Bricklink's AFOL Designer Program 2019

[Al Legorical]

41 minutes ago, isawred said:

I was in for 3 but after receiving a lot of hate for reselling on eBay I went to 1 and added a few other designs.

goes to show that it shouldn't have bothered me what someone from another country says about my eBay listings lol 

I do want to be an active part of the AFOL community so I did not want to get blacklisted so soon coming from the dark ages jusppt a few months ago

The strong irony is that BrickLink is the premier RESALE  site for LEGO, in fact it’s all resale! there are hundreds if not thousands who make a living off flipping LEGO sets when they go OOP, those sellers are on BrickLink, BrickOwl, Amazon AND eBay as well as other places!

 IMO BrickLink should have (maybe they will) create another category for these sets. It’s quite ludicrous that they allow Brick Arms, I’ve even seen “custom” bricks that are “LEGO compatible”... but not there own products.

Besides, if I bought more than one, no one will know I’m the seller, off BL and BO?

[TheOrcKing]

3 hours ago, isawred said:

same here...... very much slapping myself!!!!! 

[isawred]

On ‎4‎/‎16‎/‎2019 at 6:09 PM, TheOrcKing said:

 

yeah that looks about right!

[Al Legorical]

On 4/15/2019 at 11:21 PM, Shortbus311 said:

I am actually surprised no one has the castle up on Ebay yet for "presale"

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They have. $450.  “Pre sale”. And NO it ain’t my listing. Username is gross!

Edited April 18, 2019 by Graham Bailey
Clarification

[isawred]

 

1 hour ago, Graham Bailey said:

They have. $450.  “Pre sale”. And NO it ain’t my listing. Username is gross!

I tried searching, no results.... do you think they got hate mail?

[Shortbus311]

 
I tried searching, no results.... do you think they got hate mail?

It's there, just search Lego Lowenstein

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[isawred]

7 minutes ago, Shortbus311 said:

It's there, just search Lego Lowenstein

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lol I copy/paste the accent marks ?‍♂️

[Legojona]

There will be a delay. They just mailed this 

We originally planned to start shipping in May, and we are confident we can meet that goal. We have designed a tight production schedule wherein each design is produced and packed in batches. This means you might receive some designs before others, but don’t worry — the shipping for pre-orders is still free.

 

However, the community’s response to the AFOL Designer Program was larger than we expected. What this means to all our backers is that there will be a delay. We will try to fill orders as quickly as possible, but according to our most recent projections, some orders will not be shipped until as late as end of summer.

 

You will be notified as soon as your design is ready to be shipped and we will not charge you until your order is ready to ship. We’re shipping out designs in the order in which pledges were made, so if you pre-ordered on day one, you’ll be one of the earliest people to receive your order.

[LegoMan1212]

1 hour ago, Legojona said:

There will be a delay. They just mailed this 

We originally planned to start shipping in May, and we are confident we can meet that goal. We have designed a tight production schedule wherein each design is produced and packed in batches. This means you might receive some designs before others, but don’t worry — the shipping for pre-orders is still free.

 

However, the community’s response to the AFOL Designer Program was larger than we expected. What this means to all our backers is that there will be a delay. We will try to fill orders as quickly as possible, but according to our most recent projections, some orders will not be shipped until as late as end of summer.

 

You will be notified as soon as your design is ready to be shipped and we will not charge you until your order is ready to ship. We’re shipping out designs in the order in which pledges were made, so if you pre-ordered on day one, you’ll be one of the earliest people to receive your order.

Wow, Did they forget to look at how many were selling as time went on?  Why would they have any "for sale" if they did not predict this?  It's a BS statement, true and true and just an excuse.  

They also could have done this better by simply having payments go through as soon as the 'minimum" number of sets were sold, and then literally sell them each time afterwards.

Just my 2 cents. I know there is more to it than that, but it simply seems to me that they are trying to make up some excuse to buy time.

[$20 on joe vs dan]

1 hour ago, LegoMan1212 said:

Wow, Did they forget to look at how many were selling as time went on?  Why would they have any "for sale" if they did not predict this?  It's a BS statement, true and true and just an excuse.  

They also could have done this better by simply having payments go through as soon as the 'minimum" number of sets were sold, and then literally sell them each time afterwards.

Just my 2 cents. I know there is more to it than that, but it simply seems to me that they are trying to make up some excuse to buy time.

without knowing the logistics, no way to know where the blame should lay...its everyone's first time go.

Gotta wait on Lego to ship according to past agreements...and they don't come as complete sets, I think the bricks are hand sorted and packaged...this would be very labor intensive and no way to really predict a process as its never been done before as no one knows exactly how the bricks will come (baggies, boxes, cases, crates!!!...ever try to open a 1000 anything by hand...and then package it?

just like the Forma...there was bound to be delays...and kudos for rewarding the high risk takers who pledged earlier...the wait and the growing hype will only increase its perceived value. 

[marcandre]

Not surprising. Every kickstarter I have done has been delayed. This is no different. 

[Mark Twain]

Looks like some sellers need to update their eBay listings.

It’s hilarious that they mention in the FAQ that they expected some designs to sell out in presale, then throw a lame “we didn’t expect the number of orders.”


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[Al Legorical]

5 hours ago, $20 on joe vs dan said:

without knowing the logistics, no way to know where the blame should lay...its everyone's first time go.

