Quote:
Originally Posted by bizaro86
They do it because the scarcity makes people buy now, and buy more. Less people would rush down and buy a $100+ building toy on release day if they knew they could get it later, and some of them wouldn't end up buying it. If they had 75 of those rockets in the Calgary store, plus online, they are making thousands of these. It's silly, and if they are making thousands eventually this will collapse.
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Could you seriously imagine if apple only made a few million iPhones to drive up scalper prices and create fake scarcity? Their stock price would plummet at the incredibly moronic decision. They produce tens of millions of phones to meet market demand.
I have a hard time believing Lego would rather sell 25 rockets on day 1 instead of 75 rockets over the course of a month.
But like I said, it seems as though they haven't been choking supply over the long term like they used to. If they can benefit from the hype short term but still satisfy all buyers long term, I've got no issue with that. I understand there are probably limits on initial production runs, which drives up short term scarcity and demand, just like iPhones. But just like the newest iPhone, I don't need the Saturn V this week. But if it never comes back into stock because they are intentionally shorting supply long term to create fake scarcity then they're idiots.
It's a bit of a weird position because I don't hate Lego. I just hate they don't seem to want my money. I'm willing to give them a very sceptical benefit of the doubt for now and trust that they want my money and just can't meet the current demand. But given how they've done this in the past, I'm not holding my breath.
As for classic sets, maybe they want to reproduce dozens of sets, specifically licensed ones, but no longer own the licensing rights. But given how much they seem to cater to scalpers, it is difficult to not be suspicious that they have made a conscious decision to drive the secondary market demand for the sake of making Lego a status product.
And if they truly believe they are better off shorting production because the only way they'll sell their sets is to create fake demand, then they are royally screwed as a company long term. The bubble always bursts. First the scalpers will get screwed and when they stop buying, Lego will be too.