Serious PLEY...A threat to the LEGO secondary market

[Blackjack]

Do they have a way of going after the subscribers who will inevitably steal from them?

[Guest TabbyBoy]

I'm hoping we don't see this company in the UK.  I can't bear the thought of smeggy pubes or alien DNA on my bricks.  There's lot of weird people who will relish making the most out of opportunities like this.  Reminds me of that women selling her toe nail clippings on eBay before they got strict.

[fuzzy_bricks]

I'm sure strange people will get a thrill out of renting a set, jiggling it around in their shorts for a few and then sending it back.  Just like they currently do with Netflix discs.

Wait...so I'm supposed to rub my junk on Netflix discs before I send them back?

 

Assuming I could rent a set and not have to worry about any of the missing pieces, I'd still rather own it to display than have to break it down and send it back.  I didn't read any of the info, but do you have to completely disassemble the set?  Breaking down Lego sets is not near as fun as putting them together, in fact it sucks.

[junkrigger]

They say they sanitize the sets. That you can return a set with up to 10 missing pieces. The $15/ month only gives you access to sets with up to 250 pieces. To get the big sets it is $39/month. It sounds like they get their original inventory from their members.

Up to 10 missing pieces?  I can think of at least a hundred set where ten specific pieces are easily worth more than $39.  This will never work for any of the rare sets.

[Blackjack]

This isn't a serious discussion.  We're all just slamming a company we think will be a pathetic failure. 

[Darth_Raichu]

Up to 10 missing pieces?  I can think of at least a hundred set where ten specific pieces are easily worth more than $39.  This will never work for any of the rare sets.

I dare them to put Cloud Cuckoo Palace set for rent :D :D

[Pirate]

It'll be fine as long as a family is happy to receive a "Tower Bridge" that contains half it's original parts and half random replacement parts and cat hair.

Even assuming every single renter enters into this with the most honest of intentions, pieces will be lost at most rental stops, so that some poor schmoe wanting to build the actual set will find himself with dozens, maybe hundreds, of missing pieces that have been replaced with pieces of no use to him.

And their claim to be able to replace the correct missing pieces by weight would be adorable if it weren't so dumb it makes me worry about their ability to dress themselves and come in out of the rain.

 

 

I don't get all the hate and ignorance about their business model here.  They have had 15,000 subscribers, and have shipped out 75,000 sets in 10 months since inception.  That is phenomenal.  They just received 7 million dollars from some of the most respected VC firms out there.  Obviously there is a market for this service, whether it's for anyone here or not.  Obviously this could be incredibly profitable if done right.  For many families and situations, this is a great service.

 

These people have made a legitimate business around Lego and just got rewarded for it.  Half the people here would kill to be able to do that, and all everyone can do is ignorantly put it down for some reason.  It's not your thing, fine.  But they've proven it can work.  

 

Everyone here is missing the forest for the trees.  Missing pieces are inconsequential.  They can and will be replaced.  Figuring out a set is missing pieces or has the wrong pieces is not rocket science.  Charging customers who try to rip them off is not rocket science.   Cleaning bricks is not rocket science.  Smart people have already figured all this out, and it's all built into the business model, which I can only presume is pretty solid at this point, due to, you know, that 7 million dollar investment.  

 

Will it be successful and profitable in the end?  I dunno, that's up to them.  But they're certainly off to a good start.  Good for them!  

[iahawks550]

I find it interesting this company is profitable.

[legomaniac81]

I wonder if anybody has worked out how to unseal and reseal a Lego box without leaving any trace whatsoever.  If so, what's stopping them from replacing the pieces of a 10179 with the same weight in Mega Bollocks from eBay?  If not as if they buyer will open it to check it is as this set will probably be kept to "mature" a bit more.

 

 

with that being said, I just recently returned two set back to the lego store and they did not even look at the box and gave me a refund. For all they know I could have opened the box and loaded it with pebbles and some dirt. 

[justafrog]

Everyone here is missing the forest for the trees.  Missing pieces are inconsequential.  They can and will be replaced.  Figuring out a set is missing pieces or has the wrong pieces is not rocket science.  

 

It's not, but it is time consuming and can't be done by weighing the set. C'mon, that's just plain silly and deserves some mocking. Their pricing model does not allow for staff to re-count every set as it comes back.

 

The thread title asks whether this is a threat to the secondary market. It's not. Whether the company will still be in business in three years is of little interest to me - as a place advertising that you can build those huge fantastic sets at a fraction of the price, that's going to prove blatantly untrue.

 

Me: "I think I'd like to build the Death Star!" Orders from Pleygo.

Me, four days later: "Hmm, missing six pieces on step 3." Notifies Pleygo, Pleygo cheerfully ships me the parts.

Me, four days later: "Hmm, missing nine more pieces on step 8!" Notified Pleygo, Pleygo cheerfully ships me the parts.

