"Out of Stock" Dates for Star Wars sets on Lego.com

[fossilrock]

This is to keep an ongoing list of Star Wars sets that go in and out of stock at Lego.com to help people get an insight to when something might be hitting EOL.  Let's try and keep it to sets that have at least been out in the market for at least 8 months.

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MTT went out of stock on Saturday, June 6th 2015.  This is the second time i've noticed it go out of stock within a month.  First time was during the May the 4th event when it was discounted for the event..

Ewok Village went out of Stock on Saturday, June 6th, 2015 and is listed as OOS Will ship in 30 days.  This is the second time this year it has gone out of stock, with the first time being during the March 2xVIP event.  It went out of stock during the last day of the promo, and was out for about 2 weeks.  

 

[fossilrock]

75058 MTT back in stock on Monday, June 8th. (I think this one is starting to do the dance).  

10236 EV still out of stock, but changed to ship date of June 21st.  

10240 Red 5 also changed to ship date of June 21st.

Interesting to note, but Imperial Shuttle Tyderium, and the Jedi Duel lasted less than 7 days.  They've been sitting out of stock for a few days now, but there's still a long way to go with these sets, but demand for them looks strong, but not so much for the 2 prequel sets that were released.

[fossilrock]

10240 Red 5 was in stock for about 5 hours on June 12th, 2015.  Went back to Out of Stock Will Ship on June 21st.

10236 EV still out of stock, and ship date pushed back from June 21st to June 27th.

Edited June 13, 2015 by fossilrock

[pete411]

75058 MTT back in stock on Monday, June 8th. (I think this one is starting to do the dance).  

10236 EV still out of stock, but changed to ship date of June 21st.  

10240 Red 5 also changed to ship date of June 21st.

Interesting to note, but Imperial Shuttle Tyderium, and the Jedi Duel lasted less than 7 days.  They've been sitting out of stock for a few days now, but there's still a long way to go with these sets, but demand for them looks strong, but not so much for the 2 prequel sets that were released.

​Too bad TRU will most likely have the MTT in stock for the next two years at $10 over MSRP.

[shortyz]

mtt is a steaming pile of "mess"

[exciter1]

mtt is a steaming pile of "mess"

​It appears to be sought after in the aftermarket when it goes out of stock.  It usually sells at or above MSRP.

[GhostDad]

The problem is that the first MTT was just so awesome.  As with the last Sail Barge, I think the reception would be much friendlier if it didn't have such a tough act to follow.

[fossilrock]

​It appears to be sought after in the aftermarket when it goes out of stock.  It usually sells at or above MSRP.

​Exactly. 

Anyway, i'm hoping we can keep this thread about arguing over specific sets to a minimum, because i'd prefer it's just a big long laundry list of when sets go in, and then out of stock.  That's all I'm hoping this thread will become.  That way people can get some understanding of patterns with lego.com.

[shortyz]

i only own 7662, i paid a bit for it but its fantastic.

[fossilrock]

10236 Ewok Village has shifted from Out of Stock will ship by June 27th to Out of Stock will Ship in 30 days last night (Sunday the 14th).  It will be interesting to see if this one comes back in stock. 

10240 Red 5 also shifted to Out of Stock will ship in 30 days on Saturday the 13th, now it's saying it will ship by the 26th.

Edited June 15, 2015 by fossilrock

[zskid00]

10236 Ewok Village has shifted from Out of Stock will ship by June 27th to Out of Stock will Ship in 30 days last night (Sunday the 14th).  It will be interesting to see if this one comes back in stock. 
 

​I think it will since the limit is still 5.  If the end was near and LEGO was having trouble keeping up with orders I would expect the limit to go down to 2 or maybe even 1.

[fossilrock]

10240 Red 5 appeared in stock for about 2 to 3 hours, then shifted back to "out of stock, will ship by the 26th".  Obviously a short restock.

[fossilrock]

10240 Red 5 appeared in stock for about 8 hours from the night of Wednesday June 17th to the morning of the 18th, then shifted back to "out of stock, will ship by the 29th".  

10236 Ewok Village has moved to back in stock and still has a 5 limit placed PER HOUSEHOLD!

[fossilrock]

10240 Red 5 has shifted to "out of stock, will ship by July 5th".  

10236 Ewok Village lasted 3 days in stock, and has gone back out of stock with a "will ship by July 5th"!

75094 Imperial Shuttle Tydirium can't stay in stock, even if it was released 2 months ago.  It keeps getting knocked back out as soon as it arrives.  Sales seem to be brisk and furious for this one, making it look like a solid and popular winner.

[maestro]

One of my Red 5 shipped today from Lego. Waiting on details of my 2nd one now.

