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Showing content with the highest reputation on 09/19/2017 in all areas

  1. Not today but a couple days ago. Proposed on the London Eye (they have a package deal for you) She said yes. She puts up with me and lego so it was a no brainer!
    11 points
  2. The store displays play an interesting function for LEGO. Their presence is largely disproportional compared to the core audience of kids, and while their primary function in most cases is not promoting their own sales, it is still an important factor. Actually, my company did research on this, and it can be mainly attributed to the following: Draws attention of adults, even if not being AFOLs. As a result, their patience to enter and spend time in a toy store is increased, which adds to the likelihood of a successful sale. Parents seeing that complex adult targeted offerings are available, the toy is considered to be more mature than the competitors. This creates the perception that it helps more to develop the kids. These days this is a very important selling point. Sets goals to the kids. It shows that there will be more and better when they grow, and kids always want to play with stuff that adults use. Once kids know that adults also play LEGO, the desirability is increased, so they can be perceived more mature among their peers. Relatively cheap and easy to change decoration for the company. Displays promote impulse buying. To be an impulse buyer you need cash, and who has cash? Adults. An adult impulse buying a T1 or a falcon is much more likely than a kid doing that with a police station. This all sounds mumbo jumbo, but the underlying, often subconscious, psychological influences play a very large role in product sales. LEGO is no different.
    8 points
  3. Picked this up while breaking my keyboard ordering 75192. Thought I'd share some pictures of the wallmount that I did. Ended up taking down my support structure for the UCS Tie Fighter and harvesting those pieces and a few others I had lying around. The bottom support bears the entire weight of the set while the upper support is purely for stability. Both are on Stage 1, so playtability and "show and tell" are not adversely affected. Next step...lights!
    7 points
  4. Going to Toys R Us is a miserable experience for my kids. They see all this crap they want and their Daddy says, "Let me check Amazon" or "Wait for a sale, you don't need that right now."
    7 points
  5. And the company can get it wrong, as it did many times. No, I am not expecting soccer moms stashing away unopened boxes. First, what matters for a success of a major non-necessity product is mind share and public perception. In the recent years LEGO has been perceived as a premium product, that has a good value even being used. People don't need to have the intention to sell it, it is enough if they know that they can sell it if they want to. That is the important bit here, which changes the nature of the purchase. Instead of burning money, you are still at your money when purchasing. All the articles and social media feedback ensured that people knew this. This has a huge influence on purchasing decisions, even if just subconsciously. Second, LEGO overshooting and mismanaging its product pipeline is mostly a separate issue. They missed the focus and fail to notice some trends. They were too late with catering to the adult market, and were releasing too much dinky crap (Nexo, SH Girls, Chima, etc.). These fail to pass the 'parent test', where they are approved for purchase. In many families purchase of a large LEGO set is a significant expense and gets considered carefully which one to buy. The enduring popularity of classic and ordinary themes such as Creator, City, Friends and a few SW sets are clearly explained by the parent influence on purchasing decisions. Third, nobody realizes that people are getting tired of Star Wars and Super Heroes by now. An endless wave of movies, accompanied by sets of questionable design quality. The SW and Marvel brands are squeezed dry by Disney, there is just too many movies and other products coming. The people cannot keep up anymore by the new heroes and vehicles, and are losing interest. Less is more, but the managers have to show the profits now for the fat bonus. Disney is not killing these by quality, but by quantity, and the signs are alarming already. LEGO is caught up in this disease big time, and the amount of sets they cannot get rid of even with a 50% discount is shocking. LEGO should at least halve the amount of sets in these themes and put more effort into the design. Fourth, the market research they do is a glorious mess, the whole department should be fired. Consecutively misses the mark in terms of which sets should be advertised and produced in large quantity. The literal gold mines are left unexploited. Millions were spent on marketing Nexo, however it is the sets like the Saturn V that already should have TV ads and mass production to capitalize on the public reception. That could be toy of the year this Christmas, but the company has grown too incompetent to catch on. And from which dark hole did they get the stupid idea that anybody would want SH Girls? Seriously.
