MOCHUB takes the hard work out of buying and selling MOCs
Posted by Huw,
I recently became aware of MOCHUB, which is a 'LEGO kit fulfilment centre' and, coincidentally, a little while later the company got in touch offering to send me some kits to review.
The team at MOCHUB offer a valuable service to both sellers and buyers. For sellers, they do the hard work of sourcing the parts, sorting and bagging them, shipping to customers, and even creating instructions for your model if you need them to. For buyers, they save you the effort of identifying and buying the parts, perhaps in multiple orders, yourself.
Jason Alleman of JK Brickworks sells several of his models on the platform and tells me "All they need for a kit is the parts list, building instructions and photos, all of which I already make for most of my models. They then check the inventory of the model and potentially suggest changes based on the market.
"Before I started working with them, I had thought about putting together kits myself. Over the years, I had been getting steadily more requests for kits of some of my models. At some point I put together a kit for someone and after that I thought, 'Man, I'm never going to do this again!' I'd rather spend my LEGO time doing creative things like designing models than counting parts and stuffing them into bags."
You'll find contact details in a press release, which explains more about the company and what they do, after the break. I'll post a review of the kits I was sent next week.
WE LOVE WHAT YOU BUILD (WLWYB) is a company fully packed with LEGO experts. After several years of hard work and long awaiting of the AFOL community they created MOCHUB in 2017, the bespoke LEGO kit fulfilment centre where anyone can upload or buy MOCs and be part of an enthusiastic community of LEGO creators.
MOCHUB is a unique marketplace where anyone from the world can monetize their hobby by creating LEGO MOCs and these MOCs become available to a wide range of people as a unique set. Since the start more than one thousand MOCs were uploaded, leading LEGO builders and the most promising talents became known not just to the AFOL community but to a much wider audience, many future talents are awaiting to be part of MOCHUB family with uploading their builds week by week. In the past three years they have made thousands of AFOLs happy from the USA to South East Asia and Western Europe.
As a builder it's absolutely easy to become a part of the MOCHUB family. After a simple registration you can start to upload your creation including building instruction, parts list and pictures of your MOC. The team reviews your build, gives you a personalised report including colour, parts and cost analysis with a suggested retail price. If needed the team can help builders in generating instructions. If you haven't built in digital form yet, Studio is a great app for it. You can easily generate building instructions and export photorealistic pictures of your builds. On the other hand the team can help create building instructions from photos, videos, just drop an email to them.
Builders get royalty after each sold MOC, the revenue's 70 percent. Thus, self branding and communication through social media is especially important by the builder itself in order to let as many people as possible know about the new cool MOCs that are available.
From a customers point of view it is not as simple, because as you enter the shop, you'll want to buy most of the builds. :)
MOCHUB has several themed MOCs. If you love kinetic sculptures, you'll find the collection from JK Brickworks, if you are petrol head you'll might find your daily driver built by Rolling Bricks, there are awesome transformers built by M1NDxBEND3R and unique Technic creations by Nico71. The cutest animals like the red panda is waiting for you created by Felix Jaensch.
And if you want to tune up the official set you just bought check out the upgrade packs for the newest and other official LEGO sets by Racing Brick and a lot among other great builds.
MOCHUB ships their orders worldwide within 9-13 business days.
So wherever you live if you're looking for a cool gadget, a gift to your loved one or friend who's a LEGO fan from the age of 12 to 99 you definitely should check out MOCHUB.
For further information please visit our website wlwyb.com, mochub.com or contact Dorottya Fogel, [email protected] and +3630 738 8183
WE LOVE WHAT YOU BUILD is an independent company. LEGO is a trademark of the LEGO Group of companies which does not sponsor, authorise, or endorse WLWYB.
58 likes
38 comments on this article
Lol at those prices.
Wayyy too expensive after shipping.
Good for people who have money to spare and couldn't put some orders together from a Bricklink parts list, I guess. But otherwise I don't exactly see the appeal.
>Sees the price of everything*
Oh boy, that is a tad too expensive for me. Maybe some day when I have the funds, I would consider it. I wonder what the shipping is the-
>Looks as shipping costs*
You know what, I'm good.
