75192 - UCS: Millennium Falcon 2017

[Kesh]

5 hours ago, flynnibus said:

Completely false logic.  The entire population of the world is not the potential audience for the inventory.

20,000 of anything is not rare, especially when people are buying them NIB with intent to hold.  Demand keeping prices high does not equate to rarity.  Anyone can buy volumes of 10179 in seconds without any prep, research, or waiting - that is not rare.

 

 

Well, why wouldn't the entire world be the potential audience for the inventory, if we are talking about the possibility that anyone can buy volumes of 10179 in seconds?

The fact is that the chance that you encounter someone with this set by accident are in the order of 1:100,000. The chance that you encounter someone with an iPhone are much, much higher. There are probably more people with a Rolex than with a 10179. You are talking about supply and demand. Rarity has nothing to do with inventory. Complete sun eclipses are also a rarity.

Anyone can buy volumes of 10179? Right. I live in Holland. Some 17,000,000 people here. I think that there are maybe 20 offered on various sites together. Suppose that there are 10 people interested, then they can all buy 2. Provided they have the money.

Tell me about logic.

Edit: Correction: Inventory does have something to do with rarity, they are just not the same thing. Cause and effect, that sort of thing.

Edited September 17, 2017 by Kesh
I said something weird.

[Val-E]

57 minutes ago, Kesh said:

Well, why wouldn't the entire world be the potential audience for the inventory, if we are talking about the possibility that anyone can buy volumes of 10179 in seconds?

The fact is that the chance that you encounter someone with this set by accident are in the order of 1:100,000. The chance that you encounter someone with an iPhone are much, much higher. There are probably more people with a Rolex than with a 10179. You are talking about supply and demand. Rarity has nothing to do with inventory. Complete sun eclipses are also a rarity.

Anyone can buy volumes of 10179? Right. I live in Holland. Some 17,000,000 people here. I think that there are maybe 20 offered on various sites together. Suppose that there are 10 people interested, then they can all buy 2. Provided they have the money.

Tell me about logic.

Edit: Correction: Inventory does have something to do with rarity, they are just not the same thing. Cause and effect, that sort of thing.

Yes but what are we actually trying to establish? Who can possibly buy the set or who has the resources to and will?

If we base rarity on the world´s population, then we also have to consider clean water or eggs as rare.

AFAIK there are no Lego brand shops in Bangladesh, Pakistan, India, Africa as a continent (except maybe S.A.) and many many places more. Good luck getting SAH to ship to you if you live in a country where there is no web or transport agreement.  They will have to turn to the secondary market resellers but how many of them will  risk shipping a 1500 Euro item to one of these countries?

If we talk about realistic potential customers, we have to narrow it down to those who like (or are buying it for someone who likes) Star Wars and Lego and have the means to drop 800 euros on one and have it sent to them. W

Already 16% of people on this specialist site who voted are not interested in buying one, even though it´s like getting free money. Put that in global terms in a non specialist environment and excluding all the people who don´t like SW, Lego or have 800 euros. We should also exclude kids younger than 10, who won´t be able to build it alone and families or couples who share one set and (if true that Lego sold 20k in 2 days) you´ll get maybe a high five figure number or low six digit one if we consider a 4 year shelf life and new buyers coming in over that period. That number will be boosted considerably by resellers like @emazers who will buy as many as they can get to make their number with capital and space being the only limits (as well as SAH buying limits if enforced).

To change topic, it´s clear that resellers still account for quite a lot of Lego´s sales for sets like this. The % of sets from the early access queue on ebay now proves that.

Edited September 17, 2017 by Val-E

[Kesh]

5 hours ago, flynnibus said:

 

Beyond the size going to dimensional shipping costs... what was said that was unique to this set at all?  Should have just been called "should I flip Lego sets".  I found the video disappointing as it didn't talk about anything related to the set except to use it as an example.... that could have been any Lego set.

Well, I liked it. Now if anyone thinks... hey... isn't this this set that one can sell for a huge profit.... they might stumble upon this and not get burned.