    5 points
  6. If Toysrus goes under it would be a real tragedy, and the retail landscape will be forever changed for the worse. There is no substitute for going to a store devoted to only toys as a kid. It's the last of its kind. I hope they survive the bankruptcy, tweak their business model, and are around long enough for me to take my grandkids there to shop.
    4 points
  7. Within 2-3 years TRU won't exist as we currently know it (at least in the U.S.). They'll get through this round of bankruptcy, but in 2 years when the rest of their $5 billion in debt comes due, they'll be done.
    4 points
  8. September 19th 1985 was the day of the Great Earthquate that destroyed most of México city... Me and my family were there on vacations and just left the city the night before.... the hotel where we stayed fell down.. as most of the downtown sold buildings did. It was a 8.2 earthquake in Richter scale.. Today 32 years later to the day, a strong 7.2 earthquake shocked México City Again at 1.14 PM Central. Damage to the city is considerable. Send a prayer to those in need today... IMG_1048.MOV IMG_1047.MOV IMG_1049.MOV
    3 points
  9. Just going to leave these here (both in store and on the forum):
    3 points
  10. So the 100 London ones are basically useless pieces of high-priced collector memorabilia and it´s the postal copies that are useful for the promos and accumulate VIP points that are worthless? Got it.
    3 points
  11. 3 points
  12. Did they chip in based on the RRP and you pocketed the other 50%? LOL
    3 points
  13. "Restructuring that debt would give Toys R Us the financial flexibility to continue its turnaround. Initiatives include improving its website and revamping its Babies R Us business, by focusing on items like cribs that are less likely than diapers to be sold on Amazon." Two thoughts: 1) you have to file chapter 11 to improve a web site? Basic ecomerce isn't complex like healthcare.gov, folks. 2) I've spent way more money on diapers than cribs at bru. After all, I don't suddenly run out of cribs and have to make an emergency run to find cribs. But I shop around for car seats and buy them on Amazon or whoever is cheaper.
    3 points
  14. Your kids must have the same Dad as mine.
    3 points
  15. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/storyline/wp/2014/09/12/the-postal-service-is-losing-millions-a-year-to-help-you-buy-cheap-stuff-from-china/ sadly I can't remember the last time I went to TRU with my kids. I would go every xmas when shopping... they were still a decent place to shop for video games and browse Lego and Thomas The Train. In recent years I would only go looking for the Masterpiece Transformers for which they have the US exclusive on.
    3 points
  16. Lego stores are also amazon.com's showroom?
    3 points
  17. I will find it sad when Barnes and Noble is still in business and Toys R Us isn't.
    3 points
  18. Some highlights before the storm. BrickLink 2x Snow globes @ $29 each 1x cmf17 elf girl @ $4 2x Storm trooper minifigs @ $3.59 each 5x Wonder Woman Dimm minifigs @ $7 each 30315 space poly @ $5.49 30446 bay mobile polys at $5.75 30447 cpt America polys at $5.50 30448 Symbiate polys at $7.20 3x Skull Warriors @ $8.32 each Arias creative workshop @ $10.99 Artic helicrane $40 10680 garbage truck $24 Bulldozers @ $30 76059 Doc Oct $29.69 Someone in the shelving thread gave me a hard time about buying 9x 60118 Garbage trucks for $15 back in January. They sat on my plastic shelves for 8 months and sold them all at $29 a piece. And I'm still here =)
    3 points
  19. Gosh why are you still talking and why aren't you clearing out the entire AWD inventory.
    2 points
  20. Yes, I had a similar experience with ordering the Saturn V. I ordered on June 1st. Estimate was June 21 if I remember correctly. Got it on June 9. Well, I don't want to inflict any false hope, but that is what happened.