So is Huwbot going to be added to the store? :)
You'll be hearing from my lawyers. I laughed so hard at those prices that I injured myself.
I thought about it but selling a MOC or its instructions precludes it from LEGO Ideas.
And, to everyone who's complaining about the prices, well, time is money...
While I do appreciate the service they offer, the pricing is just not attractive. Add shipping to the equation and it becomes totally unfeasible. Pity, as the general idea is a very good one.
@Huw said:
"I thought about it but selling a MOC or its instructions precludes it from LEGO Ideas.
And, to everyone who's complaining about the prices, well, time is money..."
It is, that's why it feels so much better when you accomplish something by yourself (IKEA-effect).
Can't afford this service. Laughed at the price for the SC Mustang rebuild, as I did this myself with a standard modell ad some extra parts for a Euro or so...
I commend them for offering such a service. I have some experience putting kits together for MOC creators (like the Ultimate Collector version of the LEGO Movie 1 Batwing). It's tough and sourcing parts can be really challenging on Bricklink. MOCHUB seems pretty limited in their offerings, and are using MOCs with relatively easy parts (those likely available w/ BNP).
I would think this site would be great for custom UCS Star Wars kits. There are so many fantastic ones available - but most demand you source your own parts. I imagine the sourcing of those would be an expensive challenge. Adding mark-up for time and shipping = incredibly high costs.
Modular nets 3 results. Again, a great category to expand offerings, but even their small Apple Store kit is $139.95. Can't imagine what a full-fledged three-story building would cost.
I hope they are successful and can broaden their portfolio.
You can just use the Internet and it’ll do the same job for free! I like the Internet- I don’t like ‘fulfilment centres’...I’m probably too old anyway and like going to the shop.
Are you going to plug Rebrickable now? it's only fair.
^ We have a good relationship with Rebrickable and have done since its inception.
This is something totally different, which it why it piqued my interest. It's not for everyone, I admit, but for 'superstar MOCers' like Jason who are constantly asked for kits of their models it's better to be able to send people off to MOCHUB than to turn them down. If they don't like the price once they get there, well, that's not Jason's problem...
I think it's great. I'd definitely be interested in using the platform to sell my creations.
>"For buyers, they save you the effort of identifying and buying the parts, perhaps in multiple orders, yourself."
I too know where to find the "Easy Buy" button on Bricklink.
This is a nice thing.
Edit: the bad thimg is that they aren't dividing the MOC's by theme.
I would agree that prices are high. However, I have to agree with Huw that 'time is money'. Or in other words, you are paying for a service here (collecting parts of a MOC for you), and they want to make some money out of this as well, of course.
I've just been playing around with a few MOCs I happen to have Studio files for. If you load them in and check for prospective costs, prices seem high here as well. For example, a car model of 181 parts for just over SEK300 (about 30 Euros), a 242 parts model of an early Mac computer (using mostly 'household' parts) for SEK250, a bigger car of 830 parts for SEK1700...
So, yes, nearly $60 for a 252 car model (the Mustang) seems expensive, but if you really don't have any of the parts already and need to source all of them from Bricklink or elsewhere, that will also end up being much more expensive than you maybe expect I'd say.
Having said this, I'm not very likely to buy from them; partly due to costs, but to a large part because I actually enjoy hunting for parts on Bricklink and (slowly) collecting everything I need for a MOC
EDIT: Yes, I am aware that you will probably pay less than what I mentioned above if you don't press the 'buy all' button, but invest time hunting for bargains and 'optimal splits' of orders etc.
If you search on bricklink or other individual brick selectors you never obtain 100% of the 1000+ parts from one source, even with several sources you may only get to 90%, and then this would still be a few hundred pounds for a modular or Technic build. So there is a need for a 3rd party who know how to find that last 10%, or can make suggestions to the modellers to substitute with more available parts and colours, but their base cost will always be set by the sellers on bricklink or similar. Although the costs add up, I still find a market place means that individual pieces are cheaper than commercial monopoly sites, including the Lego shop when it sold individual pieces (but had such a limited range).
