Lego Christmas Production Shortage

shadowspar writes, "Recent restructuring and production cuts have left Lego unable to fill orders for the upcoming holiday season. Affected products include Duplo bricks, Lego City sets, and (horror of horrors!) Star Wars and Lego Technik sets." According to the article Lego stands to lose $127 million in holiday sales.

Comments

Re:YFI

[mincognito]

I guess your mother bought you Mega Blocks when you were youger, and not orignal legos.

"The word LEGO® is a brand name and is very special to all of us in the LEGO Group Companies. We would sincerely like your help in keeping it special. Please always refer to our bricks as 'LEGO Bricks or Toys' and not 'LEGOS.' By doing so, you will be helping to protect and preserve a brand of which we are very proud and that stands for quality the world over. Thank you! Susan Williams, Consumer Services."

From here

While true it's all about toy competition...

[kberg108]

When legos have to compete with the XBox 360 you'd better throw some theme action in there to keep those kids interested. As much as we old nerds like to think we keep lego in business it's probably not the case. Not to mention they can chagre more for a theme which will keep the cost of standard bricks from rising. It's all very complicated financial stuff I wouldn't expect you to understand.

Re:oh boy

[Moofie]

For whatever it's worth, the Star Wars kits were superb LEGO sets, not just hacky movie tie in schlock. Can't speak for their other lines, but I was consistently impressed with the Star Wars line. Nice new pieces, and not too much big molded crap.

Every time the same marketing trick...

[anshil]

There is no real shortage thats a planned trick to get more money into the toy sector.

Robert B. Cialdini writes this in his book "The Psychology of Persuasion". One Toy-Product is heavily marketed, so you eventually promise your kids who will be longing for it, they will get it as present for christmas. Then *tata* production shortage bla-bla, and you can't get it, so you have to buy another equally valued toy for your kids. But(!): Promised is still promised! In February the production shortage suddendly vanishes, and you will have to buy your kids the promised toy also. -> Result: You spent twice as much in the toy sector.