Who pays the most, and least, for their LEGO?

Portugal, the 3rd poorest country in Europe is one of those where Lego is more expensive. Not a surprise at all... It's a trend among all corrupt countries, everything is expensive. Even breathing sometimes. Lol

I do believe that the results are based on average salary received per country divided by price per set/country...

That's the only reason I'm seeing Denmark to be considered the least expensive in Europe... it is also the manufacturer, so... Norway is a bit high, but they have also very high taxes and... Superavid as well, so... Lol no big deal

Italy more expensive than Australia?

However I can verify that HK is one of the cheapest place to buy Lego. Now I moved to live in Japan I feel the pain compare to my previous home.

Perhaps the pricing excludes local taxes (VAT and other sales taxes).

Pricing gathered seems out of date.

Price in South Africa for 21322 is still indicated as R3299.99 ($225), but there were severe price increases effective 1 November 2020, taking the price to R3999.99 ($255). The same is true for a number of other sets.

While nice, this does not explain the sometimes €5-€10 difference of the same sets between Netherlands and Germany .

If it weren't for big discount, I would never have bought 31108 , at €89,99 here it's even more overpriced then the German €79,99, probably the most overpriced non-licensed set of 2020.

Hard to calculate as it also dependson discounts. I'm from Switzerland and here we have all the time some discounts and it is not unusual to see sets on 1/2 or sometimes even at 1/4 of price. Can't recall last time I paid full rrp.

10698 is listed as 49.99 in Germany. You can get it on amazon.de for 34.99 so 15 EUR less than they claim. And that was just the first set I looked at.

Here in the Netherlands they somehow managed to find it for 28.29 but the lowest I can find is 39.95. But amazon.de also ships here so you can get it for less than 39.95 if you want.

Edit: amazon.nl actually has it here for 36.50 which is the same as amazon.de if you account for the different VAT percentages (16% in Germany and 21% in The Netherlands).

UK RRPs from Brickset for the sets which feature in the study:

10698 Large Creative Brick Box (£40)
17101 Boost Creative Toolbox (£150)
21322 Pirates of Barracuda Bay (£180)
21319 Central Perk (£65)
75954 Hogwarts Great Hall (£90)
41167 Arendelle Castle (£75)
10265 Ford Mustang (£120)
75257 Millennium Falcon (£150)

Note none of these RRPs are below £40, so it could be argued that the price brackets which represent the majority of single purchases to the majority of customers have been completely omitted, and that a lot of these sets are totally out of reach for many people, meaning for most buyers the results won't represent their own actual experience of pricing.

Having said all that, I really applaud anyone embarking on a study like this, it's at least a great debate starter. Plus it's always worth remembering how much easier it is to pick holes in the work of others than to do the work in the first place :)

Also, now that the processes/software have already been used for this study, it may be possible to 'plug in' different sets and see how that effects the findings.

A friend of mine is from Israel and he pays more than 2.5 times the amount I pay. No wonder he resorts to Lepin and other clone brands. Quality is so so but some original designs are actually pretty cool. He bought a set tof Hogwarts that came with a hammer to beat big pleats in place. I am still suprised highly specialized Lego parts other than the standard bricks may be copied.

@raven_za said:
"Pricing gathered seems out of date.

Price in South Africa for 21322 is still indicated as R3299.99 ($225), but there were severe price increases effective 1 November 2020, taking the price to R3999.99 ($255). The same is true for a number of other sets."

Yes, compared to Europe we were quite a bit cheaper, until 1 Nov when Lego SA brought prices in line wuth the Euro. Now we have to be a lot more picky when shopping, a lot less Lego for your money. Increases were between 15-20% across the board! And buying elsewhere and shipping to SA also doesn't work, except for sets you don't get anymore, then there is no alternate.

@crankybricks said:
"Some of it is fair - friends in Chile have definitely said South American prices are more than double the price of here in the UK. But I’m surprised the USA is overall more expensive than the UK. Although I agree HK is about 10% cheaper than the UK, I’m surprised it’s the cheapest in the world - are fakes from China skewing the data?"

I lived in Argentina, and the few times I saw authentic Lego the prices were ridiculous. Lots of cheap bootlegs though and plenty of pirated Lego Movie copies though. There was nearly a Hero Factory bootleg set in every shop!

After buying sets in Denmark last month I find this hard to believe!

Apart from the creative brick box, most of the other sets are more premium collector sets with limited availability in most countries to the nearest Lego Shop. They need to include more mainstream kids city and technic sets available in most toy shops, department and hypermarket stores found in every large city. Finally, unlike the former sets these are also discounted by the larger retail chains and amazon during sales, which may be a fairer comparison to highlight relative cheapness of the USA and UK compared to Scandinavia, Middle East, South Africa and Australia.

The cost of wages is mostly to blame. Sets are cheaper in Germany than Belgium, for example, because average German wages are quite a bit lower than Belgian wages, and these impact the costs at every stage - shipping, delivery, warehousing, etc.

@ineedabrick said:
"Based on my own experience I would say US is the cheapest worldwide and Germany is the cheapest in Europe. Denmark is actually one of the most expensive in Europe. This study smells. "

Totally agreed with ineedabrick.

In Slovenia the prices for Lego sets are on average 10%-15% higher then in other European countries. There is one online Slovenian site that is run from Hungary where the prices are 10%-15% cheaper comparing to the rest of Europe, but they sell fewer different sets. Usually some Slovenian online sites have discounted sets, but the offer is limited.

