The "Global Retail Environment" described by Capn' left out one very major player, perhaps the biggest player....Amazon.

But regarding brick and mortar stores, everything said in this article is pretty accurate concerning toy availability in North America.

I'm still unclear what the goals of this project are. Are they trying to figure out what type of shops people like to buy from, or what the appetite is for alternate versions?

@bananaworld said:
"Maybe LEGO feels sorry for the UK and wants to cheer us up after we made the kneecapping decision to leave the EU...?"

The fact that TLG sees the UK as a favoured market kinda blows a hole through that point. Besides, I'd say the pandemic has affected our economy more.

LEGO's promo product supplier RDP is in the UK. So I wonder that relationship goes beyond just distributing Asian-manufactured products and into promotional programs as well.

@ThatBionicleGuy said:
"I'm always puzzled when I see Smyths being described as the most prominent toy shop chain in the UK; I've lived in the country all my life and had never heard of them until they started being mentioned on Brickset, much less seen one in person. Based on my experience, I would have thought Toymaster or The Entertainer were far more common toy shop brands.

Or maybe it just depends on where you are in the UK, I suppose? Smyths might just not be as common in the South-West compared to the rest of the country."

I'm with you on that one never seen one and my nearest is in another county! Compared to the Entertainer which seems to have a presence on most decent sized high streets/shopping centres. Then again being a southerner I'd never heard of Wilkinson's until I was in my mid 20s which shocked some of my friends from the north who lived near several.

@elangab said:
"It doesn't matter which region, their thinking is flawed as most of the sets will be bought for resale, not for personal usage the pilot won't tell much. Are they blind to the resell 3rd party market in the last few years ? "

They are very aware of third party sellers. They bought Bricklink, the largest fan site for selling sets and parts.

@Paperdaisy said:
" @ThatBionicleGuy said:
"I'm always puzzled when I see Smyths being described as the most prominent toy shop chain in the UK; I've lived in the country all my life and had never heard of them until they started being mentioned on Brickset, much less seen one in person. Based on my experience, I would have thought Toymaster or The Entertainer were far more common toy shop brands.

Or maybe it just depends on where you are in the UK, I suppose? Smyths might just not be as common in the South-West compared to the rest of the country."

Toymaster isn't really a chain. They're all independent toy shops, but they pay for the right to use the name and branding.

The Entertainer has a poor range of LEGO in my experience. Smyth's has a very good range including larger sets, and often does decent discounts."

Many Entertainers don’t even stock Lego anymore. They also never have offers on Lego, to the point they do promos that specifically exclude lego.
Entertainer is basically a clearance toy store, selling mostly toys noone else managed to sell at full price.

I have never even heard of Toymaster and I have lived all over the country ??

@CapnRex101 said:
"I think the reasons are that the UK is geographically close to Denmark, has a strong LEGO fan base of all ages and has a diverse retail environment for assessing different projects. The same could probably be said for Germany, so I have sometimes wondered whether the German market is considered somehow unusual."

I was thinking the same thing as I read this article. As a US resident, I'm not upset that LEGO chose a country closer to their headquarters.

Thanks for sharing the findings from the roundtable!

The best thing is that the Fiat is still available at Zavvi, and available in many countries. Hopefully the dinosaurs will be available in large quantities as well, so that they may be obtained at reasonable prices from UK resellers, and everyone is happy.
It's just a pity for South America, although it's already poorly supplied (as I understood, governmental taxes for educational products make it expensive in Peru, since the price for Lego is twice as high as in the Netherlands), and for Africa, Asia and Australia probably.

So if they are doing this as a ‘pilot’ test, why not make them available worldwide on LEGO.com, but then when examining their data and results, just focus on the UK?

Or make them available worldwide after the pilot has finished?

That way, everyone gets a chance to purchase the sets.

@chrisaw said:
"So if they are doing this as a ‘pilot’ test, why not make them available worldwide on LEGO.com, but then when examining their data and results, just focus on the UK?

Or make them available worldwide after the pilot has finished?

That way, everyone gets a chance to purchase the sets."

