How COVID-19 is affecting Brickset
Posted by Huw,
With the virus affecting virtually every aspect of our lives at the moment you probably don't want to read more about it here.
However, it's not all bad news, and the effect it's having on Brickset is quite interesting, although perhaps not unsurprising, as I will show using a series of graphs.
This first graph, from Google Analytics, shows the number of people visiting the site this March (blue line) compared to last March (orange line).
When the scale and implications of the pandemic became apparent in the middle of the month the number fell, but over the last week or so, it has picked up considerably and overall in March 11% more people visited the site compared to this time last year.
This will most probably be because people are on the Internet more while 'working' at home, but also, I'd like to think, because of the increasing number and variety of articles we've been publishing lately.
Page views have increased significantly over the last 10 days or so, too.
The next graph shows the number of ad. impressions as bars, and advertising revenue as a line. Page views didn't drop significantly on 13th March but the number of adverts served did, presumably when advertisers got the jitters: they almost halved, so consequently revenue fell, too.
It looks to be picking up again now, in part due to increasing page views, but it has some way to go before it's back to normal.
It's not all bad news, though. The last graph shows affiliate revenue resulting from sales at LEGO.com from users in mainland Europe (FR/DE/NL/ES etc.). US and UK sales are tracked by another affiliate platform which is slow to report, so I can't draw conclusions from that yet.
Nevertheless, it certainly looks as if people are buying more LEGO online than before which, from my point of view, is just about the only positive thing about the brand stores being closed!
At the moment, then, it's not looking too bad, with things just about balancing out, and nothing really for us to worry about.
While we all wait for normal life to resume we'll continue to bring you great content so that you'll want to keep visiting. That's just about all we can do!
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21 comments on this article
Anecdotally, I've noticed a lot of "normies" who would otherwise have very little to do with LEGO have suddenly developed an interest in large and complicated sets, whether for themselves or ostensibly for their kids...I wonder what could be motivating that? :) (Don't worry Huw, I'll send them your way.)
Stay safe and stay healthy, everyone.
Remember to disable ad blockers on this site and buy your sets through the affiliate links everyone.
Thank you for the data! I love reading data and it is great to read some on a new topic today. I hadn't bought Lego for myself in months, but I did place a small order in mid March myself. I totally forgot about the GWP and ordered before they were available but it didn't even bother me. I was just glad to get a few little sets.
I appreciate everything Brickset is doing to keep us entertained.
I have a backlog of several sets from last year. I didn't have the time (or space) to build them.
Now I have the time and I just finished two days of organizing older displayed sets into plastic bins, so now I have the space.
Today I start building Cloud City.
Isn’t it interesting, that the whole world has grown more generous, and close knit even thought we’re so far apart.
I’m 9 sets behind (new that I haven’t built) and at least 10 polybags... I just don’t have the space. We haven’t come up with a good method at my house for display rotation. Big sets like the Land Bounty are on hold for now :(
Not including the 20 new sets I have that I’ll probably sell instead of keeping. But... not selling anything right now.
Hi Huw, I visit the site several time a day, not only after COVID-19
>"This will most probably be because people are on the Internet more while 'working' at home"
How dare you call me out on something I'm absolutely guilty of doing right now!
To estimate the effect of the pandemic on Brickset’s data, you need to refine the baseline. A year-on-year comparison doesn’t account for any underlying trends such as the additional (or fewer?) people who would have been interested in LEGO had the outbreak not occurred. To estimate that trend line, there are a number of projection methods.
Sorry for getting all statistical!
@Huw I love the “storm” of new articles from the past week. There is a reason to come to the site several times a day :)
@CortezTheKiller said:
"Remember to disable ad blockers on this site and buy your sets through the affiliate links everyone."
Not a chance. I completely reject auto playing videos and a chance of malware for a site that isn't a genuine charity, sorry.
Logging in also removes all ads...
I do love a good series of graphs
Thanks for sharing, Huw! I'm a digital marketer myself, so I love to geek out on this kind of thing.
Because NZ is in lock down we can not get LEGO from LEGO.com shop as couriers only allowed to deliver essentials. A message comes up, can not deliver to NZ. So no extra sales from NZ. :(
I have been building the Old Fishing Store bag per bag on different weeks. I was just done yesterday with bag 3 since the quare tine started and after I am done I plan to commence with Ninjago City the same way if this last longer after I am done with the final bag on the OFS.
Just a couple alternative interpretations of the data, here:
1. The March numbers could also be affected by people who simply aren't working. I know the UK and Italy are under lockdown, and a few areas in the US are under varying degrees of the same. This means that, for a lot of people in "non-essential" jobs, they're out of work for the foreseeable future, and have a _LOT_ of free time on their hands.
2. When I check the site from my iPod at work (on breaks only, mind you), I always get hit with ads because iOS keeps eating all the cookies, and it's too much of a pain to log in every single time I visit just to shut down the ads. When I do it from home, I usually use a real computer, which allows me to stay logged in perpetually. Therefore, I'll usually only trigger ads when I'm away from home. Many workplaces restrict web traffic to cut down on the amount of time "workers" are getting paid to screw around on the internet, but they can't really prevent people from using the data plans on their phones, so you probably see a lot of the same from other people. It might be possible to check for this possibility by comparing weekday traffic vs weekend traffic during periods of time that aren't, you know, _this_.
@CortezTheKiller:
Remember that being logged in to this site _is_ an ad-blocker that can only be disabled by logging out. So to make that work you'd have to only log in when you want to post, and log right back out as soon as you're done. I just don't see that happening.
I work for a well known tech podcast company. We also saw a dip in downloads around the same time (presumably since people weren't commuting and were preoccupied with other stuff), but they've started to tick back up slowly as people get back into their subscriptions and want to stay up-to-date.
That is interesting because in the past couple weeks I've started using it a lot more!
Love all the new articles! It's fun reading about other members and their favorite sets! I hope these stay after we all go back to work and our 'normal' daily lives. Obviously I don't expect as many in a given week, but these are just fun.
I really hope everyone in the community is safe and healthy, lets make the best of this so we can return to sharing our hobbies in person again!
@PDelahanty:
Maybe people were too busy panic-shopping at every store they could drive to and trying to buy enough toilet paper to make a sofa