One way I've found to build cheaper (per part) with official Lego parts is to buy full sets from the secondary market which have the difficult to find (aka expensive) parts you need. But will have plenty of unneeded spares, and if you are unlucky the required sets may now be over-inflated collectables. Rebrickable is a good website for determining which are the top sets to buy in order to get most of the pieces in a moc.
I don't want to be another person that complains about the prices, but I guess that's what you get when 70% goes to the creator as royalty. I'm glad I can use Bricklink.
@Huw said:
"I thought about it but selling a MOC or its instructions precludes it from LEGO Ideas.
So does that mean you are considering putting it on Ideas?! This could be the fastest to 10000 ever seen ;)
I love the idea of this service. As an AFOL with several large MOCs under my belt I feel confident in my ability to source the bricks I need. However, my non-AFOL brother recently asked me how to source one of Chris McVeigh's bonsai trees for a desk ornament. It didn't take long for my brother's eyes to glaze over as I described the process of uploading a parts list into BrickLink and then identifying stores from which to purchase parts. After reading this article I'll tell him to look it up on MOCHUB instead.
This definitely sounds like it fills a need! I often forget that most people don't have large collections they can pull from or years of experience with things like Bricklink so a service like this can absolutely be helpful
Site isn't great in terms of shopability (if that's a word...). I like the concept of it, and I do see the value in getting a one-stop MOC build as I'm currently dealing with Bricklink-ing something like 12 different orders to do one and it is, as others have pointed out, cumbersome... but wow those prices are not good. Like, in many cases... double what you should pay, and possibly triple the price of a few. Cool concept, needs work.
Time is money, but if you're shelling out 60+ dollars for a Speed Champions build, maybe there is also more money than sense.
They are a bit on the dear side - but to me the main fun I have with the Lego hobby is sourcing the parts, changing bits round and making things easy to build - its almost like having all of this done for you misses the point somewhat. I have just bought instructions for a couple of MOC Grand Prix cars on Rebrickable at 1/8th scale - the parts prices were out of this world but by being careful with my wish list, changing a few bits round and not just choosing the seller who had the most bits in stock, I managed to source all but a few parts from here in the UK, just resorting to Europe for a few hard to find parts, plus ebay too. It was still an expensive exercise but fun too; I suspect the cost on MOCHUB would have been in the $1000's - some may find it is helpful if they are not savvy at using Bricklink, etc. but I think it rather misses the point of an MOC...
I've recieved JKBrickwork's Trench Run Pursuit from MOCHUB (though it was somewhat overpriced), and I can also vouch for Felix's Red Panda (it's adorable and actually fairly decently priced, given how large it is). The only real downside for me of MOCHUB is the prices.
Quite interesting. I've seen some prices, and smaller sets might be expensive, but so far the modular stuff is not too bad. They can cost 1500$ if not more when using some functions from Rebrickable, BrickOwl and Bricklink. The couple of examples there right now are more about 200$ for a half modular, so that's a great improvement, although I didn't check shipping. I'm looking forward to seeing more of those big builds on there, that'll be a good reference.
Am I the only one reading their company name as "moe-chub"? lol
Looks interesting.
Always good to see another avenue for MoC builders out there.
Other good ones are https://www.brickvault.toys/ and https://baronsat.net/
Gonna' check this out.
Yeah, me too! MO-CHUBS!
I had Mo-chubs once. Doctor gave me a shot for it.
With regards to the shipping. Are they ONLY using FedEX?
Probably why some are saying the shipping is over the top.
I haven't checked the shipping prices myself though.
Do they have an option for like standard USPS or USPS Priority Mail besides FedEx?
Ah ok, to me in NYC FedEx is about $14usd. Not bad if it's coming from the EU to New York.
What shipping prices are others seeing that are high?
I think its pretty inevitable that a service like this would be so expensive. As soon as I read the phrase "The team reviews your build, gives you a personalised report", it was pretty obvious the prices were going to be insane. Doing something like that manually for everyone must take an insane amount of time. But, at the end of the day, Bricklink (or equivalent) will be a better option 99% of the time for 99% of the community.