If they are old and discounted, they are old and discounted everywhere; so, not a valid explanation as to why the results are what they are.
Plus, the sets are not "old"; except one, the sets are actually recent (considering the general shelf life of a LEGO set). Also, if some shops offer discounts, they still sell the sets; so, that data matters - otherwise, we would only look at the online LEGO store (and know that everybody pays about the same amount for any given set, give or take ten dollars).

I have Noticed that The U.S, Canada & Australia price for lego are much higher, especially on lego.com and Bricklink, but Brickowl the prices are lower for instance a part that lego bricks n pieces may charge 45.p for is 12p on brick owl in UK sterling, but obviously Different currencies have different exchange rate or the prices could have Tax on them elsewhere such as Nz or Australia!!

@blogzilly said:
"This report pales in comparison to the kinds of data this site puts together."

Yep. Brickset is clearly on another level. I had a look at some other articles on TheToyZone and it seemed there were mostly a lot of lists...

Props to Huw for posting this report along with some incisive commentary after some careful analysis. Other websites are just reposting the report as though it's a source of reliable information. Clearly they didn't read it, or if they did they didn't understand it, or if they did they know little about LEGO.

Well, I can consider the data is trustworthy at all. We don't have LEGO brand stores in Russia. And the certified store here gives much higher prices than Europe does. Say, take any set like $50 and we have it around $65-70 due to exchange rates. But to tell the truth, there are lots of other shops selling LEGO sets and very often they give us up to 50-60% discount, average 20% a month so LEGO is cheaper here but not for everything but new sets. Retired LEGO is at least double priced here compare to Europe. And the cheapest retired sets I always used to buy in the USA though shipping price is too pricey. Anyway it occurs to be cheaper than purchasing off the local secondary market. Also we have more pricey BAM minifigures here and all of the exclusive items. As fir Europe I guess Germany is the cheapest to buy LEGO. And Scandinavian region along with Denmark is the most expensive as well as postage is highly consider from these countries.

Thanks for this list.

My neighborhood retail mall sells the cheapest Lego set at discount always when a certain series is closed to EOL. How skewed can such online data collection be... A nice casual read anyway.

Well, I guess it's getting hits on their website at least...

Having lived in Australia, Canada and Hong Kong, HK is definitely the cheapest. The demand and supply in HK is super high because there’s a lot of AFOL since HK people have high income but can’t buy a decent home with that income since the area’s housing prices are the no.1 most expensive in the world by far, so they just spend money on goods like Lego. They have a mall (aforementioned In’s point) with like 20 small mom and pop shops selling Boxed and single item Lego all kinds at 10%-40% discount. When a new mini figure series is released, you can go there and can buy the ones you want as they unwrap all the packages. Then they also break apart big sets and sell them by building or section. It’s like a physical brick link

Australia is definitely expensive, all the prices are marked up because I guess they are far from the rest of the world.

Canada is OK. We’re a bit more expensive than the US, but on double VIP points days, I think we’re fine. Also, we get discounted sets here and there. So the prices are quite close to US suggested retail prices.

Australia v America example - 75318 The Child. RRP in America is $80USD, in Australia RRP is $120AUD. Current currency exchange has one AUD valued at .69 USD (which is up at the moment, usually the AUD is valued lower). Cost of the set converting either way makes it around $4AUD more expensive

A more expensive example is 75978 Diagon Alley which goes for $399USD or $599AUD, which works out about $20AUD more expensive.

So the map above that seems to indicate Lego is cheaper in Australia then America is very very wrong. That's just for sets, getting loose Lego in Australia is extremely expensive, there are few places that will have any and ordering from Bricklink is not very friendly, at least on picking the auto choose function. We are getting more LCS opening here now, I think there are 6-8 and they have PAB walls. but they are all in state capitals and I'm not willing the spend 3+ hours driving round trip to visit the nearest!

I appreciate that shipping to Australia is more costly, but why send sets from Europe when they could send them cheaper from Mexico? And is it fair to make countries more isolated from Lego's distribution hubs pay more? We have Mexico and now China factories on hand but still ship from Europe. There is a local Australian warehouse now so they send bulk more and when they do have stock we get it within a week usually instead of the two plus it used to take for our orders to come from Europe.

Regarding wonky prices, three major factors I can add to this would be if they were collecting data on counterfeit sets without realizing it, or they were finding listings of set that have been stripped of their minifigs, or they were randomly picking sets that were not actually available in some countries and had been imported at a hefty markup by resellers.

@TheRightP_art :
LEGO sets would be shipped by the pallet, not the parcel (unless you're talking about a small store that only has a handful of sets in stock). Size of box matters not when they're all stretch-wrapped together. They're just dealing in way too high of volume to ship loose cartons. Heck, when our LUG got tasked with assembling the Brand Ribbon models and the then-current sets for our local LEGO Store before it opened, our ambassador got shipped a full pallet of each. Our LUGBulk order arrives on a pallet. A typical LEGO Store would go through multiple pallets of product on a weekly basis, or they'd be out of business by the end of the month.

@jlskywalker :
There are two basic metrics that can be used to generate a list like this. One is a direct exchange rate comparison. If you, as a customer, could transport anywhere in the world for free (and back home again after making your purchase), this would tell you where you could buy sets at the lowest price possible. The other is a relative cost of living comparison. If your sets cost half as much as mine, but your average pay is only one quarter of what it is where I live, then you have to work twice as long to afford the same set. And both of us are going to be pointing at each other saying we're paying twice as much as the other guy for the same set.

