late december. 

 

Overall my lego items fared well,  some surprises, Ghost sold out and hit profit points,  some sets didn't sell out on amazon so no gains.

Good thing about lego is that it won't be dropping far -  it will sell at some point in the next year for the target price.

 

Non lego performed as expected.  I'd say may a hair under my hopeful-profit targets but still solid sales.

 

Also shout out to whomever gave the DD notification on the lego Monster trucks Junior 10655 set for $15 at SAH back in March.

Selling for $75 each.  

 

you mentioned ghost and I had to check amazon. holy hell! they are going for 75-85 shipped on ebay

[mykingdomforabrick]

Yep - mine sold for a bit $10-$15 less the those current prime prices.

Never know when they will restock but I assumed ghost would do well this season even though it isn't the prettiest build (my opinion).

Obviously I should have set my minimum higher but who knows.  Tough to time things perfectly.

[Bold-Arrow]

Yep - mine sold for a bit $10-$15 less the those current prime prices.

Never know when they will restock but I assumed ghost would do well this season even though it isn't the prettiest build (my opinion).

Obviously I should have set my minimum higher but who knows. Tough to time things perfectly.

SGE numbers plz :)

[mykingdomforabrick]

205 SGE's sold total.    Cleared $7 on each after fees and such.

Not a loss but certainly not the SGE profits I had dreamed of.

 

Wish I had more my size elsa's and princess 7 packs instead.

[dubzero]

205 SGE's sold total. Cleared $7 on each after fees and such.

Not a loss but certainly not the SGE profits I had dreamed of.

Wish I had more my size elsa's and princess 7 packs instead.

I've got 5 SGE left and a whole lot more white Boba Fetts.

It's a stockroom sausage party now.