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If one has unlimited capital, he should not be dealing in Lego. He should buy politicians and whatever else 0.01 percenters do...

I'm amazed that Emazer's decisions are still so influential on so many. He happily admits to only selling $20k per year to avoid receiving a 1099 from PayPal. Even if he doubled that on the side, there are plenty of people who are moving 5x+ of those numbers every year. Those are the people I'd want to be duplicating.

PM Jeff or I. I'm sure we can come up with a donation from BrickPicker to buy some sets or from my own personal stash. Even if you can give us an address, we can have Amazon deliver some....

Everyone has limits. Sent from my iPhone using Brickpicker

In looking at your pile I see that 15 of those are mine from my cancelled order. Please forward them on, thanks.

Brickpickers, A local boy is battling a rare form of bone cancer and has been quarantined in his house for months. His aunt is asking the community to cheer him up with a special Lego wonderland at his school. He was scheduled to make a trip to the Lego world headquarters in Denmark but that has been postponed due to recent setbacks. Read more here: http://www.toledoblade.com/local/2014/03/12/Lego-build-aims-to-cheer-ill-boy.html I am planning to donate some sealed sets but I wanted to ask if there was anyone else that would be willing to donate? The aunt's goal is 10,000 bricks. I am hoping that we can get enough support to turn this into a LEGO Flash Mob. Imagine how awesome it would be if we could send him dozens of sets to build and create with? If you have a set or two you are willing to donate, please PM me and I'll provide the address of their home or school. I think this is a great way to give back and demonstrate the strength and goodwill of the LEGO community. Thank you for the support. P.S. If this is the wrong forum for this sort of thing, please move this thread.

I met Gavin's Aunt today. I can't begin to tell you how happy she was to hear what everyone is doing for him. She was extremely grateful. She did give me Gavin's home address so I'll PM everyone that wanted to mail him something. I told her to warn his mom that some random packages will start arriving over the next couple of weeks :-) I also told her about the Death Star. She couldn't believe that either! $65 more until we reach our goal! She suggested that I wait until after the event is over tonight before making the purchase just in case he receives one. I will send her an email to see if he got one. He did receive some bigger sets, but not a Death Star from what I could tell. Here are some pictures from the event. I think this will be a birthday to remember :-)

That's because most people who are really successful at something don't need to tell everyone in a public forum exactly how much money they are making.

He talked me into it and I caved when he offered to pay for shipping. Here's what I get for $100:

While passing through.... K-Mart had Daily Bugle on clearance for $37 and additional 30% off. Picked up four. Also found Wal-Mart with $25 unexpected gatherings and $33 Goblin Kings. Really strange as I've never seen their clearance prices this low.

I don't think any bitterness is directly aimed at Iketart (or anyone else that scored $8 hearses), but more at Lego.com for canceling some orders (some presumably placed earlier, and most, significantly smaller) while filling other, larger orders. Another example of their inconsistent ordering process!

I wasn't surprised. Everytime someone brought the set up in conversation, I kept harping on about all the little details going for it but did anyone listen?

I'm listening to eBay staff in a seminar right now, and it appears that the "new" tracking requirement is that you upload the tracking number within your handling time, but the "scan" requirement for the USPS can be at ANY point along the delivery time between you and the buyer. I.e, if your post office misses doing an acceptance/departure scan and the item gets scanned two days later in the sorting center, or doesn't get scanned till it gets delivered, eBay is saying that will satisfy their requirement. I hope that's right, it is straight from the horse's mouth (the guy in charge of shipping metrics at eBay).

I see a few reasons: 1. Some people have online stores that benefit from a breadth of product line and use it as a differentiator. 2. Small sets are easier to buy since they're not as expensive. 3. There are very few large sets from Super Heroes, TMNT, Friends, Ninjago, Lord of the Rings and Hobbit sets, popular themes for most investors. 4. It's easier for small sets to earn strong ROI since their cost bases are smaller.

I was walking through Walmart for clearances, found nothing. i was about to leave but saw a worker returning a LEGO box to the shelf. the box looked different than anything else. He kept looking for a space for the LEGO but couldn't find it so just put it in an empty space. I quickly swooped in to look at it. It was the LEGO Batman - The Batmobile: Ultimate Collectors' Edition 7784. unbelievable! its 7 years old! the guy couldn't scan it and had to look it up $45. Question for members, the box is very beat up and there is scotch tape on the sides. the seals look in place. should i open it up to confirm it has everything or weigh it and see if it weighs what it should? would like to keep for investment.

tdw, you can specify that sets must be returned unopened and eBay will back you on that. Kids aren't going to wait to rip into their LEGO until Mom or Dad finds a sale after Christmas. The return bogeyman is nothing to be afraid of. A certain number of returns will happen, but most people are too honest, too lazy, or, most of all, just plain don't care enough to pull sparkly shenanigans with returns. The few who are a problem are a cost of doing business that can be added to all your other costs and split amongst all your customers. Any time you and your competitors are dealing with the same challenges, you have the opportunity to do as well as or better than they do, it just depends on your smarts and your willingness to find the best way. Its only when your competitors gain an actual advantage over you that you have to worry and pedal faster or think a lot harder or find a way to get an advantage over them. eBay is a level playing field among like sellers - the diamond sellers like TRU have their type of challenges, the top rated plus sellers another type, the riff raff yet another.