Apparently they won't be sold anywhere else AFTER the pilot ends, according to a roundtable discussion. This is the only production and once they are sold, they're done.

On good news - Roundtable also discussed that Lego almost chose Cafe Corner modular to remake in a different color, but they wanted to focus solely on recolors and not recolors and updates. Does mean that globally, we may get a new Cafe Corner!

Odd they list ToysRUs as closed, it never closed in Canada at all and is on the up and up in the US slowly. I can't speak for the USA but her in Canada Walmart rarely has the biggest sets for sale (100 US dollar and up). Have to rely on Toy chains and other stores to fill the void for big sets like Mastermind Toys, Chapters and always ToysRUs.

It's fine cause the US gets all the exclusives. I mean right guys ; )

Regional exclusivity aside, this concept of alternate color schemes is pretty intriguing. I wonder what other sets they could do it for?

@Pavell said:
" @ThatBionicleGuy said:
"I'm always puzzled when I see Smyths being described as the most prominent toy shop chain in the UK; I've lived in the country all my life and had never heard of them until they started being mentioned on Brickset, much less seen one in person. Based on my experience, I would have thought Toymaster or The Entertainer were far more common toy shop brands.

Or maybe it just depends on where you are in the UK, I suppose? Smyths might just not be as common in the South-West compared to the rest of the country."

I've sometimes wondered whether this is yet another case of London bias - in my corner of the West Midlands, a toy store usually meant Toys R Us till they closed down. There's one allegedly opening up soon, but until that happens you can't find a Smyths this side of Birmingham"

There are at least half a dozen Smyths stores around Birmingham and the West Midlands.

Loads of Smyths Toys stores in the North of England as well. Three big stores in Leeds alone, for example.

"Smyth's has a very good range including larger sets, and often does decent discounts."

No kidding! I just went on Smyths, prompted by your comment, and impulse-bought the Assembly Square modular set for £150. The UCS-style Batwing is that price too. I'll check Smyths more often.

Huh, very disappointing to know that these will not be released world-wide even if they do test well.

Ok this part of it makes sense, but what doesnt is that there is an out of control second hand market for Lego. People WILL be buying these to resell for an extreme price, all over the world. Im curious as to how Lego will calculate everything.

@Legonk:
I can think of three D2C sets that they could release in very, very dark grey.

Hmm there seems to be a disturbing lack of Australian comments here...
I can't say I'm surprised as to Australia not being included, as we seem to miss all the exclusives, despite Lego's enormous and ever-growing popularity over here. The success of Australian Lego Masters seasons 1, 2 and 3 seems to support this, as well as the continued opening of Lego certified stores over the past few years. Nevertheless, we always seem to miss out - most of the polybags never make their way down here amongst other things. At least with the sparse introduction of Lego Certified stores, some people are able to access the LEGO.com exclusives without paying an exhaustive price for shipping.

I’m a little more confused now than I was before…! Perhaps someone can clear this up for me.

The article starts out stating that the UK/Irish market can be seen as a sort of microcosm of the global LEGO market. Fair enough!

But then it goes on to outline the ways in which the markets are different across the globe, which somewhat undermines the original conceit of the chosen market being a good indicator of global performance, no?

@Starik20X7:
Walmart is the largest company in the world. If Walmart was a country, it would have the 25th highest GDP in the world, between Belgium and Thailand. It’s not really useful to study their performance as a way of predicting worldwide sales.

We lost our Toys R Us (huge store but had 20% mark up on most Lego), and we lost our Lego shop in the Queens Center Mall.
So only in my immediate area Target has Lego and Walmart is not that far away.
And big box Costco gets only a couple big kits and bundled sets at Xmas time.
Although I hear Macy's will have a Toys R Us section in their stores so we'll see what they stock.

But for Lego Stores, we have tons (a dozen) all near me.
I thought maybe they'd do the alternate colors at the new Flagship 5th Ave. shop. Even with tourism down/pandemic/etc., they get a good crowd.

