Lego to open 160 new stores as other toy retailers suffer • Hacker News Board

Re: Lego to open 160 new stores as other toy retailers suffer

#91

Post by wodenokoto » Thu, Sep 05, 2019, 10:21 AM UTC

Symbiote wrote: post #86

9nGQluzmnq3M wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, give me a break. Every Lego Star Wars or Ninjago set my kids have gotten has long since been dismantled and reassembled into new creations.

It is reasonable to say that 2019's "Star Wars" is commercial, but the 1990s "Space" sets weren't commercial. Some parents prefer not to have brands or advertising within their children's toys, and Lego used to be free from this influence.

No, it is not reasonable to say 'the 1990s "Space" sets weren't commercial.'

Of course they were commercial. They did a space theme because they thought it would sell, just like they are now doing Star Wars because they sell.

Re: Lego to open 160 new stores as other toy retailers suffer

#92

Post by martin_a » Thu, Sep 05, 2019, 10:25 AM UTC

kuschku wrote: post #82

martin_a wrote: post #55

Lego is becoming more and more of a scumbag company. First hit this year was that they sued a small Lego shop in Frankfurt called "Held der Steine". His logo was a standing brick, but it could have been any brick, no Lego logo was seen or whatnot. They sued him for infringement of their trademarks anyway. That gave quite a huge media wave, I think the video of "Held der Steine" on YouTube where he lays out what happe…

> First hit this year was that they sued a small Lego shop in Frankfurt called "Held der Steine". His logo was a standing brick, but it could have been any brick, no Lego logo was seen or whatnot. They sued him for infringement of their trademarks anyway. That gave quite a huge media wave, I think the video of "Held der Steine" on YouTube where he lays out what happened has seven figure views. He tried to trademark t…

Where's the line in "looks like LEGO trademarks"? There are lots of brick systems out there and they all look somewhat similar to Lego.

Re: Lego to open 160 new stores as other toy retailers suffer

#93

Post by bhouston » Thu, Sep 05, 2019, 10:40 AM UTC

duxup wrote: post #32

In my experience the actual Lego stores ... are terrible price wise. Everything is solidly MSRP, I've yet to see a good sale from them. Sales online and local retail shops are far better pricing wise. Although I've visited the local Lego store, I don't really need to visit to get a good feel for a given product, and the prices mean I don't buy anything.

This means though it is great for their margin. There is no distributor cut and usually no discounting. Thus they have likely identified that they make the most profit from their own stores rather than from other distributors (WalMart, ToysRUs) and thus they should increase flow in their own stores.

Also less competing products, distractions.

I think Lego stores are not for the price sensitive Lego buyer but for those buying for someone else. These are less informed buyers.

Re: Lego to open 160 new stores as other toy retailers suffer

#94

Post by Tomte » Thu, Sep 05, 2019, 10:50 AM UTC

sethammons wrote: post #90

martin_bech wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thats not completely true, I know people at LEGO, and the best selling sets are Legos own Lego City and Lego Friends.

Best selling doesn't necessarily mean most profitable.

Profits are certainly higher with Friends and City than with Star Wars. Lego saves a lot on licensing there. And the Star Wars sets are a bit more pricey, but per piece the difference isn't that big.

Re: Lego to open 160 new stores as other toy retailers suffer

#95

Post by jonathanlydall » Thu, Sep 05, 2019, 10:52 AM UTC

sethammons wrote: post #90

martin_bech wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thats not completely true, I know people at LEGO, and the best selling sets are Legos own Lego City and Lego Friends.

Best selling doesn't necessarily mean most profitable.

It seems unlikely that they are making more profit per licensed set because they are likely having to pay a cut to a third party (for example, Disney gets a cut of each Star Wars set sold).

So if their license free sets sell better, then it would stand to reason they make more profit off of these.