@CT8088 :
In the US (3rd largest nation geographically), it's all one region for First Class USPS mail. It costs as much to send a letter across the street as it does to send it from Key West, Florida to Nome, Alaska. Parcel rates for private citizens vary by distance, but most major corporations that ship in mass quantities are going to negotiate a contract with USPS, UPS, or FedEx to use them as a preferred shipper in exchange for highly favorable shipping costs. I've only heard rumors about the exact price, but the company I work for has a flat rate per non-expedited parcel, regardless of size, weight, or distance to destination. When you deal in enough volume, you can get favorable discounts like this because your overall spending is still going to total millions of dollars annually, and they can pick up your outbound shipments as freight instead of parcels.

One of the other things that private citizens have to deal with is pickup charges. When we switched preferred shippers, we kept a daily scheduled pickup from the company that had lost our account. Certain items shipped exclusively through them by customer preference, and as long as we shipped a minimum amount each week we could get daily pickups for free (even if there was nothing to collect) vs paying a fee each time if we only called them in when there was something to ship. If you're shipping a care package to a relative, someone has to actively schedule someone to swing by and collect it vs just building it in to a standard route. It can be cheaper to drive the package to a branded storefront and drop it off than have someone make a special trip to a residential address for one box.

Business-to-business is the preferred form, since it usually means picking up _and_ delivering in bulk, on a daily basis, through a scheduled pickup/delivery route (in urban areas drivers will usually do one or the other, but not both, while rural drivers may have to cover both duties just because of the distances involved).

@merman:
They can't...but that never stops it from happening. Legally, Lepin couldn't just straight up copy LEGO set designs either, but they did anyways. Part of the problem they were running into was that what's illegal, and what's enforceable in China are two different things. Until they opened their own factory in China, they were effectively barred from suing counterfeiters. Oh, sure, they were allowed to file lawsuits (which probably involved paying fees), but the lawsuits were always dismissed because they weren't a "recognizable brand". They could also get counterfeiters kicked out of the Chinese version of Toy Fair, but by the time they did so those companies had already taken enough orders a year's worth of orders.

@Classique:
I thought you were called Danes? Anyways, local MSRP is usually determined more by the retailers than the manufacturers. They tell the manufacturer how much they want to sell it for, including their own markup, and the manufacturer slaps an MSRP of that amount on the product. What goes into that MSRP is very complex, including local labor costs, utility costs, rent (or the equivalent), transportation (Australia gets shafted on this), and wholesale prices.

Wholesale gets really weird. A major chain like Walmart can negotiate a highly favorable wholesale price based on the sheer volume of orders they place. They then turn that wholesale price around to request a low MSRP. That MSRP restricts the prices charged by LEGO Brand Retail, but also makes it hard for mom-and-pop stores to compete when they're paying full wholesale prices and barely have any markup if they sell at MSRP. Some raise the prices and make a go of it. Others just give up carrying LEGO product. Larger chains can match the MSRP and still be profitable, even if they can't negotiate rates that are as low as the big dog.

@lynels:
That's...actually pretty standard in the US, too. The only LEGO Store in my state is located in a mall that has an Apple Store, and (at least at one time) a Harley Davidson storefront where I believe you could actually purchase a motorcycle. In order to actually be profitable with an exclusively LEGO inventory, you really have to be located in a place where people don't care about bargain-shopping so much.

@legoavenger14:
You can't accurately compare prices between LEGO Bricks & Pieces or online LEGO.com with parts sold on the secondary market through Bricklink or Brickowl. Technic pins cost money to produce, so if you buy them direct from TLC, it'll cost you money. If you buy them on the secondary market, they're chaff, like packing peanuts. Sellers who deal in Technic parts can't give them away fast enough to keep their inventory from growing. Most are priced at a penny because I think that's as low as the price can be set without putting them on sale.

At first I wanted to say what an interesting study, but after having seen the results I highly question their data, as it is very different from what I have experienced personally in various countries.
No way is Denmark the cheapest in Europe.

@Squidy74H:
I wonder if being part of the British Commonwealth is why you're served out of Europe instead of Mexico. It may be a legacy issue going back to the time when there was less of a presence in Australia, and the only way to buy it firsthand were to find a chain retailer than stocked it, or to buy it through LEGO.com Europe.

Dane here.. The Denmark data is majorly faulty.
Google Shopping is really bad for Denmark. It often includes sketchy/scammy websites.
We use PriceRunner (pricerunner.dk) for comparing prices.

The best way to determing prices, would be to go to PriceRunner and find the cheapest store with the item in stock (some shops lowers the price when it's out of stock).
But if you hit something like a major weekend sale, it would skew the data.
PriceRunner has logs the pricing history, but that includes out of stock prices, which again can skew the data.

Denmark is typically among the most expensive when it comes to MSRP.
All physical store follows the MSRP, but have sales.
Webshops are typically a bit lower, but AFOL sets have very small discounts compared to MSRP.

Personally I rarely buy at MSRP, but wait for and take advantage of sales.
I track my purchases and discounts in the following docs (all prices are in DKK):
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1WnSDb6tnxPwDTVdwfxwA7Eo84ZlF3UCgynoZijp9UU0/edit?usp=sharing

Antarctica once again ignored :( But amazing / disheartening the costs in South America.