[Val-E]

3 minutes ago, Kesh said:

Well, I liked it. Now if anyone thinks... hey... isn't this this set that one can sell for a huge profit.... they might stumble upon this and not get burned.

Yup, that same video could have been made for several sets like Porsche 911, Disney Castle and Saturn V.

It´s fascinating how the sets that are not available now but will be in days or weeks appreciate more than stuff like Tumbler, which won´t be sold by Lego again for a while.

[Kesh]

23 minutes ago, Val-E said:

Yes but what are we actually trying to establish? Who can possibly buy the set or who has the resources to and will?

If we base rarity on the world´s population, then we also have to consider clean water or eggs as rare.

AFAIK there are no Lego brand shops in Bangladesh, Pakistan, India, Africa as a continent (except maybe S.A.) and many many places more. Good luck getting SAH to ship to you if you live in a country where there is no web or transport agreement.  They will have to turn to the secondary market resellers but how many of them will  risk shipping a 1500 Euro item to one of these countries?

If we talk about realistic potential customers, we have to narrow it down to those who like (or are buying it for someone who likes) Star Wars and Lego and have the means to drop 800 euros on one and have it sent to them. W

Already 16% of people on this specialist site who voted are not interested in buying one, even though it´s like getting free money. Put that in global terms in a non specialist environment and excluding all the people who don´t like SW, Lego or have 800 euros. We should also exclude kids younger than 10, who won´t be able to build it alone and families or couples who share one set and you´ll get maybe a high five figure number or low six digit one if we consider a 4 year shelf life and new buyers coming in over that period. That number will be boosted considerably by resellers like @emazers who will buy as many as they can get to make their number with capital and space being the only limits (as well as SAH buying limits if enforced).

To change topic, it´s clear that resellers still account for quite a lot of Lego´s sales for sets like this. The % of sets from the early access queue on ebay now proves that.

Well... this started out with the question why 10179 is so expensive. And then my 'opponent' said (please correct me if I am wrong) that it was not rare.

I am not concerned with the technicalities of selling it. And we all have different reasons why we might like this set. But saying that it is not rare... I find odd. Well, maybe this is me being a non-native speaker having some weird interpretation of some definition. If so, sorry about that. And other than that I think that this discussion is not that interesting for most people here.

Concerning the change of topic: as long as we do not know Lego's sales that's kind of hard to establish. I think that it is in Lego's interest to give the impression that this set is hard to get, and in particular that this set is a good investment.

(as that may be the thing that you are going to tell to your wife when you buy this)

[Val-E]

4 minutes ago, Kesh said:

 And other than that I think that this discussion is not that interesting for most people here.
 

Considering there are 5 thread pages devoted to people giving blow-by-blow coverage of their F5ing on SAH web, I doubt it!

[Kesh]

13 minutes ago, Val-E said:

Yup, that same video could have been made for several sets like Porsche 911, Disney Castle and Saturn V.

It´s fascinating how the sets that are not available now but will be in days or weeks appreciate more than stuff like Tumbler, which won´t be sold by Lego again for a while.

It defies logic.

I guess it is basically fear.

[Floriano]

12 hours ago, eliminator said:

I chatted with some of the staff at my local Lego Store. They indicated that additional shipments are inbound and will be trickling in over the coming weeks and anticipate some stock for 01 Oct.

However, given what happened the other day I wonder if the online back-orders will now take precedent over scheduled stock shipments to the stores?

I really hope it's true!

[Val-E]

14 minutes ago, Kesh said:

It defies logic.

I guess it is basically fear.

Impatience/narcissism/horde mentality/ early adopter OCD/Star Wars OCD/naivety/QFLL greed/bragging rights/overcompetitiveness/easily led/passive aggressive to spouse/eagerness to please spouse/eagerness to get a divorce......

A psychologist would have a field day analysing this behaviour.

Edited September 17, 2017 by Val-E

[Harley Quinn]

12 hours ago, CM4Sci said:

JANG probably won't get or review the Falcon

http://www.jangbricks.com/2017/09/the-best-thing-that-could-have-happened.html

Good for JANG. He is my go to reviewer on sets and while I would love to hear what he thinks of it, I totally understand his reasons for not reviewing it. Too large of a buy in for a set he has no space for display or interest in. I'm surprised LEGO never sends review copies his way. Doesn't seem like they do that for a lot of youtubers. 

