Direct-to-consumer sets
Posted by CapnRex101,
LEGO has produced an unprecedented selection of direct-to-consumer sets during 2020, covering more ranges than ever before! Furthermore, the scale and ambition of these models seems to be growing, presently culminating in the release of 10276 Colosseum.
Fortunately, the Brickset database records ample information about these direct-to-consumer sets and Huw has kindly compiled that data for presentation here. Their remarkable growth in size, quantity and price becomes immediately apparent. View these trends after the break...
Direct-to-consumer products are defined as those which are sold exclusively from LEGO.com and LEGO stores, before sometimes becoming more widely available in subsequent months. While the majority of these sets are relatively large and frequently expensive, some are quite small. 10133 Burlington Northern Santa Fe (BNSF) Locomotive, for instance, includes just 407 pieces and cost £24.99 or $39.99 but was definitely a direct-to-consumer set.
Quantity of sets
As already identified by many LEGO collectors, the selection of direct-to-consumer sets has expanded enormously during 2019 and 2020. The change has been especially apparent this year, resulting in multiple direct-to-consumer sets becoming available during several months! Historically, one set has usually been released in each month, with the repeated exception of September when the Winter Village and second Star Wars direct-to-consumer products often become available.
Total piece counts
While the actual number of direct-to-consumer sets has only increased dramatically rather recently, their individual growth may be traced back further. Despite the release of only one additional product, their combined part count increased by nearly 10,000 between 2015 and 2016! The same increase is evident during 2017, although a substantial amount of that total may be attributed to 75192 Millennium Falcon.
Average piece counts
Focusing instead upon the average number of pieces in these sets hardly affects the changes during 2016 and 2017. However, the total for 2020 shifts quite dramatically, dropping below the average for 2017. Looking at the sets produced in those years identifies the distinction between their average piece counts.
In addition to 75192 Millennium Falcon, 2017 also saw the release of the spectacular 10255 Assembly Square, 10256 Taj Mahal and 70620 NINJAGO City, all of which feature more than 4000 parts and increase the average. Conversely, 10276 Colosseum and 75978 Diagon Alley are the only sets released during 2020 which contain over 4000 pieces, reducing the resultant average.
Total prices
Naturally, the total cost of collecting every direct-to-consumer set has risen quite significantly, approximately following their growth in quantity and size. Once again, the most dramatic rise appears during 2020, at which point the total cost of purchasing every direct-to-consumer set reached £2104.90 or $3539.90. The information on this chart is shown in US dollars because those prices tend to be more consistent over time.
I think the notable change during 2016 results from The LEGO Movie. The success of this film during 2014 catapulted LEGO from an extremely successful toy into popular culture, appealing to older fans. LEGO therefore decided that the market could sustain larger and more expensive products, although their resulting growth did not become apparent until 2016 and 2017. Had the movie been less successful, I think LEGO would have been reluctant to produce sets costing as much as £649.99 or $799.99.
What trends stand out to you in these graphs and do you think direct-to-consumer sets will continue to grow? Let us know in the comments.
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42 comments on this article
I wouldn't be surprised if D2C sets get bigger, but I don't think that necessarily results in them being better sets. The Imperial Star Destroyer is an impressive bit of engineering, but it's essentially a giant wedge; there's not even any interior detail to the thing. Similarly, while the Manchester United stadium and Roman colosseum have the detail, they aren't terribly interesting once assembled—at least when compared to more conventional kits like the modular buildings.
But that's just me—presumably there's a market for this kind of thing, or Lego would never have made the things. Do we have any data on sales figures for individual models?
Just to get out ahead of this, because I know for sure that there will be people using this to make incorrect assumptions.
The presence of more large sets is not negative in any way.
IF Lego were making more large sets and LESS small sets, then there would be an issue. But that is not the case. As of September there were 131 sets $20 or less during this year alone (not counting Dots, cmfs, or polybags). There is absolutely no indication that they're stopping or slowing the production of more affordable sets. That is the crucial difference.
All that this means is that Lego is offering more options for the upper bracket. They're not taking anything away from the lower brackets at all, in any way. And might I add, they're adding more diverse options. This year's D2C list is probably the most diverse we've ever had. Lego is offering options to a wide variety of people. There is no way that this could be construed as a bad thing.