@fakespacesquid said:
"I do not see how 'scalpers' here will 'rush to make Lego as much money as possible.' What the scalpers sell for is completely unrelated to what Lego sells them for. If a scalper buys a $20 set and resells it for $200, Lego gets the $20 from the original sale. If a regular customer buys it for $20, Lego still gets $20. Lego doesn't gain any money from scalpers. What are you trying to say?"

I’m not sure I agree with your assumption, Lego could actually make quite a bit from the scalpers if they are the scalpers themselves.

A few years ago the Chicago Cubs were caught scalping their own tickets. And Lego does own Bricklink, it’s quite possible that they could even run a few of the shops on it, in addition to getting a commission from all the independent stores on the site. Of course, Lego could always hold onto a bunch of the sets and in 5 years time start slowly leaking them out.

I’m not saying that Lego is doing this, but certainly they are the ones who have the best access to sets and the best ability to be highly profitable scalpers of their own products.

@CCC:
Their website has bandwidth-related issues on January 1st, May 4th, Black Friday Preview Weekend, Black Friday, December 1st, and pretty much any time they announce a highly desired GWP, physical VIP Reward, or D2C set. They’ve been able to provide a degree of relief with the queueing system, but that only works on LEGO.com proper. I’ve been told it is not integrated into the VIP page, and that the system is not set to automatically kick in. If they know in advance that they will get hammered, they can manually activate it. If they get caught unawares, everyone gets shunted to the “under maintenance” page until traffic dies down to a manageable load.

And they have screwed up Bricklink. They forced a shift to onsite payments in US-to-US transactions without rebuilding the site from the ground up first. They’re still running the janky frankencode that’s been patched to within an inch of its life after being hacked to a standstill _twice_. Why would I possibly feel safe connecting my Paypal account to a site whose idea of security is posting a “No Lifeguard On Duty” sign?

@Bricksrunner said:
" @maaboo35 said:
" @bananaworld said:
"Maybe LEGO feels sorry for the UK and wants to cheer us up after we made the kneecapping decision to leave the EU...?"

The fact that TLG sees the UK as a favoured market kinda blows a hole through that point. Besides, I'd say the pandemic has affected our economy more."

Spot the Brexiteer ^^"

Well, they should be easy to spot considering they are in the majority.

Toys R US is back baby! Coming to a Macy’s near you!

@CapnRex101 said:
" @dawid said:
"But why are almost all "pilot projects" based in the UK? The free polybags, the fishes and now this?"

Are you referring to the polybag boxes which have started appearing in the UK during the last couple of years?

I think the reasons are that the UK is geographically close to Denmark, has a strong LEGO fan base of all ages and has a diverse retail environment for assessing different projects. The same could probably be said for Germany, so I have sometimes wondered whether the German market is considered somehow unusual. Anecdotally, I have heard that original themes perform more strongly in Continental Europe than in North America, with the UK performance somewhere in between.

@ogel_chicago said:
" @ChromedCat said:
"Can they just release these sets worldwide after they have tested well?"

That's a good question. Will it be or not? "

Apparently not, unfortunately. That question was presented during the roundtable and the answer was no, which surprised me."

Well, that contradicts their premise then. Not that I'm surprised.

Argos is probably the most common high street retailer in the UK and Ireland selling toys, although these are only a tiny part of total sales. Similarly, Smyths are more retail park based focusing on the whole toy journey from toddlers to teenagers with usually only one or two aisles for Lego. After the Lego shops, the department stores are the most focused on Lego, with John Lewis, Debenhams, Hamleys, etc. stocking the widest range instantly available for pick-up.

@fakespacesquid said:
"I do find the premise of "multi-billion dollar company keeps 5-year-old stock tucked away in the back so they can sell it later on a janky site that they bought two years ago" a bit more than silly. "

Right?! Here's an article that describes how LEGO recently had to purchase old sets on the aftermarket for game developers to use as reference material: https://www.brickfanatics.com/lego-bought-retired-sets-develop-video-game/.

