Are Star Wars sets turning into a lame duck?

[redcell]

32 minutes ago, Mathew said:

I think OT and Prequels sets are still a safe bet.  Avoid anything from the Disney produced films:  TFA, TLJ, Solo etc.  The kids growing up with the new movies are not connecting to them the way previous gens were.  It doesn't help that the new movies are mostly forgettable.  Disney will probably reboot the whole franchise in ten years.

That is not good advice on Disney movie sets.  So far, the Special Forces Tie Fighter, First Order Transporter, Millenium Falcon, First Order Snowspeeder (micro and regular size), Resistance Trooper Transporter, Resistance X-Wing, Imperial Hovertank, Tie Striker, and Krennic's Imperial Shuttle (micro) have all more than doubled in value for me and a number of others are pushing the 2x buy-in.  Obviously, that has a lot to do with my buy-in, but there are only a few of those that had real outlier buy-in prices. 

[donbee]

With the rest it´s just a question of getting clearance deals above 60% off.

 

I sometimes wonder if that’s a chicken/egg situation.

‘The only way to make money is low buy-in.’

‘Takes too long to get significantly over RRP.’

Well if everybody has a low buy-in (a lot of people do), then people are content to sell lower. Thus keeping the resale market low. If you’re picking up sets at 20% off and I’m getting them at 50%, of course you’re gonna have to wait longer to make your margin.

It doesn’t mean the sets are less popular, People are still paying higher than RRP two years after retirement, but it does mean lego is producing way too much. Retail stores are bound to get sick of all the inventory that have to clear out.

 

 

It takes effort to find data outside of Amazon for set prices. You could use BrickLink, but it’s a different market. It won’t give you a lot of intel on how the general population feels about the sets. My best customers on BrickLink, are amazon sellers.

 

But TFA sets are starting to mature

75082 and 75101, 75103 is doing better than I had imagined.

 

I also like

75092 Naboo SF

75093 final duel

75135 obiwon

75145 eclipse has been a surprise.

75170 phantom

 

I don’t know if these count, but you mentioned microfighters and BPs

75107 Jango

75110 Luke

75112 Gen. Gr

 

 

Those were my picks. There’s probably more decent sets that are starting to mature. But again, is it delayed because of lack of popularity or over-production?

I can agree, A lot of duds in the entire SW universe. But who buys entire lines anyways? Pick your faves, move to the next page.

 

 

 

 

[KShine]

Now I am no corporate merchandising expert - but I just don't see that many kids begging their moms to buy a toy based on that old guy that suckled on a sea cow.

[donbee]

Now I am no corporate merchandising expert - but I just don't see that many kids begging their moms to buy a toy based on that old guy that suckled on a sea cow.

I only did that once!

Lord of Lego said it’d be good for my hair.

[donbee]

A "fan boy" is the kind of person who fiercely defends their franchise/character regardless...if we're talking about missing points.

Plus it's not just "fan boys" who are turned off by SW. Time will expose that when ep 9 is DOA - like Solo. 

 

Did you just contradict yourself, miss the point and interject in a conversation that didn’t involve you?

 

You can disagree with me, But please make sense when you do.

[RKI_Fismo]

8 minutes ago, donbee said:

Did you just contradict yourself, miss the point and interject in a conversation that didn’t involve you?

 

You can disagree with me, But please make sense when you do.

As a a member of this forum any subject I feel the need to comment on is a conversation I am entitled to be part of - right? 

But to be honest I owe you a huge apology, I totally got the wrong end of the stick. Nothing to do with celebrating England's

win in the World Cup last night. In plain English hands up my apologies.

[raindroplet]

2 hours ago, redcell said:

That is not good advice on Disney movie sets.  So far, the Special Forces Tie Fighter, First Order Transporter, Millenium Falcon, First Order Snowspeeder (micro and regular size), Resistance Trooper Transporter, Resistance X-Wing, Imperial Hovertank, Tie Striker, and Krennic's Imperial Shuttle (micro) have all more than doubled in value for me and a number of others are pushing the 2x buy-in.  Obviously, that has a lot to do with my buy-in, but there are only a few of those that had real outlier buy-in prices. 