That said, I think that we'll hit a point where the growth plateaus. There's probably not an unlimited amount of multi-hundred-dollar sets that Lego can offer and still have it be feasible
Also always glad to have more data analysis! I love me a good graph
I think that it is interesting, the correlation between the increase in the number of these D2C sets this year, with all the time that many of us have had with the various lockdowns and social restrictions caused by the current crisis.
I think that Lego (unknowingly) timed it beautifully, with many older people rediscovering their love of the brick and long may it continue. :-)
Now my thoughts go out to the people of Bristol... no new store opening as it should've this month.
I like the increased variety of the D2C sets, but given my current financial position, they just cause me more grief...
Everybody blames COVID for increased depression. I would contend that the inability to have all these awesome sets has been the reason. What? Too far fetched?
Can you also graph the thickness of AFOL wallets...
@fakespacesquid said:
"Just to get out ahead of this, because I know for sure that there will be people using this to make incorrect assumptions.
The presence of more large sets is not negative in any way.
IF Lego were making more large sets and LESS small sets, then there would be an issue. But that is not the case. As of September there were 131 sets $20 or less during this year alone (not counting Dots, cmfs, or polybags). There is absolutely no indication that they're stopping or slowing the production of more affordable sets. That is the crucial difference.
All that this means is that Lego is offering more options for the upper bracket. They're not taking anything away from the lower brackets at all, in any way. And might I add, they're adding more diverse options. This year's D2C list is probably the most diverse we've ever had. Lego is offering options to a wide variety of people. There is no way that this could be construed as a bad thing."
A good point well made FSS!
To offer a different perspective (my own, but probably one widely shared), After a bit of soul-searching and self-realisation, I've accepted I have a LEGO problem, a mild addiction. It's actually a wider issue perhaps more accurately described as a buying problem or a collecting problem, which leads me to slightly obsess over having it all. I'm able to manage this well by consciously 'opting out' of lots of LEGO themes such as Technic, City, Friends etc, which eliminates almost all desire to buy, but for themes I'm into I am compelled to 'complete' the range... Ninjago and Hidden Side for me. I really do feel for anyone addicted to DTC sets as that is a very costly habit.
In no way at all do I blame The LEGO Group for releasing such cool, complex and costly sets, especially as they bring so much joy the vast majority of the time. We all have free will, but I know not everybody has great willpower in the face of the fear of missing out.
Another strategy I use is to focus on a large, special set I want, and then every time I resist buying something smaller I tell myself I just got closer to buying the big one :)
I like bigger and more impressive just as much as the next guy (having just finally got my hands on 75192), but IMO this is getting a bit ridiculous. The quantity of these sets is starting to feel too high to me, their combined cost is increasingly difficult to match, and the space they take up is impossible for someone like me who has to fit their collection around a lot of stuff anyway.
However, I have to say, I feel like another important effect can be seen in the quality of the sets being produced as well. 75290 and 10270 are the only D2Cs this year that have grabbed my attention, the others I feel have been, frankly, lacklustre. 10273, make a proper haunted house rather than trying to throw in the drop tower as well. 10276, surely the Architecture range deserves a rendition of the Colosseum, it'd be hard to capture but the Architecture team have worked miracles in brick form before. 75978, as a Harry Potter fan I would rather have had a different selection of buildings, possibly even distributed as smaller modular sets like Hogwarts has been. 76161, I'm a very proud owner of 76139 and this model doesn't quite capture the same allure to me. I appreciate that all of these sets have really nice strong points and deserve plenty of fans, but this year's approach hasn't been the one for me at least.
@fakespacesquid said:
“The presence of more large sets is not negative in any way.”
Bad for our Wallets maybe!
@ComfySofa I feel your pain. I find the trick is to avoid starting a collection you aren't prepared to finish. That's why I've avoided the Super Mario range in its entirety, for example.
@ComfySofa said:
"We all have free will, but I know not everybody has great willpower in the face of the fear of missing out."
You make a good point as well, and I think this is the crucial one. I can definitely agree that this can quickly become an addiction, and in the last few years I've made a pretty solid cutback on the variety of themes I bought from because I would also fall into the (admittedly pretty gratifying) trap of trying to complete everything. The key aspect that you show, that most people don't, is the acknowledgment that completionism isn't ideal.
