10224 - Town Hall

[KShine]

11 minutes ago, Emodular said:

What's your take on the Town Hall chinese knockoff and how that will affect this set?

In reality, it shouldn't be much - The perceived affect is a lot more damaging than the knockoff would ever be.

But at least it will give everyone something to blame (other than ourselves), when prices start to fall flat.

[Ed Mack]

38 minutes ago, Emodular said:

What's your take on the Town Hall chinese knockoff and how that will affect this set?

The people who buy knockoffs were never going to pay top dollar for any LEGO set.

[Guest TabbyBoy]

12 minutes ago, Ed Mack said:

The people who buy knockoffs were never going to pay top dollar for any LEGO set.

That's why I'm not the slightest bit worried about knockoffs! I'll only worry if I actually see a well-made fake "LEGO" logo on the boxes or studs. I say let the cheapskates buy crap if they want!

Fake Rolex watches have been around for decades and genuine Rolex buyers aren't too bothered, are they?

The only fear I have is if LEGO use their economies of scale, really ramp up production and cut prices to match inferior brands, meaning our stashes become heavily devalued.

[inversion]

21 minutes ago, Ed Mack said:

The people who buy knockoffs were never going to pay top dollar for any LEGO set.

It is only true for collectors. Parents have these options:

• 700 piece LEGO for $100 for Tony's Christmas (smallish box)
• 3500 piece LELE for $100 for Tony's Christmas (big impressive box)

So, many would still buy the Chinese stuff even if they have the money to buy decent LEGO. Same is true for builders who want to display, MANY are fine with the knockoff and will treat the partner in a nice restaurant from the remaining money.

If this diverts enough money away from LEGO we can see less exclusives in the long run especially if the Chinese are able to release their version in a few weeks after a set's reveal. Fortunately these can mostly be acquired only in dodgy ways many people don't know about. If you put them next to each other in Walmart then we would have a problem. So as long as LEGO keeps them away from the core distribution channels it's fine. 

Until these gather mass awareness and easy distribution the Chinese stuff is almost totally harmless to LEGO in terms of diverted sales since they can't effectively tap into the latent demand. I can even imagine that the lawyer's fees would be higher than what they would win from a total cleaning. 

Edited July 14, 2016 by inversion

[Val-E]

I agree with inversion. Many are happy to get a knock off 75105 for a quarter of the RRP. What probably won´t be such an impact is on retired sets.

[Ed Mack]

1 hour ago, inversion said:

It is only true for collectors. Parents have these options:

• 700 piece LEGO for $100 for Tony's Christmas (smallish box)
• 3500 piece LELE for $100 for Tony's Christmas (big impressive box)

So, many would still buy the Chinese stuff even if they have the money to buy decent LEGO. Same is true for builders who want to display, MANY are fine with the knockoff and will treat the partner in a nice restaurant from the remaining money.

If this diverts enough money away from LEGO we can see less exclusives in the long run especially if the Chinese are able to release their version in a few weeks after a set's reveal. Fortunately these can mostly be acquired only in dodgy ways many people don't know about. If you put them next to each other in Walmart then we would have a problem. So as long as LEGO keeps them away from the core distribution channels it's fine. 

Until these gather mass awareness and easy distribution the Chinese stuff is almost totally harmless to LEGO in terms of diverted sales since they can't effectively tap into the latent demand. I can even imagine that the lawyer's fees would be higher than what they would win from a total cleaning. 

Collectors are the people buying $500.00 LEGO sets, not parents.  Kids are smart and don't want crap.  They know it's fake.  My six year old son knows the difference between a cheap minifigure and a LEGO one and won't be fooled by some LELE logo.  That being said, my concern with knockoffs is that these counterfeiters will be able to duplicate a LEGO brick exactly...logo and all.  When that happens, the Bricklink market will collapse and that is the backbone of a lot of the secondary LEGO market.  

