End of life dates - Listing

[ericholm]

Hi, I use brickset.com to view the dates a set was released and also in many cases became discountinued. for example if you search on set 10194 (Emerald night) down the right hand side of the page it details when this was available in USA, Canada & UK on lego.com Availability at LEGO.com United States 01 Apr 09 - 25 Nov 11 $99.99 United Kingdom 01 Apr 09 - 04 Dec 11

[Damnation666]

Hi,

I use brickset.com to view the dates a set was released and also in many cases became discountinued. for example if you search on set 10194 (Emerald night) down the right hand side of the page it details when this was available in USA, Canada & UK on lego.com

Availability at LEGO.com

United States 01 Apr 09 - 25 Nov 11

$99.99

United Kingdom 01 Apr 09 - 04 Dec 11

[Medieval Guy]

Even if the info is inaccurate, I think we may be onto something here. What if sets are always retired in different regions in the same order...? But surely Lego is smart enough not to do that.

[JesusLovesLegos]

I think it would be great to have all that information, but many times Brickset has listed something as EOL and it was not and was back up on S @ ****.

[JesusLovesLegos]

Even if the info is inaccurate, I think we may be onto something here. What if sets are always retired in different regions in the same order...? But surely Lego is smart enough not to do that.

If it is inaccurate, why bother with it? Lego does not let anybody know when they retire sets. Why should they? It's bad for business.

[Mos_Eisley]

I strongly agree that the Brickset data is very inaccurate. Going forward it would be a good idea of keeping track of when things leave S@H and/or LEGO Stores by country, but I'm sure that it is a difficult task. I've often wondered about those sites that have old images of various sites at random past dates. How often are those things updated? How many months of a given year would you be able to pull up S@H for example?

[Ed Mack]

The EOL data is valuable data that LEGO protects well. By keeping the LEGO buyer constantly questioning when a set will be retired, they help their sales by making buyers think a set is retired, while in fact it is just temporarily out of stock. Brickset's info on EOL is about the best currently found on various LEGO sites, but it is not accurate. It's really hard to keep track of this info and unless you have people actually keeping track of hundreds of LEGO sets on a daily basis to see if sets are retired, the data will not be close to real dates of EOL. Add to that each country might have different EOLs, you have quite a task. Moving forward, this discussion has given me an idea about tracking EOL and I'll discuss it with Jeff about implementing it...because I know he has nothing better to do. LOL

[M4x18]

Well, I can give you a heads up here that I already gave on the correct forum. The Harry Potter sets are about to be EOL'd. Only Diagon Alley was found on the european LEGO Shop at Home's and now even that one has the "call to confirm availability" sign. Time to step on it!

[ericholm]

Hi again,

Ok, so Brickset data is not accurate but it is the best we have......currently.

Suggestion? - Automatically screen scrape the Lego.com's 3 sites USA, Canada, UK on a daily basis compare set numbers as they come on and fall off, produce a page on this site that summarises and highlights changes, to be used as an "INDICATIVE" guide?

BTW - Sorry to place this in Harry's forum, my mistake. Although for UK readers I did find large Qty's of HP (Hogwarts, knight bus, dobby, castle, etc.) still in my local ToyRUs shop at RRP.

Thanks.

[Ed Mack]

Hi again,

Ok, so Brickset data is not accurate but it is the best we have......currently.

Suggestion? - Automatically screen scrape the Lego.com's 3 sites USA, Canada, UK on a daily basis compare set numbers as they come on and fall off, produce a page on this site that summarises and highlights changes, to be used as an "INDICATIVE" guide?

BTW - Sorry to place this in Harry's forum, my mistake. Although for UK readers I did find large Qty's of HP (Hogwarts, knight bus, dobby, castle, etc.) still in my local ToyRUs shop at RRP.

Thanks.

You read my mind...Now how much do you want to program it? LOL...

[Jeff Mack]

I'll discuss it with Jeff about implementing it...because I know he has nothing better to do. LOL

Wow, you know, I was just sitting here staring at the ceiling wondering if there will be something for me to do again one day. Sounds like that might be coming true. Thank God! I was really getting bored

Ed is a slave driver people, that Avatar of his isn't too far from the truth.

[Jeff Mack]

Hi again,

Ok, so Brickset data is not accurate but it is the best we have......currently.

Suggestion? - Automatically screen scrape the Lego.com's 3 sites USA, Canada, UK on a daily basis compare set numbers as they come on and fall off, produce a page on this site that summarises and highlights changes, to be used as an "INDICATIVE" guide?

BTW - Sorry to place this in Harry's forum, my mistake. Although for UK readers I did find large Qty's of HP (Hogwarts, knight bus, dobby, castle, etc.) still in my local ToyRUs shop at RRP.

Thanks.

I think this is what Huw does at Brickset. The problem I see he has though is that he does list the sets quite often as retired, but they are just out of stock or something else. There is definitely going to be manual work along with automated portion like this. Are you volunteering your services for this???

[Ed Mack]

Wow, you know, I was just sitting here staring at the ceiling wondering if there will be something for me to do again one day. Sounds like that might be coming true. Thank God! I was really getting bored

Ed is a slave driver people, that Avatar of his isn't too far from the truth.

Slacker!!! I want the damn EOL scrapper done by tomorrow!

[ericholm]

Wow, you know, I was just sitting here staring at the ceiling wondering if there will be something for me to do again one day. Sounds like that might be coming true. Thank God! I was really getting bored

Ed is a slave driver people, that Avatar of his isn't too far from the truth.

Slacker!!! I want the damn EOL scrapper done by tomorrow!

Chaps, I am not getting in the middle of this one, I just come up with crazy ideas ;-)

GL

BTW - Can we have this ready for the weekend? (Sorry British sense of humour)

[Chowrentoys.com]

I love the banter that is going on here!! In terms of the EOL you just have to keep checking the LEGO website. If Jeff can come up with a better system it would help everyone tremendously. What we are doing right now is first check with Brickset to see what sets they have listed as discontinued then go to LEGO website to verify. We only focus on the ******.America site since we are US based.