That's the crazy part. Instead of trying and failing to get cute with "ohhhh, this guy bought 4 of this over a 3 month period and has shifty eyes, he's clearly a reseller!" versus "Oh, 90 in this order? no problem, clearly wants to build a fleet of hearses for his handicapped children!" I wish LEGO would do the sane thing, like, for example, Amazon does, and just put a true and non-entrapment limit per sets, with or without the "refresh" a week or whenever to allow the same person to buy more. It's just the nuttiest system.

Wizard Battle! Who doesn't like a break dancing wizard?

Only 60% of my Vh came today, but wanted to take a pic anyways! Also got a a few more martian manhunters to add to my collection of 40

Wondering the same about sears.com...

Thanks for all the updates and your opinion frog. i'm not too concerned about this round of seller updates from ebay. The main bother is trying to keep up with them and adapting. I'm more excited to get my TRS back next month after losing it for 3 months over uploading tracking. Use vacation setting when going on vacation, doh!!

We only need $110 more to reach our Death Star goal! I'll PM everyone with the paypal address once we he hit the goal. For those of you who pledged sets, I'll PM you the shipping address tonight. You guys are awesome. I'll try and take some pictures of the surprise birthday event and post them later tonight.

We are up to $140 for the Death Star. That's incredible! If you would like to donate to the DS fund, please PM me with the amount you'd like to give. I'll coordinate everything once we hit our goal. In the meantime, I'll be heading to the event tonight to give him a set from our personal collection, meet the family, and try and gather some intel for what other kinds of sets he might need, want...or better yet, DREAM of having. Thanks to all who have pledged so far. Keep spreading the word out!

^ This is probably the big reason for it, I hadn't thought about it, but it makes sense, you do see a lot more hauls of people robbing their local stores of small sets than the large ones.

Here is a quick rundown of what everyone has pledged. This is a pretty impressive list for just one day of awareness. lego rules - misc. set Bold-arrow - misc. set brickinifinite - misc. set brickcrazyhouse - mixels (set of 9) exciter1 - Captain America vs Hydra, Doc Ock Truck Heist isocleas - Chima, Hero Factory, Star Wars, Super Heroes holleman67 - spidey cycle or Sponge Bob leaningjowler - one or more of..Ultra Striker, Corporate Alliance Tank Droid, Spidey Cycle DirtyZ - $20 DS donation BrickLegacy - Millenium Falcon + $20 DS Donation Ed Mack - BP donation or a few personal sets Quacs - $20 DS donation Let me know if I missed anyone or if I need to make any updates to this list. So far we have at least a dozen sets and $60 towards the Death Star! Thanks to everyone for their support!

Darn it frog, I'm a doctor, not a rocket technician ;)

Hey, anyone who disagrees is free to opt out of TRS plus for November and December. For me as for many sellers those are my two best months, so I don't mind at all how many of my competition fear the 90 day window and give up their search position (and it's only 90 days if they buy on Nov. 1, it gets shorter and shorter as the season progresses). In fact, in retrospect, you're all right - the eBay return window is FATAL. Be sure to opt out of TRS plus.

I own a calculator, so it's hard to trick me one way or the other. Add up costs, compare prices, it's not rocket surgery.

^ What seapotato said! It's not a be all end all (i've seen some deals posted here quicker than there) but it's just another thing i check. i believe they have a Lego megathread, so i just check the recent posts in there.

Red flag deals is basically just run by deal hunters. It is updated frequently, basically as soon as someone catches a whiff of a deal. Sent from my iPod touch using Brickpicker

frog - I do agree with you that a lot of parents will be lazy or simply don't care about the money but as someone else has already said some parents will let the kids open the set they rx'd and then find it after xmas and send that item back to the ebay seller. Even lazy has a $ amount where hey that is worth my while. I am not normally a flipper so I am not impacted much by this but I will have to think about whether to opt in or out on any sets that I would flip in Nov and Dec (I'm currently leaning towards out on any potential flips). Who wants to sell the next minecraft which they paid $35 and sell it for $100 to return a month plus later when anyone can get it for the $35. How about an AS that sold for $100-200 over MSRP during the xmas craze? How many sellers would want those back if Lego made them available in Jan? The seller is out any potential profit and now has to sit on the set until it is retired or the price goes up due to another shortage. This should really cause a problem for the folks (game consoles, etc) where you are looking at $100s of dollars of a markup during the xmas craze. I think even lazy parents become less lazy when they can buy the item at a local store or even online in Jan and return it to the ebay seller and save quite a bit even after losing out on postage (to and from).