[Alpinemaps]

1 hour ago, inversion said:

ISo, many would still buy the Chinese stuff even if they have the money to buy decent LEGO. Same is true for builders who want to display, MANY are fine with the knockoff and will treat the partner in a nice restaurant from the remaining money.

If they are cheap enough to buy the knockoff, they aren't taking their partner out to a nice restaurant with the remaining money.  It'll be an extra Dollar item at McDonalds that day.

[steelmelt]

15 minutes ago, Ed Mack said:

Collectors are the people buying $500.00 LEGO sets, not parents.  

This has not been my experience selling.  I typically sell my high end sets in face to face transactions and they are typically selling to parents.  Last xmas I sold a $500 TH to a dad for his 8 and 9 year old girls to build.

[oneknightr]

9 minutes ago, steelmelt said:

This has not been my experience selling.  I typically sell my high end sets in face to face transactions and they are typically selling to parents.  Last xmas I sold a $500 TH to a dad for his 8 and 9 year old girls to build.

I would imagine that dad was the exception and not the rule. I have an 8yo daughter and 4yo son, and there is no way I would pay $500 for a Lego set for them. It doesn't mean I don't love them as much as the other dad; we have different opinions on how much to spend on toys for our kids.

[Ciglione]

1 minute ago, oneknightr said:

I would imagine that dad was the exception and not the rule. I have an 8yo daughter and 4yo son, and there is no way I would pay $500 for a Lego set for them. It doesn't mean I don't love them as much as the other dad; we have different opinions on how much to spend on toys for our kids.

You really think he bought it for his daughters?

[Ed Mack]

8 minutes ago, steelmelt said:

This has not been my experience selling.  I typically sell my high end sets in face to face transactions and they are typically selling to parents.  Last xmas I sold a $500 TH to a dad for his 8 and 9 year old girls to build.

I'm sure there are parents spoiling their kids.  I do.  But I know I would not buy some knockoff toy from a Chinese source knowing there are zero production standards. 

[dcdfan]

I'm sure there are parents spoiling their kids.  I do.  But I know I would not buy some knockoff toy from a Chinese source knowing there are zero production standards. 

this 100%

[Ciglione]

Owning special lego sets is a matter of prestige. People like to show it to friends and family. Or display it in their office. Knock-off fakes don't do the magic.

As long as this stays this way we are safe.

And concerning the people who do buy these knock-offs.... you'd rather not have them as your customer. You can miss them as a toothache.

[landphieran]

3 hours ago, Ed Mack said:

Collectors are the people buying $500.00 LEGO sets, not parents. .  

Recently, I sold 2x Town Halls and 3x GE's to people from Thailand and a couple other places in SE Asia. While people in area's, where buying counterfeit items is extremely easy, still want the Lego brand we are fine.

Ed brings up the most problematic point and that is when counterfeits are able to find there way into the legitimate market without people noticing. Luckily the Ebay and Amazon are very aggressive about fakes not being mismarketed.

[inversion]

4 hours ago, Alpinemaps said:

If they are cheap enough to buy the knockoff, they aren't taking their partner out to a nice restaurant with the remaining money.  It'll be an extra Dollar item at McDonalds that day.

No, that's just their perception of value. Many people don't think that getting genuine LEGO is worth a 150% markup for a 5-10% better quality. I am constantly being told that I am posh because I always buy the fancy beer, by people who earn big bucks. We are talking about items that cost £2 more. We are loyal fanatics here, but certainly not the representative customer.

 

4 hours ago, Ed Mack said:

Collectors are the people buying $500.00 LEGO sets, not parents.  Kids are smart and don't want crap.  They know it's fake.  My six year old son knows the difference between a cheap minifigure and a LEGO one and won't be fooled by some LELE logo.  That being said, my concern with knockoffs is that these counterfeiters will be able to duplicate a LEGO brick exactly...logo and all.  When that happens, the Bricklink market will collapse and that is the backbone of a lot of the secondary LEGO market.  