I found an error in the currency for CHF vs USD.
The raw data has 094, it shall be 1.07 or today 1.11 on XE.com
This mean the result shown for Switzerland of 134.40 USD is in reality around 143.00 USD.

Many of the sets that are cheapest in Denmark, are actually sold from brickshop.eu, a shop in the Netherlands. I have no idea why that shop turns up in the google shops for Denmark, but that does twist the results a bit.
Most of the sets are on sale somewhere, thus being sold at 100 or 200 DKR below RRP - that might also affect the results quite a bit.

@merman said:
"A friend of mine is from Israel and he pays more than 2.5 times the amount I pay. No wonder he resorts to Lepin and other clone brands. Quality is so so but some original designs are actually pretty cool. He bought a set tof Hogwarts that came with a hammer to beat big pleats in place. I am still suprised highly specialized Lego parts other than the standard bricks may be copied. "

A LEGO hammer to beat Lepin-made parts into submission would be a cool LEGO employee gift.

As a Frenchman (and AFOL) living in India for almost 2 years I can say that I fell at the worst place :) Lego are so expensive here. I bought some kits that I know we're a good deal because on offer and expired in my country. But for the rest OMG... I crossed one day the Chiron at 60.000 rupees which is around 700€, and that's the MRP (maximum retail price) which is also unfortunately for Lego always the selling price, as prices here can be lower but not above. Last month a toy store was doing a sale with -40% on the stock, after checking it was still more expensive than France so I bought nothing. Talking to the seller he put the blame on taxes on sales, taxes on imports, taxes, taxes taxes... The only Lego store in South India (and maybe in all India if I'm not wrong) close over 2 years ago as for his word because it was simply to expensive for "plastic" event for the people that can afford it.

I'm sorry, but this research isn't really valid, and really shallow. The results are just from Google Shopping, which in my opinion isn't good enough. MSRP really is what needs to be taken into consideration--official importer if LEGO does not have their own channel in that country. Prices from major online retailers are really fluid--bought tons of stuff that randomly dropped to half price; and often, when Amazon is out of stock on something, the only prices are the insane scalper/reseller prices.

And then, with Google Shopping, you don't know if the prices are scams, counterfeit merchandise, or an old listing that was never updated.

@PurpleDave said:
" @Classique :
I thought you were called Danes? Anyways, local MSRP is usually determined more by the retailers than the manufacturers. They tell the manufacturer how much they want to sell it for, including their own markup, and the manufacturer slaps an MSRP of that amount on the product. What goes into that MSRP is very complex, including local labor costs, utility costs, rent (or the equivalent), transportation (Australia gets shafted on this), and wholesale prices.

Wholesale gets really weird. A major chain like Walmart can negotiate a highly favorable wholesale price based on the sheer volume of orders they place. They then turn that wholesale price around to request a low MSRP. That MSRP restricts the prices charged by LEGO Brand Retail, but also makes it hard for mom-and-pop stores to compete when they're paying full wholesale prices and barely have any markup if they sell at MSRP. Some raise the prices and make a go of it. Others just give up carrying LEGO product. Larger chains can match the MSRP and still be profitable, even if they can't negotiate rates that are as low as the big dog."

It has grown on me to call myself a "Denmarkian", but we're officially called Danes ;-)
But thank you for the MSRP information; we do have a very high tax rate here in Denmark, aswell as a high salary on labour, rent, and so on, so that wouldn't surprise me if that was the case. However, Germany is fairly similar to us, yet their LEGO prices are vastly different from ours. I would love to know the specific reason, but I might need to ask someone who works at TLG about that...

Looks fake, I'm pretty sure I find most if not all sets cheaper in Poland than Germany or Denmark (tho i only saw prices in Denmark in Lego Land so might be not right)

Were only prices checked on official lego store or all around?

This is great info to keep on hand if someone brings up this study, I'll have a starting point to counter the data instead of just accepting the results.

Interesting reading.
Someone needs to re-look at their calculations though, as there are massive inaccuracies. Look at NZ for example - the 15% sales tax (gst) is typically included in the rrp of a set. Yet the raw data adds the gst component on top of the price making it worse off in the comparison (which isn’t the case).

Doesn’t get past the fact that we still pay too much for LEGO in NZ though.

Wow! I’ve always complained about prices here in Oz, but I now really feel for South America!

I think for something like this, there needs to be a larger sample size to take from.
Maybe have another one where you review various price ranges from sets, and also take into account the license vs non license prices. While this information is interesting, it feels like it's too small to be very conclusive.

@gugtavas said:
"This methodology is soooo bad. Ecuador is the most expensive country only because they just found one set there.

That said it's true that South American prices are overall quite expensive, due to import taxes and shipping, but also because it's a second hand market for the Lego Company. I am brazilian and Lego is sold here officially only through a partner company that overcharges by very large margins. Sets smaller than 200pcs are usually priced correctly, but anything larger than that is three or four times more expensive than in the US/Europe. Modulars can go for 700 USD.

Pretty much everytime I buy Lego it's cheaper to import from Europe and pay taxes."

I agree, South American market has always been treated as a secondary market for LEGO and the high prices make it more challenging even for AFOLs to pursue it as a hobby. I was born and raised in Colombia and last time I went (less than a year ago) prices there are easily 3 times higher than in Canada. I only recall having one LEGO set as a kid (I might be wrong but if I had more it was no more than a few for sure). With 4 kids at home my parents, like many others, resorted to more affordable toys for us.