An adult saying "they should make less good sets so I can buy all of the good sets" gives me the same impression as a toddler in the toy aisle who's upset that they can't put everything into the cart. Scarcity is what gives life value. There simply isn't enough time to be upset that you don't have everything. I think this also translates well to the SDCC minifigures or Star Wars Celebration sets, and how those always start an outcry of people who are upset that their collections won't be complete. If you want to be a completionist, go for it! Embrace it! But you need to embrace the fact that it will be costly and likely not easy! It all just smacks of having absolutely no perspective whatsoever
An adult who admits that they wish they could have all of the cool sets, but acknowledges that it's not a feasible or reasonable goal, is one that I can agree with. Boy would I love to have the space, let alone the money, to get all of this year's D2C sets. But that isn't within my reach, and that's ok
I would like to see a graph of D2C sets as a percentage of total sets.
Had I had the funds and space I would be buying way more sets.
By the end of 2022 we could see our first $999.99 set.
@fakespacesquid said:
" @ComfySofa said:
"We all have free will, but I know not everybody has great willpower in the face of the fear of missing out."
You make a good point as well, and I think this is the crucial one. I can definitely agree that this can quickly become an addiction, and in the last few years I've made a pretty solid cutback on the variety of themes I bought from because I would also fall into the (admittedly pretty gratifying) trap of trying to complete everything. The key aspect that you show, that most people don't, is the acknowledgment that completionism isn't ideal.
An adult saying "they should make less good sets so I can buy all of the good sets" gives me the same impression as a toddler in the toy aisle who's upset that they can't put everything into the cart. Scarcity is what gives life value. There simply isn't enough time to be upset that you don't have everything. I think this also translates well to the SDCC minifigures or Star Wars Celebration sets, and how those always start an outcry of people who are upset that their collections won't be complete. If you want to be a completionist, go for it! Embrace it! But you need to embrace the fact that it will be costly and likely not easy! It all just smacks of having absolutely no perspective whatsoever
An adult who admits that they wish they could have all of the cool sets, but acknowledges that it's not a feasible or reasonable goal, is one that I can agree with. Boy would I love to have the space, let alone the money, to get all of this year's D2C sets. But that isn't within my reach, and that's ok"
What a brilliant, well reasoned argument
Nail on the head
"Scarcity is what gives life value."
This is going on my next LEGO City billboard.
There is only so much Lego we can buy, assemble, display, and store.
A D2C set sucks up a large part of the above all by itself. When the HP set was announced I removed a bunch of superhero sets to make room for it. Not as much as the cost of the set, but about half.
When Mos Eisley was announced it didn't even go on my list. No room.
I'm already at my limit. $2000 per year is my maximum so I end up not even considering sets and entire lines.
The Lego Movie proved to the world that TLG was still relevant. I'm sure many adults had simply assumed until that time it was just an older toy product that was no longer really prevalent today, and TLM forced the world to acknowledge them once more, launching a lot more adults into the Lego Hobby.
I worked at a LEGO store, and we struggled to fit all of the available products on shelves before this d2c uptick. I’m so curious about how LEGO brand retail will manage all of these
@CCC said:
"It wouldn't surprise me if LEGO started to make all the big sets either single store exclusives or D2C. Keep the small sets on the shelves in supermarkets and toy stores for advertising then get the big sets online only and in a LEGO store plus maybe in a single non-LEGO store. That way the bigger (adult) sets don't get discounted plus LEGO gets a big bite of the adult pie and also the larger kids sets. For example, there is no reason the Main Square needed to be a D2C. It's just a large City set. But make it D2C and other stores cannot discount it, so LEGO gets a bigger chunk of the money if people want it as they have to buy it from them. "
Exactly. That’s an excellent marketing. Discounted sets for kids discounted almost everywhere but D2C sets with fat margins only available at the official stores.
The larger variety of large adult-centered D2C sets gives me a glimmer of hope that there will be more content for the niche of Lego fans who are looking for nostalgia-fueled products ala Barracuda Bay and, to a lesser extent, the Haunted Mansion ride.