[Shewie]

9 minutes ago, Harley Quinn said:

Good for JANG. He is my go to reviewer on sets and while I would love to hear what he thinks of it, I totally understand his reasons for not reviewing it. Too large of a buy in for a set he has no space for display or interest in. I'm surprised LEGO never sends review copies his way. Doesn't seem like they do that for a lot of youtubers. 

pure calculation.
the $$$ he will potentialy get from ads and viewers won't cover the costs of the original purchase, it's not even about hobby or lack of space, pure calculation from him.
I respect his decision because he is probably the only one reviewer with that audience who is not getting paid for reviews so he has still full independence in his thoughts.

[Val-E]

15 minutes ago, Harley Quinn said:

Good for JANG. He is my go to reviewer on sets and while I would love to hear what he thinks of it, I totally understand his reasons for not reviewing it. Too large of a buy in for a set he has no space for display or interest in. I'm surprised LEGO never sends review copies his way. Doesn't seem like they do that for a lot of youtubers. 

Some over-critical (in the eyes of TLG) reviewers have had their free set allowance cancelled.

After all the hoo-haa about the TLJ embargo video takedown, I think he has done the right thing too.

Edited September 17, 2017 by Val-E

[Ed Mack]

If he reviewed the 10179, then he reviewed the 75192.  I don't have to worry about being critical...LEGO doesn't give us anything.

[kris_1973]

1 hour ago, Shewie said:

pure calculation.
the $$$ he will potentialy get from ads and viewers won't cover the costs of the original purchase, it's not even about hobby or lack of space, pure calculation from him.
I respect his decision because he is probably the only one reviewer with that audience who is not getting paid for reviews so he has still full independence in his thoughts.

Perhaps he should do like the guys at BrickVault on YouTube... when they do live builds (which is increasing in frequency) they accept 'donations'... and from watching a little bit of a couple of them, seems to add up quickly (most donations I saw were $5-$10 per person - although I don't know the frequency / volume / denominations of what they receive).

I personally don't agree with the donations piece, but hey, if people are willing to spend $2k on a new 75192 MF, I suppose they are willing to spend the money anywhere... I'm more conservative.  (P.S. I'm not knocking BrickVault, Jack is my favorite person to watch, just using his stream as an example.)

[jaisonline]

28 minutes ago, Ed Mack said:

If he reviewed the 10179, then he reviewed the 75192.  I don't have to worry about being critical...LEGO doesn't give us anything.

Jang should review at least one of the 2 UCS MF sets as he's done zero so far.  as others have stated,  reviewing 75192 for his youtube channel must not be worth the time, mental state  and energy .  i'm sure he'll end up reviewing 75192 sooner than later.

TLG does give you and @Jeff Mack two things.  headaches and the occasional e-mail.

[TheOrcKing]

An assortment of video reviews. Take your pick.

 

 

[jaisonline]

My Sunday morning thoughts over an Empire Strikes Back mug of coffee.

I might be wrong. .maybe.

Personally, I think 75192 being
     1) sold-out,
     2) issuing high demand exceeded expectations PR
     3) having web problems while trying to order

...was all part of TLG's marketing campaign for popular sets. 

 

Why do I think this?

• For as long as I've out of my dark ages (2012), #s 1 , 2 and / or 3 still regularly occur.
• In this day and age of IT infrastructure hardware scaling (e.g. AWS), Purchasing Order Systems that keep having these reoccurring problems like this shouldn't happening.
• Judging by 10179's iconic status, we are suppose to believe Lego's research told them people will pay $800 but not to make enough sets for the same folks to buy?

Furthermore,   why did TLG decide to launch 75192 sales during the same week as Apple's iPhone 8 and X announcements.   Sure, they are completely diff industries but i'm sure many folks had to choose to spend $800+ on one or the another.   Yeah, i know iPhone x orders don't begin until next month. 

[Ed Mack]

21 minutes ago, jaisonline said:

My Sunday morning thoughts over an Empire Strikes Back mug of coffee.