I came out of my dark ages many years later, I was already living in Canada where LEGO is not cheap but way more affordable. If I was still living in Colombia I would have a hard time trying to add sets to my collection, I simply would not be willing to pay the sometimes exhorbitant prices they charge. I'm sure there are LEGO fans in Colombia and other countries in South America who struggle with this. I would love to see LEGO take the initiative to somehow make their products more affordable in the region, millions of kids (and future AFOLs) could benefit from it.

IMO a more precise evaluation would be provided by calculating how much time a person, earning the local minimum wage, needs to work at each country in order to buy the same LEGO set at retail price.
Let's take the Milennium Falcon 75257 as an example:

Retail price in the US: US$ 159.99
Minimum wage: US$ 7.25/h
Work hours to buy the set: 22.1 h

Retail price in Brazil: R$ 1499.99
Minimum wage: R$ 1045.00/44h = R$ 23.75/h
Work hours to buy the set: 63.2 h

So this set can be considered 2.9 times more expensive in Brazil compared to the US, instead of 'only' 2 times as the Toy Zone report implies.

Finally proof ANZAC exists! (Australia and New Zealand Auxiliary Cost) At the same time though, Lego also really needs to be fairer to our fellow fans in South America and Europe!!

@DFX said:
"IMO a more precise evaluation would be provided by calculating how much time a person, earning the local minimum wage, needs to work at each country in order to buy the same LEGO set at retail price.
Let's take the Milennium Falcon 75257 as an example:

Retail price in the US: US$ 159.99
Minimum wage: US$ 7.25/h
Work hours to buy the set: 22.1 h

Retail price in Brazil: R$ 1499.99
Minimum wage: R$ 1045.00/44h = R$ 23.75/h
Work hours to buy the set: 63.2 h

So this set can be considered 2.9 times more expensive in Brazil compared to the US, instead of 'only' 2 times as the Toy Zone report implies."

That might be what our gross hourly wage is, but the actual take home net amount is lower in each country due to taxes and withholdings for things like federal and state taxes, social security tax, state disability insurance, contributions to 401k, etc.

I'm lucky if I see 60% of my gross pay as net, it's usually around 55% after Big Brother gets his cut so my buying power is a lot less in reality.

None of this is as simple as it seems or what we think it should be. Probably best to focus on what each of us ourselves can afford and budget for that, rather than get all twisted up and envious over perceived pricing inequities.

I don't understand those "prices" for each country. In US dollars, the RRP for those sets would be $970. So where do their numbers come from? Hong Kong is cheapest at $111.12. What is that measuring?

@PurpleDave said:
" @jlskywalker :
There are two basic metrics that can be used to generate a list like this. One is a direct exchange rate comparison. If you, as a customer, could transport anywhere in the world for free (and back home again after making your purchase), this would tell you where you could buy sets at the lowest price possible. The other is a relative cost of living comparison. If your sets cost half as much as mine, but your average pay is only one quarter of what it is where I live, then you have to work twice as long to afford the same set. And both of us are going to be pointing at each other saying we're paying twice as much as the other guy for the same set."
Quite right. The authors of the report seem unaware that economists do this type of analysis already - albeit not for LEGO - with robust methodologies and a sizeable corpus of academic literature to back them up. There was no need for the authors to attempt (and fail) to re-invent the wheel.

@Harmonious_Building said:
"Erm the raw data might suggest otherwise but these seems absurd on its face. I can tell you for sure that it has been the case for decades that buying LEGO from official retail partners in Singapore features a minimum of a 50% markup from US prices, to say nothing of the fact that almost every set that's not a store exclusive eventually goes on 20% or more discount on Amazon in the US. What the heck? "
Yeah there's no way I can take this study seriously either.

@TheRightP_art said:
"As somebody who lives in Hong Kong, I was a bit taken aback by the data. I suppose more expensive sets are cheaper here (which seems to be the primary comparison point in the study), but cheaper sets are ridiculously overpriced.

Take a 20 USD set such as the safari off-roader. That is around 150 HKD. But in LEGO certified stores, it sells for 200-250 HKD. I assume the discrepancy is due to shipping as smaller packages generally cost more to ship per kg than larger packages. Oh, and sets rarely go on sale here, with exception to the annual Toys R Us summer sale. Perhaps the results would have come out differently if they selected a wider range of price points.

Lastly, I’d be interested to know if the prices per country were taken from the official LEGO website/store, or from sets on sale or from roadside shops. Because if it’s roadside shops, then some sell sets for 25-50% off here (especially In’s Point). Maybe that’s where they collected the data from."

I agree with you. The official LEGO store and major stores like HKTV Mall and Toys R Us are more expensive. If you go to specialist stores, they are much cheaper. The cheapest sets are actually on Carousell (HK buying and selllng website/app). I really wonder how those people get the sets so cheap.

@DFX said:
"calculating how much time a person, earning the local minimum wage, needs to work at each country in order to buy the same LEGO set at retail price."

Now THAT would be an eye-opener!

Add a function which allows you to insert your own wage to get a comparison with those on regional minimum wages and you'd also have a tool to give yourself some serious perspective.

Why Brickset speads FAKE News from Toyzone ?!