Agree completely. If I bought 10 at $8 and he bought 100 $8 it makes no difference. We bought it at the same price and I can make the same profit or more profit on a per item basis. Wal-mart and other large retailers are able to purchase at lower prices from distributors and sell at a lower price and still make more profit. Not a good comparison.

If I sell multiple items with free shipping to a single buyer, and they ask, I will still take a bit off the total to reflect my shipping savings. They have to ask though. Most don't.

From a buyers point of view: When I look for something I sort by total price anyway - so free shipping doesn't make a difference there. And, as already stated, when you sell multiple things free shipping might be not as good. On the other hand, selling multiple things to one buyer when you had free shipping gives you a bonus, as you probably calculated the shipping cost into each of the items, and this way you as seller get the savings. No one can complain, as shipping was free anyway. No questions about combining shipping either.

I've had buyers complain about shipping costs many times (I use calculated shipping so it's not like I make anything on it), when I offer free shipping with a BIN they don't complain, at least not about shipping costs. Just makes things simpler on my end to offer it. As a buyer, I don't mind free shipping because it makes it easier to see my total cost and I don't have to worry about a low price with extraordinary shipping costs. Then again I don't buy much on eBay.

There is nothing stopping them from buying their presents from you, giving them to the kids, and then waiting for the re-stock / clearance cycle and returning the item they just paid 30% less for to you.

But I'm still not in competition with someone like that. Not real competition. I'm not going to make a dent in his sales, and he's really not going to affect mine. He's not going to flood the market to price me out. Rather, he accepts risk I don't have to take - I can monitor the prices, and wait for the right time to sell my one or two items (if I've got one or two items to sell that match his 99 items). He's the one that has to store and offload 99 of them. I only have to store one or two, and wait until the time is right. Absolutely my point, actually. Just because he got 99 VHs, doesn't mean that I won't pick up 99 of something else. He may not have the capital to invest in 99 of something else, while I do. In the end, the line is so diverse, that we can find our niches and our likes and dislikes, without stepping on each other. While many of us are jumping on Spidey Cycle, I'm not investing a penny in it. Am I foolish? I have no idea. But I have no interest in it. It doesn't match my investment goals and strategies. You can't go into this expecting to buy everything, so I'll let him have his VHs, and be happy for him.

Chima: -Ultra Striker -Worriz Combat Lair -Gorilla striker Hero Factory: -Speeda Demon (6231) Star Wars: - Republic Striker-class starfighter (9497) -Palpatine's arrest Super Heroes: -Spidey Cycle -Funhouse Escape I can send any of these, let me know if others already have committed to some.

There were people who placed hearse orders before ike. Before it was even reported to BP. Yet their orders were cancelled, while someone else's later and bigger orders got filled. People don't like how TLC handled it, not specific people orders.

I can send a Captain America vs. Hydra and Doc Ock Truck Heist.

Read the beginning of the thread please....

River, use a scan form. You can get them to print whether you're using eBay shipping, PayPal, stamps.com, etc. It puts all your packages on one form so that the post office only has to scan one sheet of paper and everything is scanned. You need to use the bulk shipping feature of whatever postage system you're using, and the scan form will be an option.

Reading all this is bound to make many small timers give up. People can say competition doesn't make a difference, but you simply can't compete with those numbers. It is much like a small business competing with Amazon & Walmart.

Lego is always very fair and accurate when determining who is a reseller for the ban hammer. (I wish I had the guts to go for broke and order like that. I'm such a sissy.)

I think the 6 & 8 year olds have the right idea. They don't care about Marvel this or DC that. They just like Superheroes! That's the way to be. Not to mention they are the target market. So perhaps you're being to hard on yourself calling it a mistake.

I'd buy a MM/Avengers set.

The collective super hero knowledge on this forum = fail. Martian Manhunter in the "Marvel" game?

You're welcome and thank you for letting me know about the bad links. I must have typed the wrong number in the first place but they should be fixed now.

The only difference between someone clearing out all the shelves today v Black Friday is the media/social hype. I honestly don't blame people for playing it smart as long as they don't have an unfair advantage. I do some real estate business on the side and whenever I find a good deal I go for it, if I was to let it slide in hope that a more needing person might or might not make an offer on it, then I would have to stop calling it a business and turn it into a hobby. Just my 2 cents

Lies. We all know you clubbed several children and the two other investors over the heads with Nerf Bats, scooped up all the Lego on all the aisles (everyone wants to know how you stack up 200 sets in your arms at once...) and ran, chortling evilly, to the cashier, whose family you threatened if she wouldn't let you buy everything. (Seriously, though, that's a cool way to handle things with the other investors present, will have to remember that one if I find myself in line waiting for a store to open on sale day.)