TLG cracking down on resellers

[Mos_Eisley]

Apparently a few people on BrickLink have been receiving letters like the one attached. The pictured letter was posted over there. Basically it says that TLG only sells products to end users (outside the independent toy dealers). If they suspect that you are reselling them, they reserve the right to cancel your order. I would imagine you have to be buying a lot from them to raise any flags, but still interesting.

[Ed Mack]

Apparently a few people on BrickLink have been receiving letters like the one attached. The pictured letter was posted over there. Basically it says that TLG only sells products to end users (outside the independent toy dealers). If they suspect that you are reselling them, they reserve the right to cancel your order. I would imagine you have to be buying a lot from them to raise any flags, but still interesting.

Excellent point. I have seen many more restrictions as of late with regards to buying multiple sets. I constantly have orders cancelled. End of Bricklink?

[Rich B]

Excellent point. I have seen many more restrictions as of late with regards to buying multiple sets. I constantly have orders cancelled. End of Bricklink?

Wow very interesting. I wonder if this could lead to a collapse of Bricklink as well as other websites solely dedicated to reselling Lego?? Btw I'm talking about sites that actually sell, not Brickpicker since all we do is talk about selling :)

[Legodog]

I wonder if this could be partly because of the large increase in resellers recently. Just here on brickpicker.com alone there has been a steady 800-2000 new users a week for a while now. Even if just a fraction of those actually start investing I could see how this could be a red flag for Lego.

[hengchibrick]

I don't think Bricklink will be significantly affected (yet). Most of our LEGO are probably not purchased from LEGO LEGO Shop at Home anyway. Even if I buy multiple sets from LEGO LEGO Shop at Home, it can be simply due to my interests in creating MOCs. On the other hand, I also respect them to put some limits on certain sets, like Minecraft, so more people can get it.

[LEGO Oleg]

They not work with and say U need to have brick and mortar store (at least for a year or so)...Any changes from last year?

[Ed Mack]

It's not only LEGO restricting buying. I just tried to buy more than two 9450 EPIC DRAGON BATLLEs and was denied.

[Rich B]

It's not only LEGO restricting buying. I just tried to buy more than two 9450 EPIC DRAGON BATLLEs and was denied.

From Amazon?

[vr4kevykev]

Have the good people at LEGO not heard of a little law called, The first-sale doctrine ?

[Ed Mack]

From Amazon?

Yes...Limited me to two. In a way, this practice of limiting sales could prevent a LEGO "bubble." It might be a silver lining to most casual resellers. To the hard core resellers, it will be an inconvenience to say the least.

[Rich B]

From Amazon?

Yes...Limited me to two. In a way, this practice of limiting sales could prevent a LEGO "bubble." It might be a silver lining to most casual resellers. To the hard core resellers, it will be an inconvenience to say the least.

Yep very true, I agree with both points you just made. I guess we may eventually see Walmart and Target begin to limit purchases at some point in the future.

[Doofy McGee]

Hmm...this is indeed an interesting development. Although it seems wrong to limit purchases and cancel orders and stuff, I feel like this may slow things down in a good way. I do think this will help control the dreaded "bubble." An investment bubble is not only bad for us as investors, but it would be bad for LEGO. Bad press like that never helps a company. I guess I am kind of glad to see them being proactive about this.

[TheOrcKing]

I think the "Minecraft" set is to blame for this. That is supposed to be a currently available set, but every single time it is, it gets sold out in mere minutes. What am I implying? Well, how many of those people are only buying for the intention to resell? Remember when the PS3 came out. Most of the first buyers that had bought the next gen system ended up going home just to turn around and sell it on eBay! Some of those listings had crossed the $10,000 barrier for an originally $600 item! What the f***?! I am not saying that "Minecraft" sets have gone THAT high, but there is an air of familiarity here to me.

It is one thing to limit how many a person can buy in one go, and I am okay with that.