Denmark is certainly the most expensive in Europe and Germany the cheapest with the new low VAT taxes. Just cconvert any DKK price in Euro and you will find the truth without Toyzone support....
And in Asia, HK, Indonesia, and Australia offer very affordable prices.

This doesn't take into account the fact that LEGO South Africa increased prices on most sets between 20 - 30% from 1 November - which makes a big difference regionally considering how few countries 'officially' sell LEGO in MEA

@spikes said:
"Denmark is certainly the most expensive in Europe and Germany the cheapest with the new low VAT taxes."
While I agree on the general sentiment, the lower VAT rate in Germany at least is only temporary and will revert to the normal rate on January 1, 2021. The lowered rate was only introduced in July for half a year as a temporary incentive to try and help boost the economy in times of the pandemic.

@DFX said:
"IMO a more precise evaluation would be provided by calculating how much time a person, earning the local minimum wage, needs to work at each country in order to buy the same LEGO set at retail price."

I have made a mistake in my previous comment: the minimum wage in Brazil is R$ 1045.00 per month, not per week! The result was underestimated by a factor of 4!
So for the Milennium Falcon 75257 we have:

Retail price in the US: US$ 159.99
Minimum wage: US$ 7.25/h
Work hours to buy the set: 22.1 h

Retail price in Brazil: R$ 1499.99
Minimum wage: R$ 1045.00/(44 × 4)h = R$ 5.94/h
Work hours to buy the set: 252.6 h

Using this approach, this set is 11.4 times more expensive in Brazil than in the US.

@stocklaz said:
"However I can verify that HK is one of the cheapest place to buy Lego. Now I moved to live in Japan I feel the pain compare to my previous home."

Yeh Japan is too expensive for LEGO :( I don't buy it unless heavily discounted or order it from overseas.

Well this is interesting but seems completely wrong on some countries, based on conversations had with fellow fols over the years - especially the Aussies and kiwis. no way on earth is Lego cheaper in the UK than in the US - we generally pay the same figure in GBP that is paid in USD over there as i have asked friends to pick me one up while travelling in the past. Guess this will keep being reposted on social media now - the next 'Lego is worth more than gold!' post.

@Classique:
Germany has the largest population in the EU, and was once the largest consumer-nation of LEGO product (before LSW debuted in 1999 and the US pushed them out of the top spot). They've got buying power that most other EU nations don't, which means their retail chains can negotiate better prices. The less it costs to get the product to store shelves in the first place, the lower the MSRP can be while still allowing retailers to turn a profit.

@TheWackyWookiee:
South America is dealing with lack of local distribution the same way Australia used to, but with the added problem that many of those nations simply don't have anywhere near the economic clout that Australia does. So, it costs more to deliver the product to shelves, and when it gets there the customer base is much smaller. Anyone who deals in LEGO product in South America is probably paying full wholesale price to obtain it, assuming they're even able to order direct from TLC and don't have to go through some other distributor.

@bricks4everyone:
LEGO Brand Retail doesn't really move into an area to build up a customer base. They show up when there's already one in place. So, before they set up a better distribution system, the existing sources will need to be a lot more profitable. The irony is that when LBR does finally show up, some of the current sellers will probably stop carrying any product unless they get a significant break on their wholesale prices.

@DFX:
Which minimum? The US has a federal minimum wage, many states have their own higher minimum wages, and some large cities have even higher minimum wages. Then there are the effective minimum wages. If you're legally required to pay someone $7.50/hr, but you can't hire anyone below $10/hr, the job market has established its own minimum wage. But where you live also affects your buying power. I've read about a guy who rents an apartment in NYC for the work week, and commutes home to Pennsylvania for holidays, vacations, and weekends because it's cheaper than being a permanent resident of NYC. Many people commute from New Jersey because for a fraction of the cost of renting a hole-in-the-wall apartment they can own a decent-sized home.

@crankybricks said:
"Some of it is fair - friends in Chile have definitely said South American prices are more than double the price of here in the UK. But I’m surprised the USA is overall more expensive than the UK. Although I agree HK is about 10% cheaper than the UK, I’m surprised it’s the cheapest in the world - are fakes from China skewing the data?"

I've seen some crazy discounts in US stores whilst here in the UK I've struggled to find any good discounts anywhere

@fulcrumbop said:
"Antarctica once again ignored :( But amazing / disheartening the costs in South America."

Does Antarctica even have lego prices to consider?? I thought there population wasn’t even close to the 5-figure range.

@DFX said:
"IMO a more precise evaluation would be provided by calculating how much time a person, earning the local minimum wage, needs to work at each country in order to buy the same LEGO set at retail price.
Let's take the Milennium Falcon 75257 as an example:

Retail price in the US: US$ 159.99
Minimum wage: US$ 7.25/h
Work hours to buy the set: 22.1 h

Retail price in Brazil: R$ 1499.99
Minimum wage: R$ 1045.00/44h = R$ 23.75/h
Work hours to buy the set: 63.2 h

So this set can be considered 2.9 times more expensive in Brazil compared to the US, instead of 'only' 2 times as the Toy Zone report implies."

US minimum wage varies wildly depending on where you live. There’s a federal minimum wage (which changes depending on type of job), state minimums, and cities can set minimums. It can also change depending on how many employees you’re company has.
Where I live it’s $15 p/h but the cost of living here is comparatively expensive. I don’t know average rents in Brazil but here in Southern California you can expect to pay $3-4k p/m for a two bed house. So yes we may earn more but we also have much higher expenses.

