What do you think poses the most harm to LEGO reselling/investing?

[redcell]

for me its not a problem find deales, problem to sell LEGO fast and with good profit to stay afloat....last year especially....I think this year this trend will continue.

I have made this point many times...buying is the easy part, selling is much harder. As more and more people try to get in on the game it is only going to get harder and more competitive with tighter and tighter margins. The ever growing numbers of resellers is going to be what ruins it for many out there when the anticipated returns don't materialize. I've seen gross margins fall by at least 50% over the last two years and expect that trend to keep up based on all of the additional sellers I am seeing out there.

[chinothegeeko]

I have made this point many times...buying is the easy part, selling is much harder. As more and more people try to get in on the game it is only going to get harder and more competitive with tighter and tighter margins. The ever growing numbers of resellers is going to be what ruins it for many out there when the anticipated returns don't materialize. I've seen gross margins fall by at least 50% over the last two years and expect that trend to keep up based on all of the additional sellers I am seeing out there.

Exactly. I've said something to this similar before. I think once the fad wears off, profit will begin to climb again. I've been in and out of buying/selling toys as a hobby now for almost 15 years. Some I stick with and some I was just there for the money. I don't see this improving for at least a few years, once alot of the newer sellers (weren't sure what they were getting into) or older ones(not making enough profit, had enough), then maybe better margins will come around. 

 

I'm flipping, parting out, holding on for long-term. I've done this with many different toys and have come well ahead 99% of the time.

 

I love this site but lets face it, it brings in tons of new investors daily.

[Migration]

We should all talk about how hard it is to find good sets, how terrible selling on eBay is, how many times we've been scammed on craigslist. Let people know it's more than buy low sell high, that there is actual work involved. That should send them packing in droves.

[Darth_Raichu]

I have made this point many times...buying is the easy part, selling is much harder. As more and more people try to get in on the game it is only going to get harder and more competitive with tighter and tighter margins. The ever growing numbers of resellers is going to be what ruins it for many out there when the anticipated returns don't materialize. I've seen gross margins fall by at least 50% over the last two years and expect that trend to keep up based on all of the additional sellers I am seeing out there.

Exactly. It does not help when the newer sellers are very bad at math and are willing to sell for next to no profit after fees. It is hard to compete with a horde of these ******** (insert your own bad word here). All in all eBay and Amazon are the big winners in the resellers boom

[Ed Mack]

One of the major obstacles I see is the lack of discounts.  With discounts becoming harder to find and less in % off, the art of quick flipping will become extinct for the most part IMO.  

[MartinP]

We should all talk about how hard it is to find good sets, how terrible selling on eBay is, how many times we've been scammed on craigslist. Let people know it's more than buy low sell high, that there is actual work involved. That should send them packing in droves.

Finding good sets at a good discount is hard. Sometimes, you will have a lucky find once in a while, but the clearance sales year after year are getting worse and you can't get that deal you want.

[TheOrcKing]

One of the major obstacles I see is the lack of discounts.  With discounts becoming harder to find and less in % off, the art of quick flipping will become extinct for the most part IMO.

I wish I could find these big discounts spread across huge amounts of stock people find. My retailers typical idea of a sale is 15% to maybe 30% on a couple of items and finding them can be like an Easter egg hunt. Now I have been lucky from time to time but it is the lone set off in some corner of the store I came across by accident.

 

I'm still going with too many resellers. If you look at the home page of brickpicker.com and scroll down to the bottom you see some stats. One stat that stands out to me is "Total current value of member Brickfolios". I recorded on 1-31-2014 (1 week ago) that the total value was $8.5 million. Today, one week later, it is $10.5 million. An increase of $2 million in 1 week. It looks like the stat might update nightly and some of this may be the increase in value of the sets in these brickfolios but my gut feeling is that a majority of the increase is from members adding new inventory to their brickfolios. Can the secondary market stay profitable when $2 million worth of inventory is gained by resellers weekly?

You can count my Brickfolio out of the investing picture for what little it is worth as the whole thing is my personal collection. Having a Brickfolio set up helped to sort and catalogue my sets which is just one of the many reasons I love BrickPicker.

[Worm]

On 1/30/2014 at 10:02 AM, iahawks550 said:

Too many resellers is the largest problem. But, that will thin out as 75% won't be happy with $10 profits on their $100 sets.

 

Over supply is another issue. The more popularity, the more production will ramp up. This will severely hurt the secondary market.

 

Saturation among theme lines. LOTR comes to mind. So many sets, and so many similar sets that don't appear different.

Bingo

[fuzzy_bricks]

21 minutes ago, Worm said:

Bingo

Holy necro thread Batman!

[tawsauce]

Funny to look back on these posts from 6-7 years ago. LOTR is awesome now. I think long term investments with the right sets are the way to go. I would have never guess Black pearl would be $600 years later. This may sound odd, but I don't see an obvious harm to LEGO investing at the moment. On the other hand, I don't buy sets unless its at a good discount. I am able to almost always get 50% off or more.

In 2014, there wasn't much for discounting. 30% off was as good as you could get in stores for a bit. Times have changed since.

If LEGO continues to make unique sets and people continue to love MOC's. LEGO will stay relevant. 

 

Edited December 18, 2020 by tawsauce

[brickvoyeur]

38 minutes ago, tawsauce said:

Funny to look back on these posts from 6-7 years ago. LOTR is awesome now. I think long term investments with the right sets are the way to go. I would have never guess Black pearl would be $600 years later. This may sound odd, but I don't see an obvious harm to LEGO investing at the moment. On the other hand, I don't buy sets unless its at a good discount. I am able to almost always get 50% off or more.

In 2014, there wasn't much for discounting. 30% off was as good as you could get in stores for a bit. Times have changed since.

If LEGO continues to make unique sets and people continue to love MOC's. LEGO will stay relevant. 

 

Too much product, and too many investors are still a problem. The pandemic just killed the product issue this year. 

My worry is that due to the ridiculous aftermarket this year that we will see another swell of flippers stagnating prices like we had a couple years ago. I think the first normal production run will see a aftermarket too large to prop up prices. Your picks will become even more important. And just like the last cycle, flippers will back out and things will start to get better again. 

[KShine]

[Bricklectic]

Lego opening up an AFOL program to manufacture any retired set for a premium, similair to the new ideas program they are rolling out.