@ForestMenOfEndor:
They did likely already own copies of all those sets, but they’re reserved for the archives. One copy goes in the actual archive room (beneath the family home, I believe), and an unknown quantity of backup copies are stored elsewhere. We didn’t know about that last bit until someone stole a vintage set out of the archive room, and the next person who was allowed in noted that it had been replaced with a pristine copy. So, they obviously wouldn’t have wanted to hand over any of those copies for someone to tear open and build.

@PurpleDave said:
" @ForestMenOfEndor:
They did likely already own copies of all those sets, but they’re reserved for the archives. One copy goes in the actual archive room (beneath the family home, I believe), and an unknown quantity of backup copies are stored elsewhere. We didn’t know about that last bit until someone stole a vintage set out of the archive room, and the next person who was allowed in noted that it had been replaced with a pristine copy. So, they obviously wouldn’t have wanted to hand over any of those copies for someone to tear open and build."

Yes, that's what the article says.

@CCC:
I’m aware that’s why they forced onsite payment, but in the US it appears to be restricted to Onsite PayPal or Instant Checkout (with PayPal). If they accepted CC payments, so could potentially get one-time burner numbers from my car issued for use on sketchy websites with no security, or maybe get a refillable card that I could add money to only as needed.

@BrickToBasics:
The article says they have a single copy of every set. It makes no mention of the reserve stock. What happens if that room catches on fire or floods? They keep backup copies against all sorts of emergencies, but they don’t publicize it.

I' m curious as to exactly what results they are looking for with their test sets. I agree that LEGO does know what they are doing, though I still wonder what they are testing.
I recall a few years back when they asked for feedback on what AFOLs thought would be helpful to define adult geared LEGO sets, and now we have an adult line with black boxes. End results great adult sets that adults, non AFOLs, can easily identify in a store.
Thankfully they didn't re-release Cafe Corner in this test!

@ambr said:
"Argos is probably the most common high street retailer in the UK and Ireland selling toys, although these are only a tiny part of total sales. Similarly, Smyths are more retail park based focusing on the whole toy journey from toddlers to teenagers with usually only one or two aisles for Lego. After the Lego shops, the department stores are the most focused on Lego, with John Lewis, Debenhams, Hamleys, etc. stocking the widest range instantly available for pick-up."

Im not sure where you are, but my local John Lewis has very little lego and its all ancient.
Smyths, while only having an aisle stock almost everything I could want

@PurpleDave said:
" @ForestMenOfEndor:
They did likely already own copies of all those sets, but they’re reserved for the archives. One copy goes in the actual archive room (beneath the family home, I believe), and an unknown quantity of backup copies are stored elsewhere. We didn’t know about that last bit until someone stole a vintage set out of the archive room, and the next person who was allowed in noted that it had been replaced with a pristine copy. So, they obviously wouldn’t have wanted to hand over any of those copies for someone to tear open and build."

Exactly - "reserved for the archives" not for eventual resale on the secondary market. The article presents anecdotal evidence that they are buyers on the secondary market rather than sellers.

Hi there!
Is there a place where I can see all the sets with color variants?

Thanks in advance

@Rene_lomeli said:
"Hi there!
Is there a place where I can see all the sets with color variants?

Thanks in advance"
This article shows which are the sets with variants being tested in the UK: https://brickset.com/article/63409/lego-announces-product-variation-pilot

For the ones that are colour swaps, clicking on the set number in blue and then on ‘Related’ will show the versions in other colours.

Hope that helps :~)

@Zander said:
" @Rene_lomeli said:
"Hi there!
Is there a place where I can see all the sets with color variants?

Thanks in advance"
This article shows which are the sets with variants being tested in the UK: https://brickset.com/article/63409/lego-announces-product-variation-pilot

For the ones that are colour swaps, clicking on the set number in blue and then on ‘Related’ will show the versions in other colours.

Hope that helps :~)

"

It helps a lot!!!

Thank u :)

@sIippery said:
" @Bricksrunner said:
" @maaboo35 said:
" @bananaworld said:
"Maybe LEGO feels sorry for the UK and wants to cheer us up after we made the kneecapping decision to leave the EU...?"