I agree. I am not a Star Wars person, but there's no doubt in my mind that the OT/Prequels are the least safe options in moderate to long term. They're being rehashed too quickly and have limited opportunities in terms of content- especially with Disney refusing to acknowledge the extended universe.

Personally, I'm avoiding the sequel sets because I don't think they will be redeemed as easily as the prequels were since Disney has cut off any opportunity for extended universe that could make their content agreeable.  But Rogue One and Solo are decent, even good, movies that I think have a lot more investment potential because they seem like one and done sets that will not see remakes for a moderate while.  Their interest is generally limited, but they feature all new designs and minifigs that are just adjacent enough to the OT that they will be desired by OT fans while still also appealing to the younger generation (who seem to blindly support the subversive politics that are gutting the series' old characters). On top of that, I'm willing to bet that in 2-4 years, the general "meh" attitude towards them will shift more positively as they are viewed separate from the sequels. I admit that I could be a fool down the road, but Rogue One is definitely a line that seems to offer what OT collectors want: expansive settings, interesting vehicles that feel mostly faithful, relevance to the OT that builds out its world.

Obviously, I'm small time and seriously pick and choose sets that I don't mind building myself if things don't pan out. LEGO needs to fix overproduction and Disney seems to now be aware that they have to either slow these films down so mainstream consumers don't get fatigued, or stop upsetting the classic fans who will keep up with the pace.

[redcell]

Everyone predicting doom for the more current SW sets should go back and read posts similar to this about SW sets 5 years ago...check out the sets that people said were crap back then and then check their current day prices.

There is always a tendency for some people to view the past through rose-colored glasses and the present through sh**-covered ones. Every since I started following the Lego market, there have been people like Val and Tabby arguing that the best days are behind us and the present day sucks more than any newbie can fathom. Meanwhile, my little reselling business has grown every year and gotten to the point where I will make more this year selling Lego than I will working at my day job.

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[Ed Mack]

There are many issues with the STAR WARS theme.  Here are a few...

• Remakes
• Overproduction of sets
• Too many STAR WARS sets to choose from (66 in 2017...17 in 2007)
• Too many movies that uninspire
• Too many sets that uninspire
• Kids into YouTube, IPhones/Pads, video games
• Knockoffs

[eliminator]

I'm obsessed with Lego and consider myself somewhat of a SW fanboy and even i'm getting done with the Lego SW offerings. I've been selling off my stock and personal collection, really only keeping the "minifig scale" ships. 

[donbee]

As a a member of this forum any subject I feel the need to comment on is a conversation I am entitled to be part of - right? 
But to be honest I owe you a huge apology, I totally got the wrong end of the stick. Nothing to do with celebrating England's
win in the World Cup last night. In plain English hands up my apologies.

Fair enough.

At least your team made it out of the first round...
At least your country got invited to the games...

I think you have at least one up on me.

[Val-E]

9 hours ago, redcell said:

Looking back at my sales data, in 2016, AT-AT was definitely the star of that group for me with a gross profit margin of 220%.  ISD and Ghost were both in the 110% range, but I sold the Ghosts early.  

Since that round of retirements, in 2017, my highest margin SW sets were Imperial Troop Transport (121%), Hailfire Droid (102%), and Jango Fett buildable (126%).

However, in the year before I sold that round of retirements (2015), my highest margin SW sets were AT-RT (147%), AT-TE (110%), and Mandalorian Speeder (100%).

Over each of those years, the remainder of my SW sets had margins in the 75%-99% range.

From my perspective, AT-AT was an outlier in terms of performance, which is understandable given its iconic status.  Also, I can see TFA have any noticeable impact on the SW market, at least through FBA.  Obviously, a lot of that has to do with the sets that I stocked so it may have looked different if you were loading up on completely different sets.

 

 

2015 was my best SW year ever. 7965, 9493, 9492 plus all the 1st wave Microfighters did just fine even if bought at RRP. The Jabba sets were not smart buys and I can think of a few turds but the winner and ROI ratios were beyond spectacular compared to nowadays.

Pretty much all of those have now been remade (in some cases twice or three times in less than 4 years) and have retired so it will be very simple to chart comparisons.

I do agree that discounts seem to have been bigger since then, but RRPs have also moved up between 10-20% so final buy ins haven´t really changed.

