Leaderboard

Coming from the same guy who did this:

To control them all! Contract agreements with the other stores are the rings, my friends. There is a company Lie-Nielsen out of Maine. They make the worlds best wood planes and woodcrafting tools. Other stores carry some of their product, but they all have a strict contractual agreement about the price variations available. You will not find any sales of Lie Nielsen products in a hardware or woodworking store, and even the home company does not offer sales other than a coupon in the catalog or a seasonal special. Lie-Nielsen is very smart for controlling the prices this way. There is a limited amount of tools they can create, and they want to make sure buyers are not gravitated to any one source. When it comes down to actually purchasing a tool from there, there really isn't any choice. I either buy it for the retail price from the home store, or I buy it for the retail price from a local store. Each one is pretty much the same. Maybe I save on tax by ordering from Maine, or maybe I get it faster by ordering from a local store. Either way, I come off feeling the same way. I just bought a great tool at a high price. Anyway, if you look at how much Lego product is being carried by Walmart, Target, etc., there always seems to be an abundance of it. So it is a different monster, but the price contracting holds a more sinister purpose: control. Now I am not sure of this, but I would guess that the reason is that TLG agrees to not have discounted sales if the other retailers agree to buy a certain quantity of product. Target might not want 50 Jabba Barges for each store, but they will if TLG agree to keep the price up at their stores and allow Target to throw sales, and even sell at clearance levels. Target knows that no matter how many of an item they are required to buy from TLG, they will be able to unload it if TLG never drops their retail prices. If Lego started selling items at discounts, then the Targets and Walmarts would have stock stagnating longer than they do now, and might not agree to purchase those 50 Jabba Barges for each store. It is not a bad setup. Lego is assured of issuing large amounts of stock per Target stores, and Target is assured of pretty much selling all they agree to carry. Lego Group is more of a window shoppers display center to catch new enthusiasts and sell in malls or areas where there most likely isn't a Target connected. I like the Lego Store. I like buying at Target/Walmart. The Lego Group knows this. They planned it this way. They gave me a choice, though the choice isn't really a choice at all. I feel powerful because I can buy wherever I want and most likely find a bargain. This makes me happy. The Lego Group knows this. I get my precious Lego bricks and I am happy; the all-seeing eye of The Lego Group controlled both me and the store I purchased my precious from.

The real question is why are you away from this site for an hour!

This set will prob be gone by Christmas but i doubt all of LOTR series one will be, although they are getting harder to find and big box stores.

Nice. That was like Matrix part 2 where its all explained. It makes sense. But part of me knows... nobody really knows. Euro business models never make sense to me. But i also agree...a coupon or more robust VIP club reward is in order. Americans bite at a good deal or discount. Heck i just recently got into Lego themes i had no interest in only necsuse it started off as a good deal. Once a customer FEELS they got a good deal then theyll come back for more emotional satisfaction. (Note: TRU deals are not deals). I dont know if lego is trying to be a posh brand. Even Lexus had sale events. Its a toy afterall, not a status symbol. But i cant think of any ecplanations ad vlear as already stated.

http://www.bricklink.com/catalogItem.asp?P=973pb180 http://www.bricklink.com/catalogItem.asp?P=973pb177 I havent seen the yellow torso before and am not sure what's on it to search for. Didnt belong to the dino sets that I could see.

The reason we haven't been seeing any discounts on any of the larger "exclusives" is because TLG is no longer allowing those to be sold by anyone for less than the regular retail price. The same reason the 10% off coupons exclude all the hard to find and exclusive sets. The exclusives are a separate bunch of sets that TLG doesn't have to provide to retailers. So if you want to carry those items, you have to follow their rules.

I'd rather have this one:

Most non-exclusives last 1-2 years. Target stopped carrying Shelob in their stores early this summer. Walmarts in my area have clearanced them out and I haven't found any in awhile. Kmart doesn't seem to have any either. LEGO Shop at Home is probably going to continue to sell them until they are gone. EOL is pretty much based on sales and stock. They probably stopped producing this set a while ago but they are just riding off the stock left from that last run. If it takes a long time for Lego to sell all of their stock then it will be a while for it to go EOL. Some sets just don't move from retailers even after EOL like Weathertop which is still sitting on a bunch of Walmart shelves in my area at $40. Let doesn't just randomly pick EOL dates they just pick when to stop producing a set and then it may take a long or short time for it to go EOL based on the above factors.