It would also be nice to have a bit more heads up for some of these products, as the few weeks notice we get on several of them doesn't feel like enough time to set aside several hundred dollars and can fuel some rather nasty FOMO as well as lead to some equally nasty day 1 scalping.
It's also nice that Lego has been showing signs of re-releasing products that were popular/in high demand, hopefully we'll see more of that in the coming years as well.
See! I knew it wasn't just in my head, the graph proves it!
I may have already uttered something to this effect a few months back in a previous article, but it's not the number of large expensive sets, it's the ever shortening lifespans that cause the problems. I don't feel the need to collect everything, but on average I end up using desiring about a third to half of any year's D2C sets. And 3 or 4 expensive sets used to be achievable. This year there's 9 that have caught my eye. Right when I'm trying to establish my own business in the middle of a pandemic induced recession! Now if they're all gonna stick around for 4 or 5 years, maybe I'll get there...
Honestly I think regardless of quality that some D2C sets are just too big.
I would love the 1989 Batman sets, but forking over 200+ for one of them is quite a large ask. That and I don’t want most of my display space being just one or two sets. Could they be a bit smaller, more a affordable?
I think that is going to be a tricky part of getting new AFOLS. As neat as these big sets are, using them as a gateway into LEGO is a hard ask.
@benredstar said:
"Can you also graph the thickness of AFOL wallets..."
Same graph just inverted.
@Sandinista said:
"I worked at a LEGO store, and we struggled to fit all of the available products on shelves before this d2c uptick. I’m so curious about how LEGO brand retail will manage all of these"
Lego boxes are all too big. Lego needs to reduce box size by about 1/3 and then you could get more product on the shelf in the same amount of space.
Guys, all of you who are crying out not being able to afford all D2C sets, just stop for a second to think about how lucky you are that your hobby is not collecting, let's say, whisky. Just saying. The amount of FOMO one can get there and the money it can absorb, Lego is a little fluffy heaven.
Lego are doing a good job. Product is diverse, well constructed and mostly interesting. There is stuff to look forward to, and they sell quite well, even sets like Grand Piano which was pronounced dead on arrival by majority of commenters. There will be no more Assault on Hoth's, I think all D2C sets were great in their own way this year.
The graph is very misleading. 2005 is actually the low point in a U shape. The D2C landscape was large and diverse in the early 2000s and was tragically cut because of Lego's financial trouble. Those years have for some reason been omitted from the graph, giving the false impression of a continuous upward trend.
The early 2000s (even though I wasn't an AFOL then) were arguably the golden age because Lego was giving AFOLs exactly what they wanted; rereleases of classic sets, individual train cars etc. and not just enormous display pieces. A variety of price points. I reckon the early 2000s were the best time to be an AFOL because the color palette and available molds were rapidly expanding while retaining the old pieces and colors. It was also cheaper to be an AFOL the D2Cs were also available at low prices, you didn't have to spend hundreds for adult targeted sets, and I bet Bricklink prices were cheaper, thus the current non-D2C product range could be avoided without paying a premium price.
Ironically most of the kid targeted sets were a poor showing, and you could make the argument that LEGO at the time was the "distracted boyfriend", ignoring the existing market in favor of the newly discovered adult market, and spent too many resources to please the AFOLs, overestimating the community's size, and that was the reason they almost went bankrupt.
As a result of the LEGO Group's reforms to go "back to the brick" AFOLs and the D2C product range were thrown under the bus. Vast numbers of colors and molds were retired, a watershed which divides pre-2004 LEGO from post-2004 LEGO. Of course D2Cs have since come back, but at three-digit prices, with no train cars or classic rereleases, the latter of which LEGO hurt their chances of by the great element and color purge, in which the colors and pieces historically used were genocided.
LEGO unfortunately seems to be very reluctant to give AFOLs smaller sets and rereleases due to the past correlation between doing such things and losing money both during the early 2000s. They continue to play it safe with ironically increasingly large and expensive sets, with even the IDEAs range seeming to have recently become a bunch of expensive 18+ sets.
Of course I may be wrong, as I was not an early-2000s AFOL, but would anyone who was active during that time consider it a sort of golden age, not for LEGO, but for getting what you want out of LEGO?