I´d definitely rather have had a 7965 for 70 euros than a 75105.

Edited July 5, 2018 by Val-E

[Val-E]

6 hours ago, Ed Mack said:

There are many issues with the STAR WARS theme.  Here are a few...

• Remakes
• Overproduction of sets
• Too many STAR WARS sets to choose from (66 in 2017...17 in 2007)
• Too many movies that uninspire
• Too many sets that uninspire
• Kids into YouTube, IPhones/Pads, video games
• Knockoffs

True but Lego themselves noted in their annual results that theme sales suffer when there is no new movie out. Now, even the movies are not boosting sales.

We could compare with HP franchise where everything is backordered since day one and there is no film. That theme is strong on nostalgia and there has been a big enough gap since the last line for a whole new generation to grow up and want these sets. SW just seems to be like City nowadays - it has very few sets that inspire and most ae just lazy retreads.

What worries me is TLG don´t seem to learn and are committing a crime with the JW theme and the number of sets released on a level similar to Batman Movie. Sometimes less is more.

Edited July 5, 2018 by Val-E

[redcell]

True but Lego themselves noted in their annual results that theme sales suffer when there is no new movie out. Now, even the movies are not boosting sales.
We could compare with HP franchise where everything is backordered since day one and there is no film. That theme is strong on nostalgia and there has been a big enough gap since the last line for a whole new generation to grow up and want these sets. SW just seems to be like City nowadays - it has very few sets that inspire and most ae just lazy retreads.
What worries me is TLG don´t seem to learn and are committing a crime with the JW theme and the number of sets released on a level similar to Batman Movie. Sometimes less is more.

Given the success that TLG has had over the last 10+ years compared to the prior 10 years, I would say that they have a pretty good idea of what they're doing. We don't have access to their internal sales data or market research so sets that may seem to you like dull rehashes that have very little market potential, may actually be their biggest sellers. You have to keep in mind that they have a brand new group of core customers every 3-5 years as older kids are out of Lego and younger kids are in. There is a reason they rehash sets.

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[Val-E]

For sure they know what they are doing with SW - mass producing for the kiddies and destroying any element of collectibility and residuals for reseller scum.

There´s always going to be a Millennium Falcon, same as a City Firestation but there was no need to make 3 X Wing iterations within 3 years.

My point about JW and TLBM is they seem to have had a bad bout of creative diarrhoea because they are pushing out sets left right and centre in the hope someone will like one of them.

New themes used to be much quainter when you only had 5 or 6 sets and it was possible to collect them all.

Edited July 5, 2018 by Val-E

[redcell]

You say that like it is something different from the past. Lego has always been about mass producing toys that were designed and marketed to be used and played with, and not stuck on a shelf as a collectible. The fact that certain sets became collectible and increased in value is not a feature of TLG's product strategy, but an unintended outgrowth of the popularity of their products and their product cycle.

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[Val-E]

I agree that you can´t  design something to be collectible but you can manage supply to do it (41999 Crawler) or to undo it (Pet Shop).

Collect and limited are also two of the most frequently used words in Lego group marketing but in recent years they have contradicted that by expanding the range so much and reducing the time between re-releases to 0.

Things were better before, even the owner of this site admits that now. People are still making good money trading Lego or we wouldn´t be here, but this theme is slowly working its way down the profitability charts as seen below and success is ever more dependent on buy-in and a quick turn around.

https://www.brickpicker.com/bpms/cagrbytheme.cfm

 

[redcell]

7 minutes ago, Val-E said:

I agree that you can´t  design something to be collectible but you can manage supply to do it (41999 Crawler) or to undo it (Pet Shop).

Collect and limited are also two of the most frequently used words in Lego group marketing but in recent years they have contradicted that by expanding the range so much and reducing the time between re-releases to 0.

Things were better before, even the owner of this site admits that now. People are still making good money trading Lego or we wouldn´t be here, but this theme is slowly working its way down the profitability charts as seen below and success is ever more dependent on buy-in and a quick turn around.

https://www.brickpicker.com/bpms/cagrbytheme.cfm

 

There are, of course, instances where TLG has released products that were designed to appeal directly to the collector's mindset (e.g., 41999, Mr. Gold), but those have always been outliers.  TLG may use collectible, limited, and exclusive routinely in their product names, advertisements, and other marketing materials, but that's just puffery and in no way reflective of their core product strategy.  If TLG had ever intended to market their products as collectibles, they wouldn't have been selling them in mainstream toy stores, Target, or Walmart.