I grew up with a poor family and working class friends. Situation changed a lot since then but I still remember how it was going and the mindset of the people. We were all getting cheap Chinese crap. Because parents were going for size and quantity once they decided to shell out money, quality was always underrated. We were constantly told that good stuff is too expensive for us, in every part of life and we sort of accepted that. Perception of value is different for people with lower incomes. They might pick LEGO if there are no alternatives, but the case is that there are. They just don't see that they get enough LEGO for their hard earned money compared to the large Chinese sets. And many middle class people who come from that background just can't shed off this attitude. Example is my dad. A kind person, but an irredeemable cheapass with high income. Scrooge McDuck would hide in shame in front of him when he goes into the convenience store and picks the lowest shelf food that tastes like vomit. 

Kids' attitude anyway is highly correlated with their parents'. Your kids probably recognise turd because you taught them well and are also exposed to kids with similar background. Plus $500 Christmas gifts are not that rare, actually even more common as you would think. We (BCG) did a research on that for a well known toy manufacturer and you would be surprised how much parents are shelling out for Christmas toys from middle class and above. The lower income families generally stick to cheap turd and buy them in quantities instead of a few quality sets. Stuffed toy room is priority instead of a few smallish quality items since that illuminates their poverty. 

Share your thoughts on the effects on secondary markets though stemming from exact cloning.

Edited July 14, 2016 by inversion

[Deadfraggle]

42 minutes ago, landphieran said:

Recently, I sold 2x Town Halls and 3x GE's to people from Thailand and a couple other places in SE Asia. While people in area's, where buying counterfeit items is extremely easy, still want the Lego brand we are fine.

Ed brings up the most problematic point and that is when counterfeits are able to find there way into the legitimate market without people noticing. Luckily the Ebay and Amazon are very aggressive about fakes not being mismarketed.

After reading the last few posts in this thread I reviewed the eBay listing for the Town Hall set in question and several other offering from the same vendor/manufacturer.

Here's my question. Are they using pictures of the legitimate LEGO sets in their eBay auction listings or are they just getting that good at making knock off copies?

If those are pictures of their actual offerings, has anyone seen the product up close in person? Are there obvious visible quality differences?

[KShine]

1 hour ago, inversion said:

I grew up with a poor family and working class friends. Situation changed a lot since then but I still remember how it was going and the mindset of the people. We were all getting cheap Chinese crap. Because parents were going for size and quantity once they decided to shell out money, quality was always underrated. We were constantly told that good stuff is too expensive for us, in every part of life and we sort of accepted that. Perception of value is different for people with lower incomes. They might pick LEGO if there are no alternatives, but the case is that there are. They just don't see that they get enough LEGO for their hard earned money compared to the large Chinese sets. And many middle class people who come from that background just can't shed off this attitude. Example is my dad. A kind person, but an irredeemable cheapass with high income. Scrooge McDuck would hide in shame in front of him when he goes into the convenience store and picks the lowest shelf food that tastes like vomit. 

Kids' attitude anyway is highly correlated with their parents'. Your kids probably recognise turd because you taught them well and are also exposed to kids with similar background. Plus $500 Christmas gifts are not that rare, actually even more common as you would think. We (BCG) did a research on that for a well known toy manufacturer and you would be surprised how much parents are shelling out for Christmas toys from middle class and above.

Here in America, we are consumers - We have been trained to believe that we deserve everything that we can't afford.

To go without something that you want, as soon as you want it, brings great shame and embarrassment to you and your family

[marcandre]

1 hour ago, Deadfraggle said:

After reading the last few posts in this thread I reviewed the eBay listing for the Town Hall set in question and several other offering from the same vendor/manufacturer.

Here's my question. Are they using pictures of the legitimate LEGO sets in their eBay auction listings or are they just getting that good at making knock off copies?

If those are pictures of their actual offerings, has anyone seen the product up close in person? Are there obvious visible quality differences?