Gotta wait on Lego to ship according to past agreements...and they don't come as complete sets, I think the bricks are hand sorted and packaged...this would be very labor intensive and no way to really predict a process as its never been done before as no one knows exactly how the bricks will come (baggies, boxes, cases, crates!!!...ever try to open a 1000 anything by hand...and then package it?

just like the Forma...there was bound to be delays...and kudos for rewarding the high risk takers who pledged earlier...the wait and the growing hype will only increase its perceived value. 

I’m not surprised at all, BrickLink ARE (or I guess were) simply the venue, have any of the BrickLink team ever sold parts under their own platform?

all of us part sellers will have a very good idea of how long it will take to pick and pack 1 copy of Löwenstein at 2000 parts in 497 lots.

 I have a pretty efficient space, it’s as small as practicable, everything is very well sorted to avoid picking wrong parts, easy to access and my picking order keeps me in the same place as much as possible.

I recently had an order of 5000 parts in 192 unique lots it took me approximately 2 hours to pick and bag. No message from customer so I assume I didn’t make a mistake... 

LEGO keep the unique part count down as low as possible in the larger sets, for a reason and they have automation.

I suspect this idea was conceived without thoroughly working out the logistics, and the reason for the message was due to having started picking and packing. Then having that major “oh s**t” moment. Reality slap in the face.

employ more pickers? Possibly, but that maybe a problem folks tripping over each other.

on the castle alone, let’s say they can double my speed  so it takes 1 person 2 hours per set to pick and bag. That’s 5000 person hours, over 600 person days 8 hours a day without a break. Just for one Löwenstein. And I didn’t include the time taken to unpack and sort the incoming parts. Let’s hope TLG were “nice” and packed all the parts at 1 per box or bag!

i don’t see them fulfilling all orders before Christmas, assuming sales resume on the other sets and they all sell out, unless they really did sort out the logistical issues. Sales commence on Monday...

those eBay resellers may want to revise their listings ?

[iahawks550]

So, basically, poor planning? I guess my thoughts are this.... If they knew they were producing 2,500 sets, why did the pre-order change the time line? 

I don't really care if it's late or not, but that was a long drawn-out email to tell me they hadn't really thought this whole thing through. 

[Guest TabbyBoy]

3 hours ago, Mark Twain said:

Looks like some sellers need to update their eBay listings.

It’s hilarious that they mention in the FAQ that they expected some designs to sell out in presale, then throw a lame “we didn’t expect the number of orders.”


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eBay rule #1... If you ain't got it, don't list it!

[Mark Twain]

Honestly, they didn’t need to use this crowd funding model and if they move forward I hope they actually move to much more streamlined approach.


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[minicoopers11]

42 minutes ago, Mark Twain said:

Honestly, they didn’t need to use this crowd funding model and if they move forward I hope they actually move to much more streamlined approach.


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They haven't got funds from any buyers yet, though. It was more of a review period (Ideas in reverse) followed by a voting period (to see what actually gets produced).

[DadsAFOL]

BrickLink has never had any products, let alone manufactured any products.  So they are learning as they go.  And they learned real fast that hand-packing sets is extremely labor intensive.  They are also being super cautious about not making errors, so double checking counts and the bag QA process slows them down, but that's a good thing.   They've finally gotten into a groove, and they have opened 2nd and 3rd shifts to accelerate the overall velocity.   It's quite an interesting experiment. 

[fuzzy_bricks]

1 hour ago, Mark Twain said:

Honestly, they didn’t need to use this crowd funding model and if they move forward I hope they actually move to much more streamlined approach.

I think it's a good thing that people have to commit to buying a design rather than just voting, otherwise they may end up holding the bag with a set that not many people actually wanted.  We've seen this similar situation with past ideas sets and probably some upcoming sets, looking at you Friends.

[CathyVT]

On 4/20/2019 at 12:37 AM, Legojona said:

There will be a delay. They just mailed this 

We originally planned to start shipping in May, and we are confident...

Huh, I didn't get that email. I did get the "Yay - it was funded" emails - 2 of them. I ordered Eight Studs and the Science Tower. I'm in the US. Anyone else get or not get this email and want to share what sets they ordered? I wonder if just certain sets are delayed. Or maybe if they're shipping in the order that people ordered, people who ordered early aren't getting this "delayed" email? I ordered fairly early, but not super early.

[NJKelly]

Cathy, FYI I backed the Wild West Saloon and the Hot Shot Carnival on 18th February and I received the delayed email.

[odysea11]

Huh, I didn't get that email. I did get the "Yay - it was funded" emails - 2 of them. I ordered Eight Studs and the Science Tower. I'm in the US. Anyone else get or not get this email and want to share what sets they ordered? I wonder if just certain sets are delayed. Or maybe if they're shipping in the order that people ordered, people who ordered early aren't getting this "delayed" email? I ordered fairly early, but not super early.

I backed multiple projects, and got the email. It was not specific to any particular set. I ordered early and late....

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[CosmicSpeed]

1 hour ago, odysea11 said:

I backed multiple projects, and got the email. It was not specific to any particular set. I ordered early and late....

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I didn't get the email and ordered the Vintage Roadster and Science Lab on the last day.

[CathyVT]

1 hour ago, odysea11 said:

I backed multiple projects, and got the email. It was not specific to any particular set. I ordered early and late....

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I didn't get the "delayed" email, even checked spam folder. The castle and saloon were the most popular, right? And also the largest (though 8 studs and science tower, which I ordered, aren't too far behind in # of pieces - but I think castle and saloon were quite a bit farther ahead in terms of sets purchased). On the website, it now says, "Orders are shipped out in the order in which they were paid."

[Shortbus311]

I ordered the castle on the very last day and did not receive any email

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