The fact that TLG sees the UK as a favoured market kinda blows a hole through that point. Besides, I'd say the pandemic has affected our economy more."

Spot the Brexiteer ^^"

Well, they should be easy to spot considering they are in the majority."

Not necessarily. The leave vote was only 37.4% of those entitled to vote and only about 26% of the total population.

Anyway, I’ve not bought a fiat yet for the same reason I didn’t get the F40, Caterham or DB5 - I’ve never been in one. So having a different colour doesn’t impact on my decision. Trouble is I’ve never been in the echo-mobile either and I really want that.

@fakespacesquid said:
" @jsosse said:
"Alas, TLG's social-economic discrimination towards entire markets shows its ugly face again. Sad to see that Brickset seems to have been caught by this trend as well, by simply ignoring the existence of other continents such as South and Central America. Yes, people here are, in general, poorer - but not destitute at all.

I understand the logic behind a test such this one, and even agree with the premise. But to not even acknowledge whole markets in their reasoning is appaling. "

Do they have to go down the list of every single tiny market? An even better question, would it make *any sense at all* to do pilot projects like this in places where very little Lego is bought? No, unfortunately it wouldn't. Is this classism? No. It's very basic business. If I wanted to test a new flavor of lemonade, it wouldn't make much sense to test it in places that don't buy a lot of lemonade, would it?

Lego is a luxury toy. It always has been. There is not much of a market for Lego in countries that aren't generally considered wealthy. In places where people can barely maintain subsistence, it is unlikely that they'll be able (or willing) to carve out sections of their income big enough to dedicate to regular Lego purchases. If Lego went out of their way to say that Brazil was still too small of a market to offer these pilots in, do you think that would make a difference in the amount of Lego purchased in Brazil?

Let's get real. What would you have wanted to see here?"

While I agree it is not reasonable to think they'll add 'every single tiny market' in a test like this, my point is a bit different. I'm referring to not even acknowledging markets other than Europe, the US and Australia in order to devise the test in the first place - and that could be addressed even testing it only in the UK.

These markets being left out are not so 'tiny': Brazil alone is the sixth most populous country in the world. Even taking into account the lower income rate in average, there is still a huge well-to-do layer of the population that are well into the profile of 'luxury toys' buyers. I don't think that to write off some 30 or 40 million potential customers who definitely CAN afford these products is sound business sense. What definitely could happen if TLG would act on the low hanging fruit this market is is, indeed, an increase in the amount of Lego purchased here.

And just to talk about Brazil, not even taking into account other non-South American markets which were also overlooked (as per what is stated in this post) such as China, Singapore, Japan, etc. I really don't see them as 'tiny' nor completely compatible with either the European or the US market, do you?

@CapnRex101 said:
" @jsosse said:
"Alas, TLG's social-economic discrimination towards entire markets shows its ugly face again. Sad to see that Brickset seems to have been caught by this trend as well, by simply ignoring the existence of other continents such as South and Central America. Yes, people here are, in general, poorer - but not destitute at all.

I understand the logic behind a test such this one, and even agree with the premise. But to not even acknowledge whole markets in their reasoning is appaling. "

South America is not necessarily a representative market though, so would not be covered in this discussion. However, that does not lessen its importance. China is also a unique market that would probably be unsuitable for assessing global market trends, but everyone knows how rapidly LEGO is expanding there.

I would be interested to learn more about purchasing LEGO in South America though. Are there any LEGO products which never reach Brazilian retailers, for example?"

@CapnRex101 - As I answered above, I'm referring to the fact (as per this post) the test was devised only taking into account the realities and context from three regions: Europe, the US and Australia. It leaves behind countries that have been historicaly left out of TLG's planning even though they encompass a large population and, even if with lower average incomes, still with a huge well-to-do population that fits right in the profile of Lego buyers. This kind of omission is, in my opinion, what actually makes these markets less representative - it is a vicious cycle: not enough interest from TLG, less options for buyers who spend their money in other products instead of Lego, which limits Lego sales and thus reduces TLG's interest in the market.

