I went to Toys R Us recently to buy my son a Lego set for Hanukkah. Did you know a small box of Legos costs $60? Sixty bucks for 102 plastic blocks! In fact, I learned, Lego sets can sell for thousands of dollars. And despite these prices, Lego has about 70 percent of the construction-toy market. Why doesn't some competitor sell plastic blocks for less? Lego's patents expired a while ago. How hard could it be to make a cheap knockoff? Luke, a 9-year-old Lego expert, set me straight. "They pay attention to so much detail," he said. "I never saw a Lego piece ... that couldn't go together with another one." Lego goes to great lengths to make its pieces really, really well, says David Robertson, who is working on a book about Lego. Inside every Lego brick, there are three numbers, which identify exactly which mold the brick came from and what position it was in in that mold. That way, if there's a bad brick somewhere, the company can go back and fix the mold. For decades this is what kept Lego ahead.
It's actually pretty hard to make millions of plastic blocks that all fit together. But over the past several years, a competitor has emerged: Mega Bloks. Plastic blocks that look just like Legos, snap onto Legos and are often half the price. So Lego has tried other ways to stay ahead. The company tried to argue in court that no other company had the legal right to make stacking blocks that look like Legos. "That didn't fly," Robertson says. "Every single country that Lego tried to make that argument in decided against Lego." But Lego did find a successful way to do something Mega Bloks could not copy: It bought the exclusive rights to Star Wars. If you want to build a Death Star out of plastic blocks, Lego is now your only option. The Star Wars blocks were wildly successful. So Lego kept going — it licensed Indiana Jones, Winnie the Pooh, Toy Story and Harry Potter. Sales of these products have been huge for Lego. More important, the experience has taught the company that what kids wanted to do with the blocks was tell stories.
Lego makes or licenses the stories they want to tell. And kids know the difference. "If you were talking to a friend you wouldn't say, 'Oh my God, I just got a big set of Mega Bloks,' " Luke says. "When you say Legos they would probably be like, 'Awesome can we go to your house and play?' " Lego made almost $3.5 billion in revenue last year. Mega made a tenth of that. But Mega Bloks may yet gain on Lego. Mega now owns the rights to Thomas the Tank Engine, Hello Kitty, and the video game Halo. And, on shelves for the first time ever this week: Mega Bloks Barbies.Be the first to see new ideas and innovations in the world of energy. Explore and discover what’s happening at Make the Future Singapore – a festival of ideas and innovation for Asia on 16 – 19 March 2017. How we use human ingenuity, innovation and technology to unlock more, cleaner energy for the decades ahead. Download the Shell Motorist app for iPhone and Android: your partner for every journey. Pilipinas Shell Petroleum Corporation (PSPC) is a downstream oil refining and marketing business operating in the Philippines.
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We are using our know-how, technology and innovation to deliver more and cleaner energy for the world's growing population. Use our Shell LubeMatch tool to find the right oil for your vehicle. The Shell brand promotes our values and the quality of our products and services all over the world.I’m sure many LEGO fans across the world have wondered why the US has the lowest LEGO prices while countries in Europe and Asia have significantly higher prices, oftentimes twice that of the MSRP (Manufacturer’s Suggested Retail Price) for a LEGO set in the US. There are even countries where LEGO costs up to three or four times the prices in the US. Here is the answer from Mads Nipper of LEGO’s Corporate Management. Our selling costs in Europe and Asia are higher than in the US because of the size of US market and retailers (economies of scale). Furthermore, the US market is by far the most price competitive in the world. These factors combined mean that we have for years priced our products higher in eg Europe than the US.
In recent years, the difference has been increased due to the weakening US dollar – but we have consciously decided not to let this (hopefully short term) weakening of the dollar hurt the US consumer. And in order to stay profitable as a company, we cannot decrease our European prices – especially seen in the light of increasing cost pressure on oil, labor etc. Finally, final pricing in the market place is obviously determined by retailers, which is something we cannot and will not influence.Tell all your friends!Are you sure you want to navigate away from this site? If you navigate away from this siteyou will lose your shopping bag and its contents. NICHE: LEGO Super Heroes, LEGO polybags, LEGO video-games WEBSITE: LivingWithBricks (so far I’ve been just reposting my articles from here) Hello, I’m David, but I like people calling me HP. I have been a LEGO fan since I was 2-3 years old and I’m still very active in the hobby (I’m now 13). I did go through a period when I didn’t build with LEGO though, referred to by LEGO fans as the Dark Ages.
Right now I participate in PhLUG, the only Philippine LEGO Users Group recognized by LEGO. When I was 2-years-old my family temporarily moved to Japan. My older brother was a big LEGO fan, and the two of us would often go and look around Osaka for LEGO. My favorite LEGO set from this period was the #8876 LEGO Knights Kingdom II Scorpion Prison Cave. I also remember having plenty of the LEGO NBA sets, and even some of the older LEGO Adventurers sets. One thing I really liked in Japan was the LEGO scoop. There was this giant table at the LEGO store full of LEGO, and you would pay around 1000 yen (if I remember correctly) for a scoop. I don’t know if that was considered cheap or expensive, but I do remember getting a lot of LEGO elements from there that I still use today. I was going to an international school at this time and they had LEGO in almost every room. This helped to fuel my passion for building with LEGO. Other kids would even fight with me as I would get the Darth Vader minifig every day before playtime and hide it in a cabinet. S
o when playtime came around I was the only one who knew where Vader was. 🙄 When I was around 6-years-old my family moved back to the Philippines. Thankfully, my parents brought all the LEGO with us. But being a LEGO fan here was harder than in Japan; prices are extravagant (usually 1.5-3 times more than the USA price). My craving for LEGO was only satisfied when my dad was able to pick some up while traveling out of the country. Due to these restrictions my Dark Ages began. Although my LEGO collection never left my room, I lost interest in playing with them. I thought it was time consuming and I had more important stuff to do. For two years I lost interest, and those two years I still regret. But this is why I love theBrickBlogger. One day I searched online for LEGO – not exactly sure why – and ended up finding this blog. TBB put me back on the right track. I got enthusiastic about the LEGO hobby again, and pulled out my LEGO sets that have been collecting dust. I also started visiting other LEGO websites to keep up with LEGO news; Sm
ashing-Bricks (which is now gone), FBTB, Brothers-Brick, Eurobricks, and Brickset. I also thought to search for other LEGO fans in the Philippines. I found Philippine Bricksters, but since they had an age restriction and I couldn’t join, I got discouraged. Then, one day I saw this huge LEGO Christmas display in SM North Edsa (it’s a mall here), and realized that there must be lots of other LEGO fans around, so I continued searching for a local community I could join. Finally, earlier this year (May 2013) as I was scrolling through Facebook and randomly searched for “Philippines LEGO”, I found PhLUG. Right now this LEGO fan community has been contributing a lot to my hobby and I greatly enjoy it. I’ve been posting on theBrickBlogger for awhile now, and I hope to continue writing here in the future. Its a joy to see that the community likes and appreciates my contributions, so thanks everyone! Below is a list of a few more things about me (in random order): So that’s about all I can think of sharing about me. Wa