Me, 256 days later: "Hmm, missing twenty-seven pieces on step 143!" Shoots self.

 

Now, for a kid who would like to receive a random bundle of LEGO parts to play with for awhile before he exchanges them for another random bundle of LEGO parts, might be a swell thing.

 

Not going to be all that many of those kids out there. This service will mostly appeal to cheap parents, parents who don't want to step on LEGO so are glad to regularly mail them back, and gullible grandparents.

[p8nt4lyfe]

I had tried their Pleygo service when it first came out last year, but it took them 4.5 weeks to ship me one of the 8 "mega" sets that I had picked out.  The one I finally got "Arkham Asylum Breakout" had a lot of new sealed bags and a bunch of strange bag duplicates...meaning I had well over 200 pieces left after finishing.  I swiftly cancelled my subscription and got a refund, which they were very helpful with.

 

I'm not too OCD, but when I pay for Lego sets I'm partially paying to not have to figure out if all the pieces are actually included...  If anything, I'd imagine a service like this potentially hurting peoples perception of Lego brand sets and their consistency for accurate part counts.  Hopefully the kids of tomorrow don't give up on Lego because of frustration/missing pieces.

 

On the same note, I imagine most people will cancel their subscription when they realize that they are spending more time counting parts than they are building.  We'll see if Pley lasts, but I for one won't be giving them my money.

[Migration]

It's not, but it is time consuming and can't be done by weighing the set. C'mon, that's just plain silly and deserves some mocking. Their pricing model does not allow for staff to re-count every set as it comes back.

 

The thread title asks whether this is a threat to the secondary market. It's not. Whether the company will still be in business in three years is of little interest to me - as a place advertising that you can build those huge fantastic sets at a fraction of the price, that's going to prove blatantly untrue.

 

Me: "I think I'd like to build the Death Star!" Orders from Pleygo.

Me, four days later: "Hmm, missing six pieces on step 3." Notifies Pleygo, Pleygo cheerfully ships me the parts.

Me, four days later: "Hmm, missing nine more pieces on step 8!" Notified Pleygo, Pleygo cheerfully ships me the parts.

Me, 256 days later: "Hmm, missing twenty-seven pieces on step 143!" Shoots self.

 

Now, for a kid who would like to receive a random bundle of LEGO parts to play with for awhile before he exchanges them for another random bundle of LEGO parts, might be a swell thing.

 

Not going to be all that many of those kids out there. This service will mostly appeal to cheap parents, parents who don't want to step on LEGO so are glad to regularly mail them back, and gullible grandparents.

Of course if you kept the DS that long Pleygo would be happily billing you for those eight months and you could have bought your own DS for that.

[cissi]

cheap parents

AGREED!

[kiltyoneal]

Disassembling a set seems like an expensive, labor intensive process.  I assume this responsibility of separating the pieces falls on the company.  I'd hate to be the one that has that job.

[Stevenplays]

I decided to try out Pleygo, received a set with a broken piece, wrong helmet piece, missing 7 large, 3 small pieces, and a figure was missing a hand. 6 pieces looked to have been chewed on, and the instructions were in horrid condition. Decided to report the missing pieces, glad I used an old gift card for the free trial, they tried to charge me for the missing pieces. What a bunch of bull. Would NOT recommend Pleygo. Save the money that you would pay every month, and you'll have anywhere from 180(basic plan) to 468 (large plan) to spend on your real LEGOS. The price is too right for it to be recommended.

[Ed Mack]

It would appear that the owners of this company were very good at selling their "process."  I think all of us experienced LEGO builders know that it is impossible to weigh  these sets to tell if a piece is missing or incorrect.  I can see many of these used sets getting more and more "contaminated" with improper pieces over time unless an actual inventory is done by a person.  

 

While I believe there is some merit to this type of business model, making it work over time will have to be proven.  Minimum wages are going up and a company like this will be hit hard by those sorts of added costs.  This is a very labor intensive idea to do correctly.

 

While I don't think this will be a positive to the LEGO secondary market, it won't be that much of negative either.  Many parents who will use this service probably weren't going to break the bank to buy a set on eBay or Amazon for Little Johnny or Jenny in the first place.

[Brickshopper]

Could you a normal person imagine renting a puzzle or a children's toy. Or better yet would you want a puzzle or toy that someone else has rented...

[kiltyoneal]

I wonder how they handle stickers.  Does each renter get a new set of stickers to apply?  Does the company have to remove the old stickers when they get the set back?

 

Pley claims they can have a set processed and ready to ship out to another renter in 2.5 minutes.  That doesn't pass the smell test to me.

 

Also, from looking at their Facebook page, they seem to be receiving a lot of complaints about wait times and customer service.

[krayzie]

I wonder how they handle stickers.  Does each renter get a new set of stickers to apply?  Does the company have to remove the old stickers when they get the set back?