Things were different before...whether that difference was "better" or "worse" than the present has a lot to do with the decisions that one made in the intervening years.  If someone went all-in on an exclusives-only strategy after seeing the success of Green Grocer, Taj Mahal, and the first MF, that person is almost certainly saying that things are worse because few sets since then have performed as well as the sets of that vintage.  Conversely, if someone realized the market's past was not prologue for the future and made the necessary adjustments in strategy, that person doesn't necessarily look at the past as "better."  The strategy that I pursue today is fundamentally different than the strategy that I pursued 5-6 years ago, and is far more profitable so I wouldn't say that things were better before by any stretch of the imagination.

The one thing that I can say was objectively "better" in the past was the level of competition.  Before the advent of this site and the rise in general awareness of the opportunity that existed for reselling Lego, things were vastly better simply because the market was distorted and not functioning properly.  As awareness has grown, the balance between supply and demand has evened out and prices have moderated...this is most noticeable in the vastly different EOL price curves of CC/GG vs. PS/PC.  Basically, we're no longer shooting fish in a barrel...now we're actually having to work for dinner.   

 

  

    

[Val-E]

Yup, if SW is a lame duck, the D2C market is a dead duck nowadays unless you got in on the Target pricing error!

[KShine]

22 minutes ago, redcell said:

Things were different before...whether that difference was "better" or "worse" than the present has a lot to do with the decisions that one made in the intervening years. 

The one thing that I can say was objectively "better" in the past was the level of competition.  Before the advent of this site and the rise in general awareness of the opportunity that existed for reselling Lego, things were vastly better simply because the market was distorted and not functioning properly.  As awareness has grown, the balance between supply and demand has evened out and prices have moderated...this is most noticeable in the vastly different EOL price curves of CC/GG vs. PS/PC.  Basically, we're no longer shooting fish in a barrel...now we're actually having to work for dinner.    

So you are trying to say that making lots of easy money, is not necessarily better than needing to work much harder to make less money???

I think I will go with the easy money/less effort option.

Edited July 5, 2018 by KShine

[Migration]

3 hours ago, KShine said:

So you are trying to say that making lots of easy money, is not necessarily better than needing to work much harder to make less money???

I think I will go with the easy money/less effort option.

I stand by the statement that I would rather buy, store, sell, and ship 10 $100 items than 1 $1000 one. Easier to get in quantity, less expensive and easier to ship, easier to store. Just easier. And certainly better that griping about "how great things used to be", evolve or die.

Edited July 5, 2018 by Migration

[anon33]

I stand by the statement that I would rather buy, store, sell, and ship 10 $100 items than 1 $1000 one. Easier to get in quantity, less expensive and easier to ship, easier to store. Just easier. And certainly better that griping about "how great things used to be", evolve or die.

Also easier to take a loss on a false claim

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[redcell]

So you are trying to say that making lots of easy money, is not necessarily better than needing to work much harder to make less money???
I think I will go with the easy money/less effort option.

Not sure about you, but I find it far easier to make money these days and make more than I ever did in the past. I work harder because of scale, but put far less effort in overall primarily because I know what to avoid. Now. If I could combine what I know today with the market of yesterday, I'd be retired.

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[KShine]

31 minutes ago, Migration said:

I stand by the statement that I would rather buy, store, sell, and ship 10 $100 items than 1 $1000 one. Easier to get in quantity, less expensive and easier to ship, easier to store. Just easier. And certainly better that griping about "how great things used to be", evolve or die.

I agree - Medium size sets are enjoyable to buy/store/sell/ship. I actually dread whenever I have to ship out a bunch of huge 20lb sets. 

[Brickshopper]

44 minutes ago, KShine said:

I agree - Medium size sets are enjoyable to buy/store/sell/ship. I actually dread whenever I have to ship out a bunch of huge 20lb sets. 

20 lb sets ? Please elaborate