It is another to flatout discriminate a buyer just because he or she may decide to sell it later on. That I am NOT okay with.

[Veegs]

Interest is booming right now, to say the least, and people are attracted by immediate profits. I still believe that once people have to build an ebay rep, package things and head to the post office on a regular basis this hobby might fall by the wayside. As for silver linings, Ed, it will help some of us diversify our portfolios! This new tactic may also allow TLG to gauge demand by selling with a limit to see the total number of buyers interested. That would likely affect decisions on how many sets to make for the holiday season, when to set it to 'retiring soon' and when to send it EOL. I'm interested to see how this will play out...

[Tilted]

From Amazon?

Yes...Limited me to two. In a way, this practice of limiting sales could prevent a LEGO "bubble." It might be a silver lining to most casual resellers. To the hard core resellers, it will be an inconvenience to say the least.

Seems to be the new MO on the EU Amazon as well...

[cflannagan]

I think the "Minecraft" set is to blame for this. That is supposed to be a currently available set, but every single time it is, it gets sold out in mere minutes. What am I implying? Well, how many of those people are only buying for the intention to resell? Remember when the PS3 came out. Most of the first buyers that had bought the next gen system ended up going home just to turn around and sell it on eBay! Some of those listings had crossed the $10,000 barrier for an originally $600 item! What the f***?! I am not saying that "Minecraft" sets have gone THAT high, but there is an air of familiarity here to me.

It is one thing to limit how many a person can buy in one go, and I am okay with that.

It is another to flatout discriminate a buyer just because he or she may decide to sell it later on. That I am NOT okay with.

I was one of those PS3 sellers. Perfect 100% ebay feedback score (over 100), auction sold for $1,500, buyer paid via PayPal. Both of us were "confirmed". Buyer had perfect feedback as well. For all intents and purposes, this was a good auction.

But PayPal decided to freeze my account, and asked for proof that I had item. I submitted proof, and they replied back and say sorry, they can't release the freeze yet.. Can't quite remember all details but it was so stupid. Even the buyer was telling PayPal that he legitimately wanted it at $1,500, but PayPal wouldn't bulge.

Eventually common sense prevailed and I got my money, he got PS3. But my view of ebay and PayPal soured overnight.. I never sold anything for 5+ years afterwards. Not an exaggeration at all, I really didn't touch ebay for 5+ years after that.

Just an interesting footnote in my life.. and when you mentioned PS3 on ebay, it made me look back on those days.

[cflannagan]

It's not only LEGO restricting buying. I just tried to buy more than two 9450 EPIC DRAGON BATLLEs and was denied.

I'm puzzled tho as to why LEGO denied your orders in particular. If I recall, you mentioned elsewhere in the forums you have never sold a set, you just have lots of sets piled up.

For all they know, you're just a big LEGO enthusiast, not someone who resells. Why would they be giving you such a hard time?

I hope this doesn't mean TLG is actually checking out the forums like this one and trying to match things up via forum "name" and real life name. That would suck but I doubt they would go that far.

[Rich B]

I'm puzzled tho as to why LEGO denied your orders in particular. If I recall, you mentioned elsewhere in the forums you have never sold a set, you just have lots of sets piled up.

For all they know, you're just a big LEGO enthusiast, not someone who resells. Why would they be giving you such a hard time?

I hope this doesn't mean TLG is actually checking out the forums like this one and trying to match things up via forum "name" and real life name. That would suck but I doubt they would go that far.

I highly doubt they are bothering with going that far. I could be wrong, but I still don't think Lego is that concerned about the secondary market, at least not yet. They may be concerned about it some and that may be why they're trying to limit orders, but not to the point where they're hunting people down on forums and putting names together. They have much bigger fish to fry then to chase down us AFOL's for reselling their product.

Even if you were to add up all the $$$ being spent by investors who are hoarding sets to resell, it wouldn't touch the amount of $$$ being spent by parents buying little Jimmy and Rebecca Lego sets. We are just a small fraction of TLG's revenue.

