Cost of Lego in Australia

Hi all,
Im new to the site, and so far it looks good.
I was searching around the web looking for genuine reasons why lego is so expensive in Australia compared to the US. Everyone seems to think that it is a volume and shipping.
I just get a little angry that I can purchase lego from lego.com get it shipped to a friends house in the US and get them to ship it here for less than the cost of shipping it straight here.
It just seems to me that Aus prices just dont need to be almost twice that of US prices.
Anyone else feel the same?

yep it's more than a little sad.
high postage for a single set ..fair enough
but when we pay premium prices at the big chain stores with super buying power it seems a bit rough

The Lego Group in the past has made official announcements on the reasons, and it boils down to charging what a particular market is willing to bear. My official Lego buying policy is to try and get it as cheap as I can in any way possible.

I only buy through Australian Lego shop at home as a last resort, I'd rather buy from the US site and get it shipped here, even if it doesn't save me much, because at least I'm not buying at higher prices, and sending the message that I think the prices are OK.

90% of mine has come via online inorder to save $$$$ but knowing that doing this helps send the message i feel even better about it

blindbambi wrote:Hi all,
It just seems to me that Aus prices just dont need to be almost twice that of US prices.
Anyone else feel the same?

You've opened a can of worms here!! Seriously though, this is a subject that burns brightly with at least me and I would think most other members of the forum. I'm also not a big fan of waiting at least six months for sets to become available here (don't even start me on Winter Toy Shop). To be fair to TLG, Australia did get the 2010 City range first. I get most of my stuff from K-Mart, Target, etc, usually when its on sale.

The cost difference between Oz and the US is simple, we are only about maybe 8 % of Lego's global market, more product is sold in the US than here.
Sometimes pricing can be similar to that of Canada, though I think it's dearer in New Zealand.
Correct me if I'm wrong any Kiwi's out there ?
Keep on bricking !

If we are 8% of the global market (which I doubt) then per capita, we would be close to the biggest market in the world (we are not) which by your argument would have to mean we should have the cheapest prices. There must be a mistake in that figure. To see why consider if the US bought Lego at the same rate as Australians, they have over 200 million people, about ten time our 20+ people so they would be 80% of the market, which can't be true. Per capita I think Germany is the largest spender on Lego, and the second largest market after the US. I'd guess we are more like 0.8%

Anyhow, Lego has made statements addressing why the US is so cheap, compared to the rest of the world. Last year they made a statement saying they were deliberately keeping prices in the US low due to the global financial crises, because they didn't want to lose market share.

They have on other occasions said they adjust the prices in each country after looking at the price of a range of goods. They see themselves as a luxury product and set their prices accordingly. I.e. they set them as high as they can get away with. They may be able to sell more if they lowered their prices, with a lower profit margin, but I'm pretty sure they already have limited production capacity, so they probably want to maximize the profit from their current production capacity, before risking expansion.

ETA This gizmodo article states Germany is the biggest market for Lego. They have similar prices to us, about double the US prices. It's not about the size of the market, its about what people are willing to pay.

Ah, but the US is close to Mexico, isn't there a Lego factory there ?
The prices might also be lower for another reason.....Walmart......Toysrus.....Sears......they and the rest of the retail giants in the US tell the manufactures what price they will pay for their goods and what they will sell for - if not hello CHINA !
Anyway, if we all buy enough here in this country maybe the prices will come down......but I will not hold my breath.
Keep on bricking !

Alot of it is based on what they think they can get away with.
I also collected hasbro starwars figures and would just want to punch some of my us trading buddies when they would cry about figures going up to $7 when we were getting slugged $17 here.
Alot of the pricing comes from the main company based on what they think the area will pay for an item. so what do we do ? not buy lego locally? that opens up another can of worms.
I will generally buy from where I can get the best deal from, be it from overseas or locally, but with the aussie dollar flying high at the moment now is really the time to be getting US trading buddies to hook you up.

On odd note, but the wind turbine when it was on sale at BigW was a few cents cheaper than the US S@H price ?
Why..........Woolworths freindship with Walmart and sharing pricing etc.,.
So we are at the mercy of not just the bean counters at TLC, but the retail giants !
Keep on bricking !

I buy online mostly from US (series 2 minifigs were from Denmark though). I've been using US shop at home and US eBay and getting parcels delivered to a transshipper. So far working good. Also just bought a few sets (new castle and all of PoP sets!) from B & N! Their prices are same as US s@h but they post to Australia and postage is very reasonable.

Coming out of dark ages is very expensive!!!!

I'm not sure why...

Maybe our currency is wrong.

What is our currency to do with it, importing costs and the R.R.P. set by Lego themselves are more to do with what Lego costs than currency.
If that was the case then the price of Lego and everything else would change by the hour !
Keep on bricking !

our dollar being strong is only an advantage when buying over seas.
Like lightningtiger said LEGO prices don't change like petrol.

PS. Blind Bambi = no eye deer...... haha

I recently found a fellow AFOL in my state so we were discussing the idea of bringing in LEGO from S@H US through a shipping forwarder such as USA2ME.

Is anyone else already doing this?

I have done it for other items (car parts etc.) but not for LEGO, was thinking a group buy type arrangement might work well for everyone to save some money? (as long as we keep the total below $1000AUD).

With the value of our dollar currently there are some savings to be had! I've bought a dozen sets or so from US B&N website so far! They have very reasonable shipping rates (less then AUS S@H!) and their prices are identical to US S@H! Though they don't have the range of US S@H of course!

Also buying from Bricklink is cheaper now too!

NoShelfWear- I use a similar shipping forwarder. I find I still save a substancial amount when I use them! But because they do not take the sets out of their LEGO boxes you end up paying a bit on postage even though most have repackaging service, that's more to reduce air space/packaging material within a parcel! That's why I like B&N for new sets! Also buying sets on bricklink and asking seller to de-box a set can save you on postage as well.

Cheers,

I don't think NoShelfWear is interested in de-boxed sets for some reason

Yes I wondered about the name as I typed!