Investing in Asia

[jaychen]

As someone noted earlier here, Inspoint is the place to get lego in Hong Kong. The other place is also in Mong Kok, Argyle street. I forgot the name. The prices for new items are close to US MSRP. The demand for Star Wars isn't as high as for modulars. Certain creator sets command a nice 20% premium. New sets like the fairground mixer is about $210USD. I saw the architecture studio there last Xmas for about 1600 HKD, about $210USD. So it really depends on which product. My cousin is selling the fairground mixer in Hong Kong for about $200USD. I just go on eBay and hit the buy button once in awhile when I see people list it at $170USD shipped to hong kong. We split the $30. Obviously we do it in bulk order. At least ten per round. Not sure how the seller makes money. So far, we have managed to sell about 60 fairgrounds. Not bad considering all I do is scan eBay whenever I have time.

I think they are able to do that because they drop shipped the item. Using stolen credit card to buy and shipped to buyer locations. 

[lincolnsbro]

Im in Korea and recently started to collect lego sets. Conditions here are similar to other Asian countries except Hong Kong where the prices are US competitive. Lego has an official presence here thru their online store and other local distributors but the licensed products cost at least about a third higher than the US and others also cost more. New and popular sets cost way more for the obvious reasons. Recently released batman tumbler, for an example, is selling for upto US $370 here.

So I do most of my buying thru US online sites it ends up being cheaper than here even with int'l shipping. I would be interested to set up an operation here to sell lego sets as a side biz if anybody else is interested. (I'm new so plz excuse my any inappropriate comments made here)

Cheers~!

[supersane]

Lego in Singapore is never cheap but I realised there have been some efforts to bring down the retail price for selected models.

 

For instance, 76018 Hulk Lab Smash (SRP US$49.95) retails for S$109.90, but fast forward that months later to a newer model, 76022 X-Men vs Sentinel (also at SRP US$49.95) retails for S$89.90.

 

There is still a significant price gap vs the US but I think we can see that shrinking in the upcoming models. After all, it doesn't take much effort to import them from the US and this will hurt SG sales to a certain extent.

[montisha]

Hi all, I am new here, living in Singapore.

 

I have started buying Lego sets for some time now and all my lego sets are from Hong Kong or Japan.

 

The price in Singapore is too high. I noticed HK Toy/Lego market is being valued by collectors and investors. It's really a free market driven by demand and supply. 

 

In Singapore, my take is there are too many rich people here that do not look at the price of a toy/lego. There's no market here at all. The shops are happily collecting revenue from people who thought they have bought the sets cheaper at 10-20% discount. 

 

Another theory that I have concluded is the distributor in Singapore set the distribution price at a premium. Driving the market price up.

[Ng Leong Tek]

Hi, I am from Malaysia and have been collecting Lego sets for about 2 years now. I buy mainly from local vendors as well as from ebay, both locally as well as from US. Though there are price differences between local sellers and US sellers on ebay, I have managed to get bargains from buying as well as from auctions.

Of course, prices have gone up since the last two years that I have been collecting, especially all those vintage sets from Star Wars to Technics to Creator. Of late, all minifigures including series collector sets have all gone crazy in terms of prices as the last three months have seen an increase of over 100% for some unique minifigures or 'hard to come by' minifigures or some 'popular' minifigures. They are too many examples to list, but suffice to say, prices are not coming down any sooner for all those retired UCS, Exclusive as well as Retail Limited sets as well as the many elusive or popular minifigures.

It augers well for the hobby in Malaysia.....

[Guest]

I live in the Philippines, since there is only one LEGO Certified store in the Philippines prices are expensive. About 1.75x in the US, the cheapest LEGO sets you can get are from resellers who either get their product from another country or from a local toy store but when I say cheapest it's about 1.5x price. However, there are retired sets that you can get from time to time which are sold with almost no increase in price even after 5 years from resellers.