Sales Suddenly Drop

fitbricks

Hi.

This may be nothing to worry about, but I'm still within my 1st year as a store holder so apologies in advance if I'm being a little naive.

I'm fairly concerned that my store's sales have flat lined recently. I know, unlike the long term and more pro stores, I don't receive loads of orders but they are usually consistent week by week.
Is this quite normal for this time of year?
I'm guessing it is but I'd like to know for sure. Also, it would help in regards to my PR efforts, to know when to up my game without wasting resources.

Thanks.

TheSkirrid

Apart from the summer lull I've given up predicting sales. All I can say for sure is that the greater variety of parts you have the more likely you are to hit a greater percentage of someone's wishlist. I've seen huge jumps in sales after each big batch of varied parts added.

leopard37

Your sales may have been higher in January due to Bricks & Pieces annual shutdown. I had a few day lull at the beginning of the month as well.

fitbricks

Two very valid points to make. Much appreciated. Thank you for replying.

2Lego19

My sales have dropped too. I've noticed that during the past year there have been hundreds of new stores and several that have over a million in inventory. It's very competitive here. On the other hand for me it's just a way to fund my hobby. I have no overhead expenses and don't rely on this income. It's just for fun.

fitbricks

My sales have dropped too. I've noticed that during the past year there have been hundreds of new stores and several that have over a million in inventory. It's very competitive here. On the other hand for me it's just a way to fund my hobby. I have no overhead expenses and don't rely on this income. It's just for fun.

I'm in a similar boat. I only do this so that I can afford to buy sets for my little son. I still need to make more if an investment but so far, I can buy him a set every few months without it eating too deep into our household income.
I enjoy it too, so if it grows into a business I'm all the happier.

Sadly, I've recently closed my store while I recover from ill health, but I'll be back to it asap.

Good luck with yours!

TheSkirrid

I've just hit 100K parts, and the last two weekends have been 20+ orders for both. Variety for the win!

JayB-SoCal

As mostly a customer here who has a strong interest in ecommerce, and someone who has now made over 90 orders in less than 3 months, I can tell you for sure what works here for stores & what doesn't work here (my opinions, don't take this as gold):

- Volume of parts isn't a big deal, most of my orders are to the shops in the 50K-200K parts range

- The big stores I really will only lean on for volume of a specific part that can be gotten cheap

- I will not buy from a store if the total $ of the parts is barely 50%-60% of the total cost unless they are super-rare parts that I want to make sure I get before anyone else does

- The minimal order size is OK but the stores that enforce the following I try to avoid unless they are the only place with a certain type of part: minimal average lot size, lot ordering requirements (groups of 5, 10, etc), manual shipping quotes. These are all hurdles to getting me to complete an order.

- Stores that miss a part here & there are fine so long as when I message the store about it they handle it fine. HOWEVER, with most stores handling the counts & packaging perfectly, I will end up preferring stores that get orders correct vs the ones that flub. 1 part missing from an order of 500+ parts with 10+ lots is fine. Missing multiple parts from multiple lots, or getting the wrong part in volume tells me that the owner or staff there are smoking doobies when picking.

- Variety is good, but not if it is trumped by small counts of many lots. I would rather buy from a store that has 200 of a part that I need 100 of but has very little else than a store that has 3 or 4 of thousands of parts and nothing in any reasonable volume. I can't possibly create a useful cart in the latter scenario unless it's all rare parts.

- Outrageous pricing on certain parts. Some of the rare parts are ridiculously priced. Sorry, but nobody except a hermit who won the lottery will be spending $17 on a part unless all they're going to do with it is encase it in a glass display for all to witness. People are buying parts to either re-sell or build with. I've occasionally bought a few parts nearing $1 but had full intentions to build with, but more than that it has to be the rarest of the rare that I absolutely need for a specific build idea.

- I know a lot of people break sets up and possibly buy from local yard sales, etc, but in terms of sourcing for parts it would be great to have a way for building up a greater variety of architectural, scenery, snot & small parts than too many parts that are near-useless for building for people who do their own creations.

- This next suggestion is hard, and may require assistance from Lawrence, but how about the idea of being "like Lego" and not allowing people (like me) to bulk-purchase rare stuff out of your store in one purchase that may distract other buyers from building up a cart? I will give an example - I've been looking for certain kind of window & plant parts and every time I add to a cart but don't buy right away within 1-2 days the entire available pieces are gone - which is typically only going to happen when 1 person buys the whole bunch. Why not designate certain parts rare enough to put limits on for individual buyers? I would much rather be able to at least get a few of some part because of such a limit than the get fully disappointed that such a part was completely bought up by someone within a day. If that happens to a couple of parts in a cart and the remaining parts are just general parts I can get from other stores cheaper, I am going to empty that cart. You've now lost 2 or 3 customers like me because of 1 greedy customer when you could have kept us all.

- I think it's important to have a way for the community to figure out what the rare parts are and somehow find resources to pool more of them together. A lot of us are builders, not curating collectors - I just want the parts to build with and not be some kind of financial investment. So a lot of cool parts for building would be great to source & pool here. Lego has made billions & billions & billions of parts over the years - the entirety of the stores here accumulatively have barely 1% of a year's worth of parts that Lego has sold.

Graham

@JayB-SoCal

Thank you for taking the time to write this - some good points.

Prices are heavily dependent on supply/demand - the most expensive part I sold to date was the rigging in MSG (in 10179)

then some parts come and go ie; the Dark Blue arch for 10182 and 10190, it was trading at $30+ then it re-appeared in "Winter Market" down to $1 - now it's going back up.

In general prices are falling as more stores open up - mostly due to "I'm only doing this as a hobby" stores - until they get the first letter from IRS

There are many "official" LEGO stores selling parts "out the back" which puts stores such as mine at a great disadvantage - mostly relying on Amazon sales with their 2 set limit.

This is really an unusual business to be in - I can't think of anything else where the actual manufacturer is "hostile" to the re-sellers of their products! Doubly odd as they are very happy to associate themselves with MOC's -not sure if they still do it but the LEGO store in Brighton (UK) actually displayed them in store.

I'm not full time - was hoping too be - but still undecided.

Cheers G

JayB-SoCal

I think Lego's strategy is good for their business, actually, though it does come across as hostile. They lost their patent claims so anyone can compete with them in s sense so their strength in sales is based on quality of product and brand recognition. They basically sell pieces of plastic. They make the plastic valuable by having an incredibly high production quality as well as the consumer-based sets that most Lego lovers are really looking at to get for their kids. So when people create MOCs and instructions and sell parts on the open market, they fear brand dilution - especially when there is a risk that competitors with close to their quality might be able to jump into the MOC style market.

I've heard suggestions from friends that 3D printing parts is something interesting to do but to me it's not the same thing. The quality is completely different and there is something truly distinct about a genuine Lego part that (currently) can't be matched. I'm sure some knock-off brands are getting close but when I've bought from locals (getting rid of their stuff) I can easily tell the non-Lego pieces within a second without even looking that closely.