[Ed Mack]

I'm puzzled tho as to why LEGO denied your orders in particular. If I recall, you mentioned elsewhere in the forums you have never sold a set, you just have lots of sets piled up.

For all they know, you're just a big LEGO enthusiast, not someone who resells. Why would they be giving you such a hard time?

I hope this doesn't mean TLG is actually checking out the forums like this one and trying to match things up via forum "name" and real life name. That would suck but I doubt they would go that far.

Let me clarify...Amazon refused to sell more than two 9450s to me, which must relate back to LEGO in some way. There is a couple of different ways I can look at this situation. First, I think TLG is protecting their brand and doesn't appreciate the secondary market and how sets explode in value at times. They might believe that these high set prices bring negative publicity to the company and might cause Moms and Dads out there to complain about high prices of LEGO sets and resellers sucking up inventory. As we all know, this is exaggerated thinking, but a few squeaky wheels might get some attention.

It's my belief many resellers and investors on this site are of the casual nature. It is a side business that works well with their hobby of LEGO collecting and building, which they love. There is no telling how many hardcore resellers are out there sucking up inventories. Maybe there is more than I know, buying mass amounts of sets and running full time businesses off of the LEGO secondary market. Regardless, something has changed within TLG to release a letter like this. It's obvious to me that LEGO is now paying attention to us, the LEGO investors and resellers.

Bottom line...it could be a positive for the secondary market. A main issue that many investors have with LEGO investing is talk of a potential speculative bubble, like the one seen with Baseball Card several years ago. Well, if TLG restricts selling of sets, a bubble would have a hard time forming. In fact, the LEGO sets might become more valuable. That being said, I have an issue with any company telling me what I can and cannot do. If I wanted to buy 100 Super Star Destroyers to part out to make a huge MOC, I shouldn't have to ask permission or go to 10 different sites to obtain them. I should be able to do whatever I want with a LEGO set after I pay for it. Time will tell how this plays out, but overall, I think it is a positive for the LEGO investor and for LEGO set secondary market values.

[Jackson]

shop.lego.com and amazon.com have had limits on the quantity I can buy for years. And amazon.com limits items other than just LEGO sets. Maybe these limits are just on my accounts, but I just wanted to mention this because it seems like some people think purchasing limits is something that just started recently.

[Ed Mack]

shop.lego.com and amazon.com have had limits on the quantity I can buy for years. And amazon.com limits items other than just LEGO sets. Maybe these limits are just on my accounts, but I just wanted to say that because it seems like some people think purchasing limits is something that just started recently.

I think the issue for some people is that TLG says you can buy 5 sets, yet will cancel an order if you do. I haven't had that happen to me, but enough people have complained about it on the forums that there must be some truth to it. I have not seen too many limits set on Amazon to be honest. Only limits because of actual lack of inventory.

[stephen_rockefeller]

I was one of those PS3 sellers. Perfect 100% ebay feedback score (over 100), auction sold for $1,500, buyer paid via PayPal. Both of us were "confirmed". Buyer had perfect feedback as well. For all intents and purposes, this was a good auction.

But PayPal decided to freeze my account, and asked for proof that I had item. I submitted proof, and they replied back and say sorry, they can't release the freeze yet.. Can't quite remember all details but it was so stupid. Even the buyer was telling PayPal that he legitimately wanted it at $1,500, but PayPal wouldn't bulge.

Eventually common sense prevailed and I got my money, he got PS3. But my view of ebay and PayPal soured overnight.. I never sold anything for 5+ years afterwards. Not an exaggeration at all, I really didn't touch ebay for 5+ years after that.

Just an interesting footnote in my life.. and when you mentioned PS3 on ebay, it made me look back on those days.

. I doubt the phrase

[stephen_rockefeller]

And anyone who thinks that TLG isn't monitoring this site, and even has members here, please stop being silly!!

[cflannagan]

I doubt the phrase

[Ed Mack]