@jlskywalker said:
"Portugal, the 3rd poorest country in Europe is one of those where Lego is more expensive.
"

Rating a countries wealth is not as easy as looking at the GDP. That being said, all of eastern Europe is poorer than Portugal.

But on the subject, I live in Australia and in my experience, Lego in the US is considerably cheaper than in Australia. Two flaws in their research:

They used a google search for prices which is going to skew your results wildly - not to mention you could get some Lepin sets in the results. Would it not have been more accurate to use RRP prices from lego.com?

They used pricey and less common sets for the comparison. I would imagine this is not going to give you a true indication of comparative prices around the world.

@morvit said:
"Having lived in Australia, Canada and Hong Kong, HK is definitely the cheapest. The demand and supply in HK is super high because there’s a lot of AFOL since HK people have high income but can’t buy a decent home with that income since the area’s housing prices are the no.1 most expensive in the world by far, so they just spend money on goods like Lego. They have a mall (aforementioned In’s point) with like 20 small mom and pop shops selling Boxed and single item Lego all kinds at 10%-40% discount. When a new mini figure series is released, you can go there and can buy the ones you want as they unwrap all the packages. Then they also break apart big sets and sell them by building or section. It’s like a physical brick link

Australia is definitely expensive, all the prices are marked up because I guess they are far from the rest of the world.

Canada is OK. We’re a bit more expensive than the US, but on double VIP points days, I think we’re fine. Also, we get discounted sets here and there. So the prices are quite close to US suggested retail prices."

The attribution of @morvit is really interesting, for buying LEGO in Hong Kong not only requires money, but also space, and this is the reason I've slowed down my buying. In fact, buyers from mainland China in recent years was also an important demand that stimulated the supply, making the local market (mainly the In's point) extremely prosper.
Although sets here are cheap and you can get sets with figures taken out even cheaper (I got a black widow helicopter for ~10USD), the parts here are not as cheap as those in European Bricklink shops. What's worse, not many part sellers in HK cover Technic parts widely. So if you are a set player, HK would be heaven; but if you are a MOC player, especially a Technic MOC player, HK might not be very friendly to you.

@bricks4everyone said:
" @gugtavas said:
"This methodology is soooo bad. Ecuador is the most expensive country only because they just found one set there.

That said it's true that South American prices are overall quite expensive, due to import taxes and shipping, but also because it's a second hand market for the Lego Company. I am brazilian and Lego is sold here officially only through a partner company that overcharges by very large margins. Sets smaller than 200pcs are usually priced correctly, but anything larger than that is three or four times more expensive than in the US/Europe. Modulars can go for 700 USD.

Pretty much everytime I buy Lego it's cheaper to import from Europe and pay taxes."

I agree, South American market has always been treated as a secondary market for LEGO and the high prices make it more challenging even for AFOLs to pursue it as a hobby. I was born and raised in Colombia and last time I went (less than a year ago) prices there are easily 3 times higher than in Canada. I only recall having one LEGO set as a kid (I might be wrong but if I had more it was no more than a few for sure). With 4 kids at home my parents, like many others, resorted to more affordable toys for us.

I came out of my dark ages many years later, I was already living in Canada where LEGO is not cheap but way more affordable. If I was still living in Colombia I would have a hard time trying to add sets to my collection, I simply would not be willing to pay the sometimes exhorbitant prices they charge. I'm sure there are LEGO fans in Colombia and other countries in South America who struggle with this. I would love to see LEGO take the initiative to somehow make their products more affordable in the region, millions of kids (and future AFOLs) could benefit from it."

I'm from Argentina. We have the same problems or even worst. Everything is three o more times more expensive than the US. The results. Only 5% can afford Lego. The rest are buying much cheaper chinese copies. As the quality is improving many people are starting to consider copies the same as Lego. If things don´'t change Lego is going to lose the market permanently. Once people get used to buying chinese copies for a third or less I don´'t see them returning to Lego.
This said, it's not only Lego's fault. Too many taxes but the company doesn´'t seem to be making any effort to adress the problem. I have no hope at all to see any change. I can only buy used Lego or wait untill a friend or myself travell overseas to a Lego friendly country. This means years of waiting.
And the vast mayority of kids in Argentina are not playing with original Lego

I doubt its correct

So utterly wrong...

I can confirm Indonesia has the highest price of LEGO in Asia-Pacific from that graph map. It cost us arms and legs for every LEGO sets purchase (even the small sets). That is why I mostly (nearly 95% of my purchase) wait for 1-2 years for discount before buying the sets. I almost never paid the full price when purchasing the sets in Indonesia.

I always wonder why the most poorest countries in certain regions always pay the highest prices. Tax? Pricing strategy? Regulations? Corruptions?

In Costa Rica, if you want to have an idea, for the price in USA, you multiple por 1000 and you have the price en the country. For example, a Lego of $100, in Costa Rica cost ¢100,000 colones = $164

I'm probably a bit late to the party but... Just out of curiosity, I wrote up a PHP script that collects the MSRP for a small sample of sets (21324, 60197, 75318, 75978, 76161) from the various regions on Lego.com, converted those prices to USD and accounted for VAT.

My understanding of VAT is pretty weak so some of the numbers might be off.