The pictures are likely legit. The knockoffs from lepin have gotten quite good. http://brickfanatics.co.uk/lepin-now-copying-lego-ghostbusters-hq/

They do make TH and a few other modulars. They have plans to do all the modulars. There are fb fan pages with reviews and thousands of likes for these knockoff sets. I don't know if this will really hurt lego but it's not good. 

Edited July 15, 2016 by marcandre

[dcdfan]

11 minutes ago, marcandre said:

The pictures are likely legit. The knockoffs from lepin have gotten quite good. http://brickfanatics.co.uk/lepin-now-copying-lego-ghostbusters-hq/

They do make TH and a few other modulars. They have plans to do all the modulars. There are fb fan pages with reviews and thousands of likes for these knockoff sets. I don't know if this will really hurt lego but it's not good. 

 

[Deadfraggle]

2 minutes ago, dcdfan said:

 

And how long until they dial it up a notch and just start printing their boxes and bricks with LEGO instead of LEPIN,LELE, SPACE WARS, etc.?

I know it hasn't hurt the sales of Coach purses or Rolex watches from legitimate stores fronts in America, but I'm not purchasing those items for my wife off eBay these days.

[makr]

I am not that worried. People who are willing to pay several times MSRP do so because they want the real deal and not something that "looks pretty much like it". Collectors don't substitute that easily.

Those people who just want something somewhat close to the original might just as well buy the parts on BL and substitute the expensive pieces with something somewhat similar. If some of those people now switch to LEPIN instead, so be it.

[makr]

30 minutes ago, Deadfraggle said:

And how long until they dial it up a notch and just start printing their boxes and bricks with LEGO instead of LEPIN,LELE, SPACE WARS, etc.?

I know it hasn't hurt the sales of Coach purses or Rolex watches from legitimate stores fronts in America, but I'm not purchasing those items for my wife off eBay these days.

I see your point. Currently, these are clearly knock offs, but they aren't faking the brand (yet?).

But unless these copies are getting close to the original to a degree where they aren't distinguishable, you shouldn't have too much to worry about as long as you use PP or a decent CC. In most parts of the world, sellers would be in legal hell for selling such fakes. Even if they are unreachable, you should easily get your money back through a buyer protection claim.

[Phil B]

11 minutes ago, makr said:

I am not that worried. People who are willing to pay several times MSRP do so because they want the real deal and not something that "looks pretty much like it". Collectors don't substitute that easily.

Those people who just want something somewhat close to the original might just as well buy the parts on BL and substitute the expensive pieces with something somewhat similar. If some of those people now switch to LEPIN instead, so be it.

The problem is going to be when bulk lots start containing vast amounts of LEPIN/LELE bricks, virtually indistinguishable from genuine LEGO bricks. That contamination is going to hit BrickLink hard. Perhaps not for those who sell only "New" bricks, but Used bricks will be hit hard. Used Bulk lots will drop in value pretty hard. Such is my opinion.

[Deadfraggle]

13 minutes ago, makr said:

I see your point. Currently, these are clearly knock offs, but they aren't faking the brand (yet?).

But unless these copies are getting close to the original to a degree where they aren't distinguishable, you shouldn't have too much to worry about as long as you use PP or a decent CC. In most parts of the world, sellers would be in legal hell for selling such fakes. Even if they are unreachable, you should easily get your money back through a buyer protection claim.

Getting your money back through eBay/Paypal/Amazon/CC charge-back is only half the picture though.

IF, and it's a very BIG IF, we find ourselves in a situation where secondary market buyers really start to think there is a good chance they're going to receive a fake set passed off as the real deal, maybe they stop paying premium prices for retired sets. Then again, maybe it's a completely unfounded fear. Personally, I won't buy any of the high dollar minifigures off eBay or Amazon anymore for my personal collection because I can't trust the source.

[dcdfan]

Personally, I won't buy any of the high dollar minifigures off eBay or Amazon anymore for my personal collection because I can't trust the source.

This. 100%. I wanted a Tumbler Joker but there was no way I was gonna buy it off eBay. I ended up getting one from a friend that I knew instead that only wanted the Tumbler.