Bigger isn't always better (City Main Square) and LEGO Exclusive sets/themes do often make me loose interest in them (Monkie Kid for example).
As for collecting, I try to focus on a few sets/themes, number of sets are ever growing, but priority does go to non-D2C themes.
As for small sets, I wish LEGO would add many more of their regular retail Polybags to their websites, as they are hard to find in some countries , especially with COVID and unneeded trips to a toy shop (which still rarely have any polybags here at all)
Now with a large Pirates IDEAS set, and some larger space sets in 2019 (Rexcelsior for example) , I wouldn't mind a large Castle set, even if it were 18+, but certainly not above €200, smaller sets could come via the Creator 3-in-1 theme if they don't want a new theme for now.
Tulip bulbs.
So, how are you making sure that this list isn't including the yellow-box sets, like cake toppers? And would you mind adding another graph to show the average price per piece?
@Mister_Jonny:
I'm thinking that's a gigantic "no". The LEGO Company is privately owned, which means they really don't have to report much publicly about their performance. Every so often I've heard that some particular set was the best-seller that year. Nearly two decades ago, on one of my trips to NYTF, they handed out booklets that included a list of the top four or five themes (Bionicle, SW, Creator, HP, and I can't remember if Town was listed as 5 or if they stopped at four).
@fakespacesquid:
I don't think it will plateau until pretty much every theme that's performing well is offered the chance to release a D2C set, and maybe the top performers can release two. Looking through the releases for this year, I still plan to buy the Elf Clubhouse because I have all of the WV sets (excluding the second toy shop). I also plan to buy Ecto-1 and the Cantina. The only set I actually have bought from the 2020 D2C list is the Batwing, though. Several other sets look really good, but not enough that I'd want to actually buy them. For all the complaints you see here from people who object to the increasing number of D2C sets because they feel like they should be able to afford every single one, it's worth realizing that there are _many_ people who only really want one or two of these. The major driving factor behind this increase is simply the fact that several themes have staked out annual release windows on the calendar (Modular, 2x SW, Winter Village...). It's hard to work additional D2C sets in if you've got a hard limit of eight per year and seven of them are already preordained because they're part of a running series.
@Sandinista:
I've seen a few sets laid flat on their backs. They also added an island that has semi-large boxes on four sides. This year it didn't help that they brought back the previous two Winter Village sets along with releasing a new one.
@krysto2002:
I still don't get why people panic-buy on day of release for these sets. They are _NOT_ going to dump a single wave of these big D2C sets on the market and then immediately retire them, but that's exactly what people were talking about happening for the giant Tumbler set, and it doesn't seem to have sunk in yet. Unless there's some other reason you need to buy it on day of release, give it about half a year and the fervor should have died down to nothing, but the set should be easy to find.
@Norikins:
You can easily check the numbers all the way back to 2000. It went 4, 11, 11, 8, 6, 4, 6, 6, 9, 7, 8, 7, 8, 8, 9, 9, 10, 11, 10, 12, 15. So, it still started out really low in 2000, and it's still higher than it was the following two years.
@jsutton:
Nah. All you could do with a tulip bulb was sell it to next guy, or maybe eat it.
All I want is operating trains accessories and 4 by 4 roundhouse
@jsutton said:
"Tulip bulbs."
I understood that reference
I think this D2C analysis sort of misses the major change this year, and that is the 18+ range. I’m assuming the 3 Star Wars helmets and 4 Art sets aren’t considered D2C, and Idea sets as well (while not new) aren’t in that category. What I would be interested in knowing is how many adult oriented sets are being released each year, and I realize that is subjective, and the variety being offered. The helmets are all $60 but can easily be found for $50. Ideas sets can also be similarly priced sometimes yet have tremendous brick counts.
I will say this, I purchased my first D2C set new from Lego this year in the NES. I also preordered my first Lego set in the Razor Crest (wanted the May the 4th promotion). Of course the Razor Crest wasn’t D2C and technically isn’t targeted at adults, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t just as appealing to adults as sets made specifically for adults.
I think what Lego did great this year is offering variety both in terms of themes and prices. The only thing they didn’t do was offer multi-set art packages. I would have been very tempted to purchase a set that could build all 4 Beatles portraits and had no extra parts if it would have knocked the price tag down to say $300. As it is I can’t justify the price of buying 4 and being left with over 2000 tile studs that have very little use outside mosaics. Same is true for the Star Wars art sets.
