It’s nothing new, but in case you missed it, The LEGO Group increased prices on a lot of sets in the US on 1 August 2022. Yeah, that stinks… You can see the full US list on the Brick Fanatics site here or see some of the price increases below.
The fan community has gone nuts about this with various members at the fan media and fans themselves voicing their dismay. While I’m not pleased, I can see why this needs to be done from a business perspective. Gas is expensive, food is expensive, and now LEGO is more expensive. If you want to learn more about it, then I highly recommend reading the article “Greed or Inflation? An Economic Analysis of LEGO Price Increases” from Bricknerd. It’s a good breakdown of what is going on and how The LEGO Group is looking at this from a business lens.
In the meantime, what can you do if you still want to be a fan of LEGO and pick up some of the great sets that you haven’t been able to get and now it’s even harder to get them?
1 - Check other retailers besides buying straight from LEGO. A quick scan of Walmart.com and Amazon.com over the past few days shows that they haven’t raised prices on all of the sets like LEGO has. This doesn’t apply to every set so look carefully, but you can still get a few at the pre-1 August 2022 pricing for now.
2 - Wait for sales. If you’ve paid attention to the news at all, retailers have been struggling with bulging inventories. I’m not sure if that counts for LEGO or not, but hopefully it does. We’ve seen LEGO throw in some additional Double VIP point periods and add in more gift with purchase opportunities. They even had sales on Amazon Prime day which I don’t recall happening before. With the downturn that we’re starting to see, if LEGO and other retailers can’t sell sets, they may have to cut prices. This could mean just back to the pre-1 August prices or better, so no complaints there.
3 - Be smart about timing purchases. If a new set is coming out and you “must have it,” why can’t you delay getting it? Focus on the set you’ve been looking to get that is closer to retirement. Let the initial rush happen and then get it on a later date.
4 - Enjoy the sets you have. I move a lot and my full collection is not all out for the world to see. Every so often, I take the opportunity to pull a set out of a box in a closet and rebuild it. I recently rebuilt some Architecture sets that I bought around 5 years ago and it was cool to see them back together. If you’re really creative, find another way to put them back together. Make the modular building into a different building or re-design that car.
5 - Vote with your wallet. If the new pricing on LEGO sets upsets you that much, stop buying LEGO sets. The LEGO Group will quickly get the hint if no one is buying their products. They will adjust to keep sales up. If lots of people follow you and don’t buy, I suspect The LEGO Group will reconsider how it is doing business.
6 - Use your hobby to fund your hobby. As a Bricklink store owner, I give 15% of my profits to charity. I also use funds from my store to fund my LEGO addiction. Is there a way you can do this too? Sell old sets you don’t want? Buy new and hold until it retires? Sell parts? Design MOCs for people?
7 - Build digitally. You can use Stud.io in Bricklink to build all you want. It comes with unlimited parts and more parts than are in production. You can design MOCs or get set instructions online and build that way. I know it’s not the same, but it’s much cheaper.
8 - Build with a friend or share with a friend. Do you have a friend with the set? Will they let you take it apart and rebuild it on your own so you can experience the build? Did they just buy it and will they let you build it with them? Or spun the other way, did you just get a set that someone else wanted, but maybe can’t afford yet? Ask if they want to join you for the build.
If you think of any other ideas, let me know and I’ll add them to this post. We can get through this friends!
In the meantime, happy building!