Edited June 22, 2015 by maestro
extra information

[fossilrock]

10240 Red 5 has shifted to "out of stock, will ship in 30 days".  It was sitting on July 5th.  Seems like the latest couple of brief runs over the last week were just short lived.

10236 Ewok Village is back in stock.  Interesting to see if this lasts a while or if it goes back to out of stock in a few more days.

75094 Imperial Shuttle Tydirium is back in stock.

75082 Tie Advanced Prototype now "out of stock, will ship in 30 days".  First time i've seen this out of stock since it's first month.

[thoroakenfelder]

 

75082 Tie Advanced Prototype now "out of stock, will ship in 30 days".  First time i've seen this out of stock since it's first month.

Probably due to the airing of Siege of Lothal with Vader using his TIE Advance to take out so many ships.

[fossilrock]

10236 Ewok Village is back to "Out of Stock, will ship by July 5th".  Lasted less than two days in stock.  Obviously, the supply is getting shorter and shorter on this one.

[Grynn]

10236 Ewok Village is back to "Out of Stock, will ship by July 5th".  Lasted less than two days in stock.  Obviously, the supply is getting shorter and shorter on this one.

Advertised supply, at least...

I can imagine at least three scenarios for this extended spasmodic stock status of popular exclusives:

 

1. Lego produces a huge run of the parts for these sets and is just packaging smaller quantities at any given time.

This would greatly increase their ability to meet actual demand at the consumer level in a more responsive manner for longer periods of time, with occasional extended lulls throughout the life cycle of a product. 

It would also help them with the reseller problem to the extent that the horde is somewhat confused and buys more of these sets earlier than in the past with regard to actual EOL, also then keeping us in check at least a little bit when actual EOL comes due to less sudden demand and later clear indications.

As to the end consumer, those willing to wait for a little while will get the sets they ordered regardless of reseller behavior (at least until actual EOL is close). As this becomes more and more common, any negative backlash from the general "unavailability" of many exclusives will be probably decrease greatly. But the upside is, as many have mentioned, that "gotta have what we can't get" mentality, especially in the U.S., fuels profits.

This scenario makes the most sense to me. The main cost is probably in terms of storage, and I have no clue how high that might be.

 

2. Lego has committed to doing more small-quantity production runs than in the past, and plans ahead to do so. 

The common unavailability would again falsely drive market demand higher, thus causing more common unavailability, thus driving demand higher again, when in reality these sets (mostly) aren't going anywhere soon. There are probably some serious advantages as well as drawbacks to this scenario.

However, I'm not sure this makes any sense on the level of manufacturing efficiency.

 

3. Lego is simply unable to predict or unable to meet the demand for these sets and is scrambling keep them around as much and as long as possible as long as they keep selling. I can't imagine how being completely reactive in this sense would be profitable, but what do I know...

 

4. They are totally screwing with us, and the website status is being manipulated for "fun" and "profit".

"Fun" meaning part of whatever the campaign against resellers consists of these days.

"Profit" meaning short OR long term increases in sales as a result of the fun.

Or, the other way around - whichever you prefer. 

Not likely this one is the whole truth, but I wouldn't rule it out completely!

[fossilrock]

Advertised supply, at least...

I can imagine at least three scenarios for this extended spasmodic stock status of popular exclusives:

 

1. Lego produces a huge run of the parts for these sets and is just packaging smaller quantities at any given time.

This would greatly increase their ability to meet actual demand at the consumer level in a more responsive manner for longer periods of time, with occasional extended lulls throughout the life cycle of a product. 

It would also help them with the reseller problem to the extent that the horde is somewhat confused and buys more of these sets earlier than in the past with regard to actual EOL, also then keeping us in check at least a little bit when actual EOL comes due to less sudden demand and later clear indications.

As to the end consumer, those willing to wait for a little while will get the sets they ordered regardless of reseller behavior (at least until actual EOL is close). As this becomes more and more common, any negative backlash from the general "unavailability" of many exclusives will be probably decrease greatly. But the upside is, as many have mentioned, that "gotta have what we can't get" mentality, especially in the U.S., fuels profits.

This scenario makes the most sense to me. The main cost is probably in terms of storage, and I have no clue how high that might be.

 

2. Lego has committed to doing more small-quantity production runs than in the past, and plans ahead to do so. 

The common unavailability would again falsely drive market demand higher, thus causing more common unavailability, thus driving demand higher again, when in reality these sets (mostly) aren't going anywhere soon. There are probably some serious advantages as well as drawbacks to this scenario.

However, I'm not sure this makes any sense on the level of manufacturing efficiency.

 

3. Lego is simply unable to predict or unable to meet the demand for these sets and is scrambling keep them around as much and as long as possible as long as they keep selling. I can't imagine how being completely reactive in this sense would be profitable, but what do I know...