I might be wrong. .maybe.

Personally, I think 75192 being
     1) sold-out,
     2) issuing high demand exceeded expectations PR
     3) having web problems while trying to order

...was all part of TLG's marketing campaign for popular sets. 

 

Why do I think this?

• For as long as I've out of my dark ages (2012), #s 1 , 2 and / or 3 still regularly occur.
• In this day and age of IT infrastructure hardware scaling (e.g. AWS), Purchasing Order Systems that keep having these reoccurring problems like this shouldn't happening.
• Judging by 10179's iconic status, we are suppose to believe Lego's research told them people will pay $800 but not to make enough sets for the same folks to buy?

Furthermore,   why did TLG decide to launch 75192 sales during the same week as Apple's iPhone 8 and X announcements.   Sure, they are completely diff industries but i'm sure many folks had to choose to spend $800+ on one or the another.   Yeah, i know iPhone x orders don't begin until next month. 

You are being kind.  Let's face it, this whole "We didn't think it would be so popular" response is a calculated can of spam.  Of course they knew.  Of course they could have made more.  If they didn't think so, someone should be fired for incompetence.  Even LEGO is getting into the spin and fake news business.  Let's artificially inflate the interest around the set to stir lackluster sales.  Sad thing is, they didn't have to do that with this set, but I guess they are getting nervous about future profits in general.  

I also wonder if it all backfired on them.  The prices of the available 75192s on eBay is only fueling the flipping market again and pissing more people off....Or behind closed doors, do they want to see these prices hit crazy levels?  

[Malachi1984]

I'll try for the next wave If I don't get it then it weren't meant to be. Don't see why TLG don't let you pre order these high profile sets ask for a deposit when they announce the set if you cancel you lose your deposit. Maybe that way they could use that data to see how much interest there is and demand there will be

[flynnibus]

4 hours ago, Kesh said:

Well, why wouldn't the entire world be the potential audience for the inventory, if we are talking about the possibility that anyone can buy volumes of 10179 in seconds?

The fact is that the chance that you encounter someone with this set by accident are in the order of 1:100,000. The chance that you encounter someone with an iPhone are much, much higher. There are probably more people with a Rolex than with a 10179. You are talking about supply and demand. Rarity has nothing to do with inventory. Complete sun eclipses are also a rarity.

Anyone can buy volumes of 10179? Right. I live in Holland. Some 17,000,000 people here. I think that there are maybe 20 offered on various sites together. Suppose that there are 10 people interested, then they can all buy 2. Provided they have the money.

Tell me about logic.

Edit: Correction: Inventory does have something to do with rarity, they are just not the same thing. Cause and effect, that sort of thing.

I'm sure others don't care about this tangent, so this will be my last post on this tangent.

 

you are confusing the idea of "supply and demand" and actual rarity.  Confusing the idea of pricing and inventory. Something does not have to be rare to be expensive... simply being difficult to acquire can drive price up as people are willing to pay for convenience (see scalping at any launch...).  When demand exceeds supply... prices go up... that doesn't make the item rare.  Concert tickets to see U2 can resell for multiple times their cost... because they were difficult to acquire.  Yet every few days, tens of thousands of people will see them.  There will be a million plus of these tickets in aggregate- seeing U2 was not a rarity.

the NES classic was extremely difficult to acquire.  Demand far exceeded supply.  Because of this, on the secondary market people were willing to pay an extreme premium to have one.  This is a constraint on **availability** and ability to acquire that is driving price  -- not rarity.  

What is the difference?? One is a function of supply, demand, and access.... while rare is purely defined by how many there are.  Rare does not change when something is no longer desired... it's still only found in limited numbers.  Price driven by supply, demand, or access will change as those variables do.  So rarity can drive price....  but high price does not mean rare.  There is a one way correlation - not two way.  Things can be rare, and worthless... because price depends on demand, not just inventory.

rarity does not change when demand fades.  Prices typically do.

