Kmart getting rid of lego

[Sutton]

That's true... I was at Sunnybank Kmart, and even though half the toy section was generic brands now, there was a whole AISLE of Lego - and just Lego... the other types of construction block brands were in other sections.
They may be able to make Generic brand versions of Barbie (the product and packaging looked so much like barbie) and boardgames (Hungry Hungry Dinos anyone?)... but the real demand with construction blocks is with themes or licensed brands. Generic stuff is usually just random sets.
I wonder how Hasbro and Mattel are going to deal with this surge of generic stuff, which is only happening because they are charging retailers double what they should be on their American brands. The Australian retailers finally had enough of paying more than they should, and losing customers to cheaper online purchases.

Interestingly enough, the current wave of Lego is slightly cheaper than it has been for the last few years (brick-for-brick). The new Star Wars Republic Gunship is probably the best useable example of this.

The last Gunship released in 2008 was $179, had 1034 pieces and weighed 2.04kg. The new Gunship released last week is still $179, has 1175 pieces and weighs 2.01kg. That's not bad for 5 years worth of inflation, and from a company outside the US where the issues of dollar-parity aren't as important. The non-licensed sets are actually quite a bit cheaper brick-for-brick (around 10%). Something that may help in explaining this is the change in packaging (the boxes used in most themes now are quite compact and small compared to what they were 5 years ago, much less a case of opening up a 'box of air' like it used to be), that would surely mean a fair reduction in the cost of freight.

Meanwhile TF deluxes are getting smaller and have gone up in price. Never mind the whole separate issue of most releases not even turning up here. I've already got my Metroplex coming from BBTS (yes, I'm part of the problem, I know! ) but I'll be very interested to see what he sells for here later on.

*EDIT: The new Gunship is $159, so quite a bit cheaper than the last one considering it's been 5 years. I know, because I just bought one. Padme Amidala minifig!!! *swoon*