New release strategy....

[Jabba the Taff]

... or lack of.

Does anybody else think that Lego missed a trick with the release of the new sets? It appears to be a complete hash; in the UK at least. Sets are up on S@H, sets are taken down. Sets are in Toysrus, but in few other places. I didn't receive the promotional email I normally do. There didn't seem to be much promotion of any kind.

You would have thought Lego would have wanted to say, "Boom! Hello! Here are all our great new sets. Buy some!" not "Hmm, we've had a little look in the basement and found some sets. Not sure how many, but you can buy whatever you can find. Take a torch down with you."

[SuperDave]

Here in the States there seems to be an arrangement between Lego and TRU (to a lesser extent this happens with Target on occasion). When new sets are released, TRU gets them a few weeks before they become widely available. This allows TRU to have some level of exclusivity, even on non-exclusive items (I assume they pay Lego a fee for this privilege). Once this period expires, the sets become widely available through Shop at Home and general retailers.

I don't have any inside info; this is just synthesized from my personal observations.

[Joedward]

I don't really see this as a new development, Jabba. Whenever I get emails from S@H about new sets it's always weeks, or even months, after the sets are actually available to buy.

I don't really mind though. I rarely go to TRU (have been twice recently, but only because fo the Vader promotion), and I check S@H every week or two, or more often when new sets are on the horrizon, just to see if there's anything new or anything on sale (whish sets seldom are here )

[Puddleglum]

^Ditto that, at least in the US, the emails about new sets usually don't come until weeks after they are available. I assume they wait until they have lots of a set on hand before they start widely advertising/promoting them. I'm guessing the first wave of sets sell fine enough just based on AFOL word of mouth.

[Puddleglum]

Well, it seems LEGO is changing their ways, at leat in the US. I just got an email hyping all the new sets!

[Jabba the Taff]

I don't really see this as a new development, Jabba. Whenever I get emails from S@H about new sets it's always weeks, or even months, after the sets are actually available to buy.

I had an email about the January sets only a week after they were out. But I should have given more emphasis to the fact that those sets went up online and came out in shops all at once. They didn't appear for a few days then disappear and they were all there together, not just some sets.

Weren't a lot of these sets due in August though? Maybe bringing the release forward has caused this.

[Logan]

Working in retail, there's a lot of miscommunication that happens once you market something for a specific timeframe, and then due to market shifts or inventory issues (both positive and negative), the release date changes. It causes confusion and delays, whether in product being release prior to media blitz campaigns, or vice versa, where the media comes out, and then has to be re-released due to a lag time in release date. This happens constantly in the entertainment industry, especially pre-internet music. CDs would have a release date (always a Tuesday), with a ship date and a receive date. Once some market factor causes the ship date to change (which is simple, since the public does not have access to that generally, it's simply communicated via email and updated on networks linking inventory systems), the previous marketing (print ads, photos, audio/visual advertising, etc.) are all rendered incorrect. Thus, you either have the product before people think you should, or after it says it will be there, and lots of confused unhappy customers.

It's a tangent, but that's part of the reason (with cost still being the overriding factor) that has destroyed the music industry.

Long story short, the concepts apply similarly for LEGO. You could be seeing sets before pre-determined release dates due to overproduction, or it could be (like others have said) pre-existing contractual obligations with third-party retailers (i.e. Toys R Us).