Question to sellers about parting & saleability

JayB-SoCal

Since I've just about reached the point of having all the bricks I would want for regular building (variety & count), and mostly now I would just be looking for bulk purchases of common shape blocks for "structure", I started looking at buying large sets so that I can part out most of what I want from them and sell off what I don't want or find useless. I'm not very interested in building the pre-designed sets, at best I might build them for fun but then take them apart for my own creations.

Questions:

- When you buy sets that are actually cool and not just part supply, do you keep 1 or more boxed, build 1 & then part the rest? I keep getting tempted to buy 3 of those sets - 1 to build, 1 to keep sealed (in case it turns to gold for eBay), and 1 to part out to my bins for MOCs.

- I noticed that the part value total (even for used parts) on some sets are 3 or sometimes 4 times the total of what it costs to buy the set even boxed/sealed, even at the lowest part cost for all the parts. That is so strange - but I guess good when having a part store. But how likely is someone able to actually sell ALL the parts from a set? Seems far-fetched.

- Mainly curious - Whenever I've needed to go through & organize a few thousand parts of varying types, it takes quite a long time - how is the time cost ever worth it in terms of selling? I am thinking most sellers here don't do it for a living and just do it to support the hobby? I've been watching a lot of YouTube videos out of curiosity and for example 1 guy basically sits in a room of wall-to-wall bins fulfilling orders, listening to music, making builds and indirectly admits in the video that it's basically devoid of profit but his wife makes a comfortable living. I guess somehow he found the magical unicorn of a wife who is willing to support him and happily going out to earn all their money haha and he even mentioned kids. WTH!

- I could care less about Minifigs - I hide them away. I'm sure they're valuable to many people, I just don't like building things with their scale in mind. Takes way too many bricks and too much space to build things for that scale and not have them look like adult doll houses. I've noticed, though, that a lot of builders seem to really care about the Minifig scale. Does the existence of Minifigs and their popularity help sales or is it just one aspect that people seem to be interested & speculate on?

BTW I've been watching some guy's Lepin vs Lego videos on YouTube (Gillybricks) - even if I was a pure builder, there's something about the brand that is important to me. Knowing I have builds made out of a knockoff brand just wouldn't give me anywhere near the same level of satisfaction. Lego to me (when brand new) is like quality perfection. Lepin & others is like, eh, 85%. When I bought bags of cheap Legos from people in my area, a good 10 or 15% were clearly knock-offs (or at best MegaBlocks). I dumped those parts in a box as I found them I intend to throw in the trash one day (are they recyclable?)

Graham

I suggest donating the non-LEGO stuff to a school, library (a lot have "LEGO" clubs - they really mean "brick" clubs), day care, hospital etc etc - better than throwing them in the trash!
if you are now selling then you should be able to write the "loss" off too

I think I mentioned in another thread, however to obtain building supplies cheap - buy sets and sell the mini-figs, many Star Wars sets have "good" parts and a decent re-sale value on the MF's especially if you wait till the set is OOP. This is how I ended up as a seller!

Speculating on sets is hit and miss, however I don't believe there are any sets that have not been worth more than price paid, after they are OOP.
The Modulars and Star Wars historically have shown good returns, you should be able to make 50% after any fees and costs pretty soon after they retire. Some theme sets just turn to gold for many various reasons.

You got a climate controlled storage space and a few $k - you will make a decent ROI, better than many other investments - see Brick Picker for more info.

Lastly, don't be fooled by the part out values, some parts sit forever, they **may** have sold only 1 or 2 lots (or parts) - which gives the average.
And definitely do not look at "current average" that includes all the errors and stores that have things priced way OTT.

In general I buy when POV is approx 2x purchase price of set(s) - it's really difficult to work out how much profit I make, it's a reasonable second income, however if you live in NYC or LA etc it's probably more like pocket change (relatively).

The big pro sellers have access to wholesale and/or are actually official LEGO retailers - able to purchase without TLG's 2-5 set limit.

Lastly since starting my store on BO in 2013 I will note that I am selling considerably below what I started selling at. The number of stores is increasing, but the customer base seems relatively static.
This is because (IMO) TLG's price per part forever increasing - as they increase the price of sets, yet the part count stays the same... and supply increasing/demand is static.

Go for it, but you will need THAT level of commitment not to mention $$$$ to make it work!

Stragus

When you buy sets that are actually cool and not just part supply, do you keep 1 or more boxed, build 1 & then part the rest? I keep getting tempted to buy 3 of those sets - 1 to build, 1 to keep sealed (in case it turns to gold for eBay), and 1 to part out to my bins for MOCs.

It's never worth parting out one lone set, it's too time consuming. You need a higher quantity for anything you intend to part out. Aim for 10-20 identical sets.

I noticed that the part value total (even for used parts) on some sets are 3 or sometimes 4 times the total of what it costs to buy the set even boxed/sealed, even at the lowest part cost for all the parts. That is so strange - but I guess good when having a part store. But how likely is someone able to actually sell ALL the parts from a set? Seems far-fetched.

It can take years to sell (almost) everything from a set. The part out values you see for sets from the past 2-3 years will go down. The part out values for old sets that are out of production tend to raise slowly.

Selling can be a big investment of time, money and space. Make sure you know what you are getting into...

JayB-SoCal

Yeah I'm not really interested in the selling aspects, just seems like the return vs effort is not worth it as in LA it would be insignificant. I'm more interested in the store access as a buyer to understand parts, elements, valuations, automation (for finding parts I need), etc. I was looking at the Brick Picker site and a lot of people there are like the ones in stock market forums - lots of amateurs who will likely lose their shirts because they think they have a good angle on a certain market. The real skillful people work quietly. A lot of what people complain about in terms of time to do research are things I look at as "I can automate that" and focus more on getting the most amount of (good) bricks for the lowest cost... so I can build anything I want and not worry about re-using bricks. If later that has some value (as an investment), I'd rather just dump the whole thing in one shot to someone - but now with the bricks I do have, I can't imagine "parting" with them.