I'd be happy to tell you a bit more about purchasing Lego in Brazil (it definitely is not completely representative of South America as a whole, but a very good proxy, perhaps). It would be an interesting conversation, if only to raise awareness about what goes on here - which I have been following for quite a while, since I was a business reporter.

But to answer your question directly: yes, there are several Lego products that never reach retailers here. More than that, this fact also lays to the ground the 'too expensive for poorer consumers' argument, as the ones that mostly never reach our stores are polybags, while bigger, more expensive sets are indeed sent (albeit with one or two months delay from its launch in Europe/US) and the ones that are, sell pretty quickly.

@jsosse,

LEGO is clearly backing China as its key growth market and is focusing its resources accordingly. If any market is to break the vicious circle of insufficient interest leading to insufficient investment leading to insufficient interest and so on, it’s that one. And to be frank, I suspect that’s the right decision from a commercial perspective.

As for the current size of the LATAM market, we know from its Annual Report that LEGO derives 38% of its revenue from the Americas. My guess is that that breaks down to 31% US + 3.5% Canada + 3.5% LATAM. In other words, the entirety of the LATAM market is probably a small percentage of LEGO’s overall revenue. As well as being relatively small, LATAM’s demographics are likely very different to other key markets. It has a proportionally small but burgeoning middle class which is unlike NA, Western Europe or ANZ which are mature economies with relatively large but stable middle classes. So both due to size and demographics LATAM would not have been an ideal test market. LEGO was not insulting LATAM by not mentioning it as a possibility, merely tacitly acknowledging its unrepresentativeness.

@jsosse:
The US is third on the list by population, and has a higher per capita income than Brazil. As late as 1998, Germany (19 on the list) bought more total product than the entire US. Only with the launch of LEGO Star Wars did the US overtake Germany, and that’s strictly in terms of sheer quantity. On a per capita basis, Germany still had us beat, probably until at least 2014 when The LEGO Movie sparked a massive surge in popularity here.

China is top of the list, and has one of the highest growth rates for LEGO sales, but the US still buys a much larger quantity. China may not even be a Top 10 consumer nation yet. It’s probably coming, sooner or later, and they’re clearly focused on making that happen.

Brazil...is in South America. From what I understand, there was very little focus on tapping South American markets until very recently. Many South American nations still have struggling economies, which makes tapping markets across the entire continent difficult at best. The US has the tenth highest per capita income. Brazil is 104th on that list, which puts it below the world average. Only two South American and two Central American nations fall above the world average, and only three of those nations beat China.
Brazil is fifth in South America, and eighth if you include Central America.

Since the minifig was first introduced, sets have cost right around $0.10/pc, in USD. In that time, gas prices have at least quadrupled, and the inflation index is even higher than that. And still LEGO sets cost right around $0.10/pc USD. What that means is they’ve effectively been getting a lot cheaper over the last 4+ decades, to the point that it’s now worth turning attention to potential emerging markets such as South or Central America, and SE Asia. But what that means is that these are terrible test markets. They’re still building up the infrastructure in these regions, where a test market really needs a well-established one, and a significant track record for sales. There’s a reason they picked the UK over any of the EU nations, even before Brexit. They’ve apparently determined that current purchasing trends in the UK are fairly indicative of the world as a whole, where they really haven’t had time to learn those trends at all for Brazil.

@jsosse The article also fails to mention Asia. Do you think LEGO is also ignoring China too?

I suspect this media event was for outlets whose audience is predominately from European and English-speaking countries. Naturally LEGO would tailor its answers accordingly. I see no problem with that.

@ForestMenOfEndor said:
" @fakespacesquid said:
"I do find the premise of "multi-billion dollar company keeps 5-year-old stock tucked away in the back so they can sell it later on a janky site that they bought two years ago" a bit more than silly. "

Right?! Here's an article that describes how LEGO recently had to purchase old sets on the aftermarket for game developers to use as reference material: https://www.brickfanatics.com/lego-bought-retired-sets-develop-video-game/."