I can only see this service being useful for people getting requests to buy their MOCs from outside the Lego community. My experience with bricklink, whenever I order parts for a MOC, has always been that I have to order extra parts to bulk up orders to meet minimum buys, and someone who isnt normally interested in Lego probably doesnt want to have to do that. And I mean that is a market that exists, clearly. But its not us, at the end of the day. Not most of us, anyway.
I didn't find the shipping costs prohibitive... but I DID find locating something to purchase difficult. The site could use better categorization as much of what I see are just vehicles and robots.... I'm sure there must be more in there but I can only hit "load more" so many times before I give up.
My concern is that several companies offer this ‘service’ with knock-off bricks at more affordable prices, without compensating the designers.
I have built numerous MOCs by other talented that range from 100+ pieces to 15,000+ pieces and I have to say gathering parts from BL and certain places is very time-consuming, but personally I enjoy the challenge of gathering parts at an optimum price. So personally the prices of these MOCs are actually reasonable. But as nice of a feature this is, I think this service would be best for people who are relatively new to building custom MOCs. Asides from that, if anyone knows how to use BL proficiently, it'd be better to do it yourself.
@Branko knock-offs will never compensate original designers. All they do is steal.
@thatStructVector said:
" @Branko knock-offs will never compensate original designers. All they do is steal. "
Right, but the main target audience for this site may not be aware of this, so I fear that is their direct competition.
When I first noticed cool MOCs being offered for sale I felt that this should be offered with real LEGO, so I'm happy there is an option now.
I'm mainly interested in just acquiring instructions at a reasonable price, instructions that include a good parts list. Where are the best places to go to find those items?
A year or so ago I built an Alien Chestburster. or rather finished it, that the Arvo Brothers had designed some time ago. I think what satisfied me the most was the tracking down of the parts, especially an elusive part from the 10019-1: Rebel Blockade Runner (the part is not listed in that section in this database, though it is in others as 6177, a circular Plate Ø63.84 w 4 Knobs
etc.), though for the UCS RBR it was in Dark Red I believe, or whatever the color was called then.)
I had hoped to see the part show up again in the new Tantive IV, but it did not. Nothing comes close to replicating a slowly growing pool of blood like a Dark Red 6177, and that piece is FREAKIN expensive.
I do see the value in a site like this though. I know someone in fact who loves that MOC, and some other MOCs I have shown him, but is not a typical LEGO builder...he has the cash but would never spend the time hunting down pieces. He's often said to me that he'd pay me to do the hunting, but I don't have the time and I would find it to be a drag.
This service solves that problem for him and folks like him. It could work out.
I can see how a site like this can be handy, especially for those of us who do not have the time or inclination to hunt for pieces on Bricklink. They may want to consider better search features or a recommended pricing model. The guy selling Speed Champion-style cars is ridiculously overpriced and it hurts the image of the site as a whole, especially since it's all you really see at first. A little digging found some much more reasonable prices, like the 1/48 scale Corsair (similar piece count to 31904, but more realistic and better colors, and about $45 compare to $30), but it's not all that easy to find. Will be interested to see how this grows.
Hi, as one example on this subject - I discovered JK Brickworks a long while back through loads of positive recommendations on the internet.
I bought the 'pop up story book' a while back when it was officially released by Lego as an ideas winner (well done guys !)
The models that Jason and Kristal come up with are amazing, mechanisms Id never of thought of , beyond technic gears and lift arms. I can appreciate the amount of time and effort that go into their designs.
At the moment though unfortunately I just cant justify the MOCHUB price for one of their latest models and like many others I'm sure , I am trying to obtain all the bricks in all the right colours
from either my own spare parts or BL etc . Its getting to be a bit of a balance between 'Wanting it Now' v cost and patience!
If you really want something now and have the budget ..then you can save a lot of hassle and just buy it as is - for the rest of us - my advice would be
take your time and stick to your normal budget when using BL etc .. you will get there. Alternatively use the inspiration and 'build your own' version using what bricks you do have.
Much as we'd all like , we cant buy every Lego set ever!