 

4. They are totally screwing with us, and the website status is being manipulated for "fun" and "profit".

"Fun" meaning part of whatever the campaign against resellers consists of these days.

"Profit" meaning short OR long term increases in sales as a result of the fun.

Or, the other way around - whichever you prefer. 

Not likely this one is the whole truth, but I wouldn't rule it out completely!

It's one thing if this was let's say Sandcrawler, Slave 1, or Tie Fighter that was behaving this way, then i'd tend to agree with some of your points.  But EV has been out since 2013.  It's time has technically come.  Most sets over 2 years old get retired and begin behaving this way.  Some other recent examples would be the ToO, PS, and TB.  Not all go this route, but most.  So, I think stock is starting to get lower, and they have more stock in a warehouse that just gets allocated over and moved.  I don't see this as any sort of behavior that is out of the norm.

[mudcatsfan]

It's one thing if this was let's say Sandcrawler, Slave 1, or Tie Fighter that was behaving this way, then i'd tend to agree with some of your points.  But EV has been out since 2013.  It's time has technically come.  Most sets over 2 years old get retired and begin behaving this way.  Some other recent examples would be the ToO, PS, and TB.  Not all go this route, but most.  So, I think stock is starting to get lower, and they have more stock in a warehouse that just gets allocated over and moved.  I don't see this as any sort of behavior that is out of the norm.

Agreed. I think people are way over-thinking this.

The Xwing and EV are the next to go by age. We see out of stock frequently on these sets, because regular customers and resellers focus on the oldest sets for a reason, they typically are the next in line to go. Yes i realize Town Hall and B-Wing, and other sets that never seem to retire, etc, but the vast majority go in order, even when we expect them to last longer.

SSD - But it's in the catalog! Gone

R2 - But he's in the new movie! Gone

HHouse - Not SW i know, BUT Halloween is coming up! Gone

It'll likely be Red 5 and then Ewok Village, and then Sandcrawler, and then Slave I, etc. 

 

[mudcatsfan]

Advertised supply, at least...

I can imagine at least three scenarios for this extended spasmodic stock status of popular exclusives:

 

1. Lego produces a huge run of the parts for these sets and is just packaging smaller quantities at any given time.

This would greatly increase their ability to meet actual demand at the consumer level in a more responsive manner for longer periods of time, with occasional extended lulls throughout the life cycle of a product. 

It would also help them with the reseller problem to the extent that the horde is somewhat confused and buys more of these sets earlier than in the past with regard to actual EOL, also then keeping us in check at least a little bit when actual EOL comes due to less sudden demand and later clear indications.

 

 

I'm not sure how this scenario helps the perceived reseller problem. If they create artificial shortages, the resellers are typically the ones who scoop up the sets as soon as they come back into stock. it seems to me, this kind of situation would drive even more sets into reseller hands then if they just ran out of stock on one day and never re-stocked. 

[pete411]

I'm not sure how this scenario helps the perceived reseller problem. If they create artificial shortages, the resellers are typically the ones who scoop up the sets as soon as they come back into stock. it seems to me, this kind of situation would drive even more sets into reseller hands then if they just ran out of stock on one day and never re-stocked. 

True dat. How many runs have we seen on R5, PS, PC, and ToO in the past few months. Most of the available stock is getting scooped up by resellers because no normal person is going to obsessively check for inventory at all of the online retailers like we do. Amazon has been stocking PC just about every day and selling out within minutes. What's that about? I find this constant OOS/in stock roundabout rather perplexing but I'm relatively new to this game. Is this normal for sets presumably reaching EOL?

[mudcatsfan]

True dat. How many runs have we seen on R5, PS, PC, and ToO in the past few months. Most of the available stock is getting scooped up by resellers because no normal person is going to obsessively check for inventory at all of the online retailers like we do. Amazon has been stocking PC just about every day and selling out within minutes. What's that about? I find this constant OOS/in stock roundabout rather perplexing but I'm relatively new to this game. Is this normal for sets presumably reaching EOL?

This is very normal. This is called, "The Dance". It's also refered to as F5-ing (the refresh key on your keyboard).

This all went down last year too with sets like, Town Hall, SSD, Haunted House, and to a lesser extent Grand Emporium.

Do we think any of those sets went to normal customers? No they sold out within seconds of availability. Heck we even figured out which days were more likely to see a restock for the different sites.

The question people are asking is, are resellers causing lego to make MORE runs than they planned? 

The question after that is,,,,does that even matter? If the end customer can't get these products anymore, will a couple hundred (thousand?) extra sets in reseller hands hurt the price 2 years from now? probably not.

[fossilrock]

10236 Ewok Village has moved from "Out of Stock, will ship by July 5th" to "Out of Stock, will ship in 30 days".  Dance dance dance.