The LEGO® Pick a Brick service have re-opened their "Standard" service in North America and over 12,000 elements have returned. Only "Bestseller" elements have been available since the service was closed in December 2024.
This is a step towards things getting back to normal with Pick a Brick, what with the ongoing warehouse issues and poor customer communication on late 2024 orders that have left many customers frustrated and angry. However, in a new development for 2025, maximum order quantities have been placed on many items – read on for details.
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Discord user KittyAshley has calculated that the European and North American services now both have roughly the same number of elements, give or take about 50. Of the elements added to North America today, excluding Bestseller and those out of stock, there are 12,099 Standard elements!
Here is a link that just shows only the Standard elements on Pick a Brick. (Ignore the red error message about filters.)
However, a change that has been added to Europe this year is also now present in North America...
Maximum order quantities
One of the best aspects to Pick a Brick is that you can order up to 999 of an element. However, a maximum order quantity (MoQ) of 100 or even just 10 are now being applied to many elements.
- In Europe, 7021 elements have a MoQ of 10, and a further 254 have a MoQ of 100.
- In North America, about 6400 elements came back with a MoQ of 10 – more than half of the elements added today! No 100-limit elements are currently being reported.
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I wonder when they will lift this limit. Love using PaB!!
ReplyDeleteI placed an order a couple weeks back and noticed the limits. I didn’t try this, but could you not just do multiple PAB orders in the same shop@home order and that’d allow you to order as much as you want (but you’d be hit with the fee if you don’t spend over the threshold). Even with that fee if you distributed the parts in your multiple orders right you could probably get around it?
ReplyDeleteA part of me wonders if maybe the excessive limits are meant to help stem the rush of orders from people who have been waiting for the service to become available again, ensuring that they don't get overwhelmed by the pent up demand right away. If so, hopefully that would mean they dial them back over time as that initial demand ebbs and the fulfillment team gets back in the swing of things.
ReplyDeleteI'm at 133 days waiting for an order.
ReplyDeleteThe 10 units limit makes no sense to me. Sure, it would theoretically allow stocks to last longer and give opportunities for more customers to purchase certain elements. But surely it will also likely clog the ordering process with more orders as some folks place more smaller orders to work around the limitations?
ReplyDelete10 is such a ridiculously low and arbitrary number… is this still supposed to be a bulk ordering service… or is this being changed into some different?
I would also expect Bricklink prices to rise for the elements that are being targeted… but I suppose that could be seen as a win for TLG.
I honestly doubt the AFOL second-hand market is of noteworthy importance to TLG. Economically, it's basically irrelevant whether some parts are collectors' items, or not. BrickLink was probably bought for data mining for the design of nostalgic sets and such, not because it - in itself - made a great deal of profit.
DeleteThere is more to this than the “regular” MOC-making secondary market. Think of everyone trying to run a business with Lego as a focus and how it can impact them. Here’s my personal case, I have a small business of selling custom sets for companies who want to have custom merchandising items. A few months ago I struck a deal with a company on a model that I designed. I quoted them a price per unit based on the feasibility of securing the bricks at the market price then. Fast forward to today, unfortunately several elements required for the model are now under the max 10 units limit. Secondary market price for these same elements has since doubled… I can no longer deliver on the agreed upon price.
DeleteMy point is that on top of annoying the heck out of people trying to enjoy their hobby, decisions like these are also impeding people trying to run a professional activity using their products… but maybe that’s just another one of their objectives?
Imposing limits is market manipulation 101. TLG knows EXACTLY how PaB buyers think and purchase. Their control of the secondary market (BL) was strategic for understanding the psychology of buying patterns. If an item has a limit, the average buyer isn't going to simply stop and go directly to checkout, they will continue buying. This spreads the metrics around to other units. They also see what moves and what doesn't down to the micro-fraction. This is the problem they face with the unnerving number of differing units in their catalog. They have the supply, now they're coercing the demand. This doesn't make them evil; it makes them savvy.
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