I used to be Wow'ed whenever a huge LEGO set was announced, and immediately got the desire to own and build it. That was at the time when those kinds of sets were few and far between.
Nowadays I have lost most of the fascination, what with the overabundance of such sets.
Ever since the release of the Colosseum for example I have gotten mails from friends who know my fondness for the brick, telling me about it or asking when I was going to get it. Funny thing is, I have no intention of getting it. Even though I love ancient history and had Latin at school and as one of my graduation subjects.
It's just overkill. The more gargantuan sets TLG announce, the less I am fascinated by them. It's more like "ok, fine, now a 9,000 piece set, what next?".
Apart from the fact that I simply don't have the space anymore to display all the display sets that I have (most of them still unbuilt anyway), my interest has shifted to
a) old sets from my childhood I missed out on and am now in the process of trying to find
and
b) sets of realistic (i.e. based on German prototypes/subjects) vehicles and buildings to complement my City and Train layout - both of which I have to turn to alternative manufacturers as TLG does not offer anything remotely interesting in that area.
So, after doing a quick check just now, I found out of my "brick budget" this year about 80% went to alternative manufacturers and only the rest to LEGO. And going by their output I don't see this changing in the foreseeable future.
Nice overview. It would be nice to include the years 2000-2004, but I guess there's too little information on that. I bought the 3451 Sopwith Camel then, in a box with only graytones. Really excited about that one. Later the coloured box version used to be on sale widely at only 20(!) euros.
Still regret not having bought the dragon, the big minifig, which I almost did, and the Statue of Liberty.
We didn't include 2000-2004 because the sets released then were quite different to today's D2C sets and we don't have RRPs for all of them.
I will say this -- I think what bothers me slightly isn't the total product but the rate of reveal, which feels more designed for marketing and promotion. I would maybe rather at this point we just find out about several D2C sets at once, and it'd be a little easier to make some choice, rather than the bimonthly reveals, which make it a little more confusing for me to decide which to buy.
@JVM said:
"I will say this -- I think what bothers me slightly isn't the total product but the rate of reveal, which feels more designed for marketing and promotion. I would maybe rather at this point we just find out about several D2C sets at once, and it'd be a little easier to make some choice, rather than the bimonthly reveals, which make it a little more confusing for me to decide which to buy."
These sets don't go anywhere. Just introduce a let's say one year lag in purchases (buy last year's sets). Doing that, you can possibly even find better deals. I, for example, tend to buy sets just before they retire. I know which ones I don't want and can let go.
@guachi said:
[Lego boxes are all too big. Lego needs to reduce box size by about 1/3 and then you could get more product on the shelf in the same amount of space.]
You can say that about a lot of retail packaging. Ever open a box of cereal? Bag of chips? Vitamin bottle?
Some of it is allowance for interior contents to ‘settle’, but some of it is also just consumer perception. People think that when you pay more for something the box should be bigger. There are exceptions obviously.
That being said, I agree completely that a thicker cardboard on the larger boxes and less air would go a long way.
EDIT: Not sure how I messed up that ref above.
@guachi:
In the US, at least, there's this problem where parents expect the model on the box to be shown full-size. If it's not, they assume the model inside will be correspondingly smaller. My personal experience with this was when I was doing a show with my LUG, and a mother came up to me distraught because she'd spent maybe $10-20 to buy her son a Scarecrow minifig, and assumed it would be a lot larger than it actually is (possibly even the same size as what appeared on her computer screen). Considering my collection of unique Batman-related minifigs is around 400 by now, I probably wasn't the best person to seek sympathy from...
@mkrey said:
"By the end of 2022 we could see our first $999.99 set."
I think we've had enough 'grim milestones' for now...
...unless it's a UCS Imperial Shuttle complete with an Endor landing pad!
@lowlead:
Or a speederbike. Like, a really _big_ speederbike. What's the current record for longest set ever produced? I know Diagon Alley is at least 40" long (assuming no overhang on the ends), which I think beats 42098 Car Transporter even with the ramps extended. Maybe make it 42" long? You know, just to be sure.