 

Pley claims they can have a set processed and ready to ship out to another renter in 2.5 minutes.  That doesn't pass the smell test to me.

 

Also, from looking at their Facebook page, they seem to be receiving a lot of complaints about wait times and customer service.

2.5 minutes must not include cleaning...

[Migration]

2.5 minutes to weigh and hose down with Lysol.

[mcortez]

Two sets with identical part counts (complete in box) will not way the same, at least not down to 1/100th of a gram like they mention.  Hell grab 4 CMF packets that all have the same figure in them and way them on a scale that goes out to 100ths of a gram -- you will get at least 3 different weights back.  At that level, just moisture in the instructions/pamphlets/box will throw a couple 10ths of a gram one way or another -- not to mention actual debris the sets will pickup from play.

 

But the general idea of toy rental -- I can see it working.  If the price was right.  One of the things that got netflix where it is, were people that weren't taking full advantage of rent, view, return as fast as possible to get the most discs each month.  Millions of subscribers would get a disc, watch it, and then leave it laying around for weeks before dropping it back in the mail.  They're also banking on the "what if I want to keep it" situation, where they'll happily sell you the toy.  How many toys are going to end up being bought because the kid throws a fit when the parent goes to send it back.  But educational toys, maybe things like the microscopes and telescopes, and other age appropriate toys that kids usually only play with for a couple of months before getting bored of them -- those could work in this model...

 

This of course, is until you get some creep specifically adds something to sets that is harmful to children and then returns them.  The whole thing will implode the first time a kid DIES because of something the previous renter returned in the box.  Heck here in the forums, a BP member had to deal with an ebay mom claiming the LEGOs he sold them were giving her kid a rash.  My glass is officially half-empty on this business model.

 

And to those that argue, it's obviously a success since they were able to get venture capital -- I ask you to take a look back at 1998-2004 -- the DotCom boom and bust, thousands of companies landed billions of dollars of VC for businesses that either never shipped a product, or failed soon after products started shipping.  Getting VC is not an indicator of a successful business plan, unless your plan was simply to get VC to have a never ending happy-hour celebration at work and buy yourself a new Porsche every month until you can't score any more rounds of VC...

[stephen_rockefeller]

Does it bother anyone else that the founder uses the term LEGOs? The commercial sounded like amateur hour.

[Ed Mack]

Two sets with identical part counts (complete in box) will not way the same, at least not down to 1/100th of a gram like they mention.  Hell grab 4 CMF packets that all have the same figure in them and way them on a scale that goes out to 100ths of a gram -- you will get at least 3 different weights back.  At that level, just moisture in the instructions/pamphlets/box will throw a couple 10ths of a gram one way or another -- not to mention actual debris the sets will pickup from play.

 

But the general idea of toy rental -- I can see it working.  If the price was right.  One of the things that got netflix where it is, were people that weren't taking full advantage of rent, view, return as fast as possible to get the most discs each month.  Millions of subscribers would get a disc, watch it, and then leave it laying around for weeks before dropping it back in the mail.  They're also banking on the "what if I want to keep it" situation, where they'll happily sell you the toy.  How many toys are going to end up being bought because the kid throws a fit when the parent goes to send it back.  But educational toys, maybe things like the microscopes and telescopes, and other age appropriate toys that kids usually only play with for a couple of months before getting bored of them -- those could work in this model...

 

This of course, is until you get some creep specifically adds something to sets that is harmful to children and then returns them.  The whole thing will implode the first time a kid DIES because of something the previous renter returned in the box.  Heck here in the forums, a BP member had to deal with an ebay mom claiming the LEGOs he sold them were giving her kid a rash.  My glass is officially half-empty on this business model.

 

And to those that argue, it's obviously a success since they were able to get venture capital -- I ask you to take a look back at 1998-2004 -- the DotCom boom and bust, thousands of companies landed billions of dollars of VC for businesses that either never shipped a product, or failed soon after products started shipping.  Getting VC is not an indicator of a successful business plan, unless your plan was simply to get VC to have a never ending happy-hour celebration at work and buy yourself a new Porsche every month until you can't score any more rounds of VC...

This is a great point.  You know how word of mouth spreads in today's social media...for good and bad.  What happens if they cannot clean these sets properly, or forget to?  What if people are allergic to the cleaning solution?  What happens if some knucklehead claims to catch a flu-like virus from these used sets?  What do you think LEGO would do if rumors started that people were getting sick from playing with LEGO sets?  

[No More Monkeys]

I'm sure strange people will get a thrill out of renting a set, jiggling it around in their shorts for a few and then sending it back.  Just like they currently do with Netflix discs.

Or with dollar bills...  :-)

[game]

Hello everyone, thought I would leave this here http://craftulate.com/2013/10/pleygo-review.html#   

Might want to scroll down to the comments section.

 

 

P.S. Thanks for always having great info guys!!!