Have you walked into a LEGO Store looking for a particular set but end up finding out that it is an exclusive set to another store? One example is The Penguin Arctic Roller (70911) which is actually a Target exclusive so you can only find that set there.
After many customer complaints, what I am hearing is that there will no longer be store exclusives and LEGO Stores will start carrying all the sets from a particular wave. This means that stores like Target, Walmart, and Toys R Us will no longer be the place to go for one set. Of course you can buy the set on Shop@Home but if you’re already at a LEGO Store, why wait for shipping on it.
There’s no word on when the change will take effect but I’m already seeing the Arkham Asylum (70912) at LEGO Stores which was previously a Toys R Us exclusive.
When you make a purchase or, sometimes, carry out some other action as direct result of clicking on a link at The Brick Fan, we will receive a small commission.
The Brick Fan is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
We partner with Rakuten Advertising, who may collect personal information when you interact with our site. The collection and use of this information is subject to the privacy policy located here: https://rakutenadvertising.com/legal-notices/services-privacy-policy/
Glad this was short lived. The policy is very new, having only started this past July.
So if a new summer 2017 is a store exclusive I can get it at the Lego Store now?
Once the stores receive their shipment, then yes.
I was really excited when I saw Arkham at my store over the weekend.
I picked the brain of the manager on duty as to why they had them, and apparently all Lego Stores got an extremely limited amount of Arkham and Scarecrow’s Pizza Delivery to be sold in store during TLBM’s time in theaters or while their supply lasted.
I also asked if they got the Arctic Roller in as well, and apparently none of Lego Stores in the country were getting copies of it.
Shame that they don’t sell exclusives year round anymore though, but during double points, that Arkham made my day.
Don’t know what stock levels are like at other stores, but don’t be afraid to ask, and YMMV.
That explains why I’ve never found one of those Arctic Rollers despite looking in a Lego store and multiple Walmarts. I didn’t even know it was a “store exclusive”
My local store always gets the exclusive sets to the point where I thought this piece of news was already the way things worked.
back on March 3rd (My Birthday when I always go to the LEGO store because otherwise it is too far away) I went to buy some stuff and I saw Arkham Asylum and bought it too, my store usually carries exclusives…
The first set I ran into this problem with was the Ra’s al Ghul set. I called a few times to see if they’d gotten it in stock yet, and eventually they informed me that they’d discovered they never would. S@H still works, so for Ra’s, Arkham, and maybe one or two others, that’s the route I went. Haven’t picked up Penguin’s car at all, but I just snagged a Scarecrow set in-store, since the flimsy box dramatically increases the chances of having it crushed during packing. Seriously, I’ve had the worst luck with that. I once had an order where one set almost filled an entire layer of the shipping carton, and it was laid diagonally across a box that was at most 1/3 the size, and then a bunch of packing balloons were stuffed in on top until it looked like it must have taken two people to close up and seal before shipping. Pristine boxes? Not a shred of a chance.
You can always tell which ones are going to be affected because they’ll be tagged as “Hard to Find” on S@H and in the catalog. Currently, the print catalog is also tagged with “Buy @ Shop.LEGO.Com”. I don’t know how long they’ve been doing that, but it’s in the January and Spring 2017 catalogs for sure.
So, does this mean that store exclusives are back to being shared exclusives like before (Target+TLS, Walmart+TLS, TRU+TLS), or that all such sets will be available for all retailers in the future?
Is Luke’s land speeder exclusive? I can’t find it in Lego stores or normal stores.
landspeeder, skiff, and a-wing…
yeah, this isn’t what I was told. it’s just the arkham/scarecrow sets, not the roller… and it’s just those 2 sets, not other themes… and it’s just a trial run to see what the sales are like, not a complete reversal.
Pity. So the reason they stopped selling them, from what I was told, was that each store would get X copies of a regular set, but a fraction of that for a comparable shared exclusive. Then the exclusive would sell out instantly, parents would get pissed, Consumer Affairs would get an earful, and eventually they decided the “best” course of action would taking away everybody’s fun.
I thought all Lego sets were available in the brand stores regardless of exclusivity. Or did something change in the last 9 months when I moved out of the US?
No, there have been a number of sets that were exclusive to other stores and LEGO Stores did not have them at any time. Doctor Strange’s Sanctum Sanctorum was Target. Civil War: Spiderman Tanker Truck Takedown was Toys R Us. Those were just a couple including the ones mentioned in the post.