 

the nes classic sold for 5x its price regularly on the secondary market.  There are actually more than 2.3 million NES classics sold.  There will be crazy amounts of NIB nes classics forever - they will never be rare.  The value was driven by excessive demand - something that is a function of time/location.  Even when that demand waned, the product doesn't become more or less rare.  There are still 2.3 million units out there.  

the 10179 price was driven by the idea that the availability of a MSIB version of the product was only available via secondary market and sellers were able to hold out for high prices..  It's akin to the diamond market... the price was held high by sellers as a whole holding out with enough buyers willing to pay those prices. When more and more buyers come into a market while inventory is fixed... prices rise.

Once the market came to be for reselling... the inventory of MISB kits stablaized because so many were being held purely for reselling.  This happens in every market where speculators buy to hold... instead of to consume.  The holding props up the future availability of mint/new product compared to what would have happened naturally in a traditional market.  This reduces the rarity of finding that mint/new product in the future... hence why most "collectible" product lines will never really be that collectible/rare in the long term.

when your house jumps 100% in value due to increased demand in your area... your house did not suddenly become "rare" - the value is a reflection of demand and availability.

[flynnibus]

44 minutes ago, jaisonline said:

 

• In this day and age of IT infrastructure hardware scaling (e.g. AWS), Purchasing Order Systems that keep having these reoccurring problems like this shouldn't happening.

Depends on what you want to spend.  

even Amazon itself still goes down trying to handle peak demand events.  Sites that have specialized in peak demand scenarios (example ticket sellers) actually change to different work flows and don't use a traditional browse, cart, checkout, models that an ecommerce site uses because they are built just for that task...and even then, they struggle at times.  Sites going down during peak events happens everywhere still.  Sometimes it's just an acceptable failure because you don't want to invest and redesign the 99.5 percent to handle the 0.5%

concepts like AWS, IAAS, PAAS, etc do not make a solution instantly scalable.. you still have to design your product to scale.  take it from a cloud product developer who works for one of the biggest names in the industry (me).  

[jaisonline]

25 minutes ago, flynnibus said:

 

you are confusing the idea of "supply and demand" and actual rarity.  Confusing the idea of pricing and inventory. Something does not have to be rare to be expensive... simply being difficult to acquire can drive price up as people are willing to pay for convenience (see scalping at any launch...).  When demand exceeds supply... prices go up... that doesn't make the item rare.  Concert tickets to see U2 can resell for multiple times their cost... because they were difficult to acquire.  Yet every few days, tens of thousands of people will see them.  There will be a million plus of these tickets in aggregate- seeing U2 was not a rarity.

 

when your house jumps 100% in value due to increased demand in your area... your house did not suddenly become "rare" - the value is a reflection of demand and availability.

 

we understand,

high price due to demand w/ rare supply = t106 honus wagner or that upside down plane stamps from the early 1900s.

high price due to demand w/ adequate  but lower supply = babe ruth autograph baseball.

high price due to demand w/ adequate supply = used Lego 10179 before this year.

high price due to stagnant demand w/ shorter than usual supply = lego the zombies

low price due to low demand w/ more than adequate supply = pretty much anything Nexo Knights.

[jaisonline]

15 minutes ago, flynnibus said:

Depends on what you want to spend.  

even Amazon itself still goes down trying to handle peak demand events.  Sites that have specialized in peak demand scenarios (example ticket sellers) actually change to different work flows and don't use a traditional browse, cart, checkout, models that an ecommerce site uses because they are built just for that task...and even then, they struggle at times.  Sites going down during peak events happens everywhere still.  Sometimes it's just an acceptable failure because you don't want to invest and redesign the 99.5 percent to handle the 0.5%

concepts like AWS, IAAS, PAAS, etc do not make a solution instantly scalable.. you still have to design your product to scale.  take it from a cloud product developer who works for one of the biggest names in the industry (me).  

Ticketmaster has the same IT and Marketing Depts are Lego.
'nuff said as stan lee liked to type

[ravenb99]

When I somehow still don't have one (or ten) then something is definitely wrong with a release.

[Bold-Arrow]

1 minute ago, ravenb99 said:

When I somehow still don't have one (or ten) then something is definitely wrong with a release.

most informative post of the last 30 pages.