Re: Lego to open 160 new stores as other toy retailers suffer

#96

Post by kuschku » Thu, Sep 05, 2019, 10:57 AM UTC

martin_a wrote: post #92

kuschku wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> First hit this year was that they sued a small Lego shop in Frankfurt called "Held der Steine". His logo was a standing brick, but it could have been any brick, no Lego logo was seen or whatnot. They sued him for infringement of their trademarks anyway. That gave quite a huge media wave, I think the video of "Held der Steine" on YouTube where he lays out what happened has seven figure views. He tried to trademark t…

Where's the line in "looks like LEGO trademarks"? There are lots of brick systems out there and they all look somewhat similar to Lego.

LEGO sells clothes with a 3D 2x2 brick, isometric projection, looking at the corner, red, with the lego text on it.

Which looks – except for colour and number of studs — exactly like the Held der Steine logo.

Held der Steine then tried to trademark it not just as logo for youtube, but also with the explicit purpose to sell merchandise, such as clothes, with it.

At this point, the trademarks conflict. The law, being horribly written, requires one of the trademark holders to either license from the other, or give up the claim.

As Lego wasn’t gonna give up their claim, and Held der Steine wasn’t gonna license their logo, there weren’t exactly few options left.

It’s a similar situation as with Apple vs. Apfelkind a few years back. A german store which used a silhouette of an apple as logo, which was fine. Until they tried to trademark it, not just for their store or for clothes as merchandise, but also for electronic products.

Re: Lego to open 160 new stores as other toy retailers suffer

#97

Post by bonzini » Thu, Sep 05, 2019, 11:07 AM UTC

CannisterFlux wrote: post #77

mytailorisrich wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you drop a normal brick on a hard floor the brick is likely to shatter. Are they really like that nowadays? When I was a child they were near indestructible.

Yeah, they are not nearly as good. I've had pieces snap just from having them in a box, rooting through to find other pieces, they must have snagged. And dropping regular pieces on a tiled floor from table height, had the side break! Maybe I was unlucky, but that would've been unheard of back in the 80s.

Uh, are you sure those were Legos? I have tens of thousands of loose pieces and exactly one has been damaged in use (a clip that broke after being walked on).

Re: Lego to open 160 new stores as other toy retailers suffer

#98

Post by whermans » Thu, Sep 05, 2019, 11:16 AM UTC

CannisterFlux wrote: post #57

martin_a wrote: post #55

Lego is becoming more and more of a scumbag company. First hit this year was that they sued a small Lego shop in Frankfurt called "Held der Steine". His logo was a standing brick, but it could have been any brick, no Lego logo was seen or whatnot. They sued him for infringement of their trademarks anyway. That gave quite a huge media wave, I think the video of "Held der Steine" on YouTube where he lays out what happe…

Not only the model quality, but the Lego bricks themselves are pretty disappointing too. If you drop a normal brick on a hard floor the brick is likely to shatter. More models have special parts with narrow waist sections that easily snap. The c-shaped grips that hold poles either warp or snap and become useless. More and more sets come with stickers rather than printing the pattern onto the bricks like they used to…

> If you drop a normal brick on a hard floor the brick is likely to shatter.

If they shatter, they are defective. You can contact Lego[0], mail them the broken piece and get a replacement, no questions asked. Bricks are designed to last a decade with normal play and shattering would be a severe safety risk.

They take this sort of thing very seriously.

[0] https://www.lego.com/en-us/service/replacementparts

Re: Lego to open 160 new stores as other toy retailers suffer

#99

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Sep 05, 2019, 11:30 AM UTC

jncraton wrote: post #24

IMO LEGO thrives thanks to their relentless focus on product quality. The phrase "det bedste ir ikke for godt" (roughly "only the best is good enough") has a long history in the company. The fact that they have been able to thrive like this in a market with many competitors cloning their product is a a testament to their product quality and related brand strength. If you've used and compared the various brands in thi…

[deleted]

Re: Lego to open 160 new stores as other toy retailers suffer

#100

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Sep 05, 2019, 11:47 AM UTC

jonathanlydall wrote: post #95

sethammons wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Best selling doesn't necessarily mean most profitable.

It seems unlikely that they are making more profit per licensed set because they are likely having to pay a cut to a third party (for example, Disney gets a cut of each Star Wars set sold). So if their license free sets sell better, then it would stand to reason they make more profit off of these.

[deleted]