    2 points
  21. This is a one-way ticket to a cash infusion.
    2 points
  22. They want to clear them, they just don´t know how.
    2 points
  23. Usually they ship well ahead of estimated date, in my experience at least.
    2 points
  24. depends if you want to continue 'as is' or if you are trying to start over as something new. The damage done to a brand through Bankruptcy Chapter 7 is very hard to undo in the eyes of customers. The problem with TRU is apparently this round isn't even the worst of the upcoming debt. 2019 is even worse. It boils down to if you can get the debtors to agree to a debt exchange that makes sense vs what you are willing to pay for the assets. It is "You are owed 100.. but you'll never see that... so I'll offer you 30 and you can cut your losses" - but if the debtor thinks they can get more in liquidation, they will hold out for more money. If you are buying a brand and want to continue operations, you want to pay the least without imploding the company in front of your future customers... which normally means a debt for equity exchange plus some payout. But big retail is one of the worst outlook areas in the sector now... unless you have some new genius idea in retail, not sure who wants to take on billions in debt, to spend another billion or so modernizing a retail chain... in a hope to make money in the future in a segment that is being brow beat by competition with a completely different cost structure that you can't come anywhere near touching.
    2 points
  25. Those things would actually help them. Ice hockey has really taken off in Cali and swimming pools have always been popular in Canada. We do have summers here. What we don't do here is leveraged buyouts for no purpose that add $7 billion in debt at a time when Amazon is using debt to expand their business rather than the pockets of lawyers and consultants.
    2 points
  26. https://shop.lego.com/en-US/LEGO-NASA-Apollo-Saturn-V-21309
    2 points
  27. Apollo available at Lego Shop @ Home right now.
    2 points
  28. I think it depends person to person. I personally wouldn't be able to stand having that many models on display in my small condo, but if i had a whole empty room maybe. Even so i take the "less is more" approach to displaying my sets. I like to have a handful out on display as to not make the place look cluttered and overwhelming. I don't see the desire to own both 10179 and 75192 and display them together no, but to each their own!
    2 points
  29. I don't have a B&N nearby, but we DO have a Books-a-Million... and if it sticks around beyond TRU... now THAT is sad.
    2 points
  30. 2 points
  31. Unless they're just keeping a ton of these in the warehouses (not normal), there's not a ton of stock out there for Walmart. Of the 4000 stores I searched, 14 have 5 in stock, 1 has 6, and 2 has 7. All the rest have 4 or less. Well, besides these two stores in Utah. These two stores are 20 miles apart. Walmart Supercenter #1686 in Taylorsville shows 53 in stock and Walmart Supercenter #3366 in Centerville shows 32 in stock. Not sure WTH is going on with those two stores, but the rest of the country is pretty much 0-2.
    2 points
  32. Anyone ever figure out how an eBay seller in China can sell something for $0.99 (with free shipping to the United States) and make a profit? The cheapest I could ship the same item across town is $2.61.
    2 points
  33. Toys R' Us is Amazon's showroom. Sound familiar?
    2 points
  34. Agree with everyone. I think I'm going to stay away from this one, even for my personal collection
    2 points
  35. Never said it was bread and butter. What's in the front window? Duplo? What's the first set you see entering the store? A 100 piece set? Add up the square feet of the displays and you will see that sets designed for adults and advanced builders take up a large and most important portion of store real estate. Nothing LEGO related most likely. Probably never built a set.
    2 points
  36. I believe I already used the term 'showcase' product previously in this thread. Chevy also puts the Corvette out in front of their dealerships... that doesn't make it the bread and butter of the business. They are the 'weenie' products placed there to grab eyes and attention. One display out of how many in the store again??
    2 points
  37. Sold a complete jurrassic world theme for 760.. Still have a few complete sets of this theme left..and i'm going to keep them for the long haul now. This theme has gone nowhere but up over the last year. Pretty have made all my money back by only selling out half my stock.
    2 points
  38. 2 points
  39. I know who pays my bills...just sayin' (Actually, you don't pay my bills either, but still...)
    2 points
  40. I just want to know what set she displays on her desk .
    2 points
  41. I will fire the mop guy if he mops anything. Just sayin'....
    2 points
  42. Just like most of us commoners this was just brought to light . Usually they are posted here ... I got to go milk the cows , be back later
    2 points
  43. 1 point
  44. Ready to list my first one, with all the talk of numbered cards and authenticity just wanted to make sure this looks legit?
    1 point
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