So Lego is purchasing sets on the second hand market to prove that they themselves aren’t scalpers. Except they left out the key detail, that the seller they purchased from was Lego. Which by the way, gave them better sales figures!

@jsosse said:
"And just to talk about Brazil, not even taking into account other non-South American markets which were also overlooked (as per what is stated in this post) such as China, Singapore, Japan, etc. I really don't see them as 'tiny' nor completely compatible with either the European or the US market, do you?
"

I’m not trying to belittle your argument, I totally get how it can be upsetting that your country is being ignored or left out. But, you are overlooking a few problems, namely culture and politics.

The perfect example of this is China of course. Culturally, it is completely different from the rest, and for Lego perhaps the biggest issue is their biggest theme. I think there is little doubt that Star Wars is easily one of the biggest if not the biggest seller for Lego. However, the Chinese don’t watch and don’t care about Star Wars. On top of that you have issues with censorship of sensitive issues in China, combined with the fact that luxury taxes in China make Lego cost three times more than they do in the US. China, and really Asia, just needs to be treated separately. What works in the west does not apply to Asia. As a result, Singapore is Asia’s test market. Any western companies looking to expand into Asia tend to test the waters in Singapore as it not only is more accessible, but allows you to test in a single small city so losses are kept to a minimum if you fail.

With Latin America, the issue probably comes down to the actual market size (it’s not the total population), political instability in some countries, a lack of infrastructure, and in terms of business, much higher risk. Latin America, like Asia probably needs to be treated separately. As for Brazil, it’s too big for being the test market. I would assume the Uruguay and Chile would be better options as they have smaller populations and stronger economies.

However, where Asia has some insane potential due to its population and wealth. Latin America simply doesn’t have the numbers to be a significant part of Lego’s business. If I were Lego and was trying to grow in new markets, I’d put all my focus on Asia where I have the potential to double, triple, or even quadruple the size of my business.

@AustinPowers said:
"I guess they chose the UK exactly for the reasons given by CapnRex.
Before the US took over as largest single market for LEGO, the UK and Germany traditionally were the largest markets for LEGO by a wide margin. And both markets are still strong for the company, with perhaps the UK nowadays having the edge over Germany, where LEGO has started to fall a bit out of favor in recent years. All things considered, I guess choosing the UK as test market might prove to be the right decision. "

Lego falling out of favor in Germany is news to me! Why do you think that is? Are prices getting too high or are there other competitors entering the market?

@Rene_lomeli said:
" @Zander said:
" @Rene_lomeli said:
"Hi there!
Is there a place where I can see all the sets with color variants?

Thanks in advance"
This article shows which are the sets with variants being tested in the UK: https://brickset.com/article/63409/lego-announces-product-variation-pilot

For the ones that are colour swaps, clicking on the set number in blue and then on ‘Related’ will show the versions in other colours.

Hope that helps :~)

"

It helps a lot!!!

Thank u :)
"
At the risk of inadvertently promoting a rival to Brickset, Brick Fanatics has a review of the variant dinosaurs including pictures of them and the original green t-rex together. Scroll down this page: https://www.brickfanatics.com/lego-77940-and-77941-mighty-dinosaurs-review/

@alfred_the_buttler said:
" @ForestMenOfEndor said:
" @fakespacesquid said:
"I do find the premise of "multi-billion dollar company keeps 5-year-old stock tucked away in the back so they can sell it later on a janky site that they bought two years ago" a bit more than silly. "

Right?! Here's an article that describes how LEGO recently had to purchase old sets on the aftermarket for game developers to use as reference material: https://www.brickfanatics.com/lego-bought-retired-sets-develop-video-game/."

So Lego is purchasing sets on the second hand market to prove that they themselves aren’t scalpers. Except they left out the key detail, that the seller they purchased from was Lego. Which by the way, gave them better sales figures!"

I'm assuming this is sarcasm, since it doesn't factually line up with the article or the podcast. They specifically mention going through eBay and Bricklink (the game's first playable version was made a year before Lego bought Bricklink and Lego has no store on Bricklink, so Lego could not have bought from Lego).