The script and the results are available on github. https://github.com/jamac/lego-global-msrp

(I probably should have posted this in the forum, but I can't seem to log in)

@one79:
Poor countries pay more because less people can afford sets, which effectively makes it a luxury item. If you deal in them at all, you're talking very small quantities, at which point the price of importing a single copy goes up quite a bit. You may be sitting on that set for a long time, which ties up your liquid assets, meaning you have to be able to sink a huge chunk of money into stocking your store with little opportunity to turn a profit off of what you've purchased. That in turn means that when you do land a customer, they need to pay a heftier surcharge in order for you to make a living at this.

The USA has reasonable prices compared to most other countries worldwide; however, I'm sure TLG makes it up in volume.

I'm in Singapore and have always been mystified by the pricing - there seems to be no standard when comparing to the UK. Prices are compared to a Lego Certified Store here, not Google.
The exchange rate has hovered around S$1.76 to £1 for pretty much all of this year but sets released at similar times have fluctuated wildly.
75290 (Mos Eisley) in UK £320 and in Singapore S$600. 21323 (Piano) in UK £320 but in Singapore only S$500.
All of the Mario Sets released on the same day. One used an exchange rate of only S$1.54 to £1. Four of them used a rate of S$2 to £1!!! 6 different exchange rates were used over the range of Mario sets released on the same day and with the same licensing.
75290 (Mos Eisley) and 75978 (Diagon Alley) are priced the same here but in the UK 75978 is £50 higher.
I could go on....
The bottom line is that I think you could make these figures look as good or as bad as you want to determined by which sets you select for the comparison. Singapore looks very cheap if you want a Piano, Mario TV or Lambo but incredibly expensive if you want Mos Eisley, Batwing or any of the Lego Art.

I think this graph is made on Bricklink prices or so, not suggested retail prices. Here in the Netherlands you are plain stupid to pay regular prices, 30% off is the minimum to look for and it it easily found on that discount. Bugatti Chiron does like 265€ now.
Guess where one of the cheap shops here gets its discounted boxes? Well, in Denmark! They have even sharper deals on regular basis.
But it is an overall trend in e-commerce, biggest EU market is cheapest: Germany, especially because of the harsh market domination of evil Amazon there with all its slave sister companies battling for the lowest on the platform, France is a similar sized Amazon dominated market, and the neighbours Austria (mainly as DE delivery region), Denmark, Netherlands, Belgium (mainly as NL/FR delivery region) follow close.

@ineedabrick said:
"Based on my own experience I would say US is the cheapest worldwide and Germany is the cheapest in Europe. Denmark is actually one of the most expensive in Europe. This study smells. "

I'd say you are right, I've even complained about it to Lego when a few sets in the US where as much as 30% cheaper than in the Netherlands. Those were Lego prices, not some random store.

Cheapest in Brazil? WOW! How much have you guys been paying for LEGO? Your souls?

I'm going to assume that you added tax on for America, and any other similar countries, who still have to pay this in addition to the price, since tax in not included in the sale price like it is almost everywhere else?

Hong Kong: Cheap Lego, Costly Freedom. I'm sure they'd gladly pay a bit more to not be in their current situation of growing oppression.

@undead_rising:
Sales tax in the US is set at state, county, and local levels. Five states (like Alaska, which pays out a small stipend to all residents annually from oil production) charge zero sales tax. In other places, on top of state sales tax you might also pay sales tax at the county and city levels. The highest combined sales tax is in a small town in northern Alabama, where you get hit for an extra 13.5%.

@ineedabrick said:
"Based on my own experience I would say US is the cheapest worldwide and Germany is the cheapest in Europe. Denmark is actually one of the most expensive in Europe. This study smells. "

I agree. Hopefully they compared taxes in the US too, since its definitely different in each state! In California we pay the most, and say in Florida where its cheaper you would pay less. Plus in Europe the costs already have taxes built in, but in the US we pay on top of the price of the set.

@kkoster79:
Even in the US, there are exceptions. I've seen instances where taxes were built into the prices (specifically at a restaurant that just listed prices as a whole number, like "10" instead of "$10.00"). It's perfectly legal to do so, as long as the appropriate governing bodies get "X" amount for every $1 the business keeps. The biggest problems with doing this generally come from being part of a national chain. If McDonalds advertises in every market that you can buy a particular item for $1, then you're kinda forced into honoring that price on your menu. If you add sales tax (which is often charged against prepared food at restaurants, sometimes even in excess of what you'd pay for non-food items at a retail store) on top of the menu prices, you get to keep the whole dollar. If you roll them in, you get to collect one dollar and split it between yourself and the tax collectors, effectively cheating yourself out of a hefty chunk of your profit margin. The other half of the problem is that if everyone sells a Widget for MSRP, and you try to roll the tax into the sticker price, your Widgets are going to appear to be priced higher than the competition...even though they cost the same at the register once everyone else adds tax to the bill. But it either means everyone is going to look at your prices and see them as being significantly higher than the guy across the street, or everyone else will be able to charge your tax-included price _before_ adding tax, so they'd be boosting their profit margin off of your tax-included pricing model.

There was a tire chain that tried to run an "out the door" pricing model, where they included the cost of valve stems, balancing, disposal of the old tires, and all those extras in the base cost. It backfired on them. They could run ads all day long, but in the end a customer would compare their prices to the competition and go somewhere "cheaper". Eventually they gave up and started tacking on all those nuisance charges when they ring you up.

At least there is https://www.brickwatch.net/ for a few European countries. I have to imagine they have a very complete database of prices for those countries.