[Canada] ToysRUs 20% off LEGO City, Creator, Basics

[Jasper Parnebrick]

If it's an error, there is no law that Toys R Us is required to honour the price. Usually large companies will honour 1 item at the erroneous price to make customers happy and provide good service. I have seen large companies decline to honour prices when it costs them big time (like advertising a TV at $79.99 when it's supposed to be $799.99). At this price, assuming it's an error, $100 is lost on each item. The gross margin on these things is probably around 25%, so it costs $135 to TRU. That's a loss of $55 per item, times 1000 orders, that's $55,000. I'd say TRU can afford to pay that for their error since their annual profits must be in the billions of dollars.

Wanna know a funny thing about markups? Yes, it does seem that TRU Canada is marking up the LOTR sets a bit.. the SW sets seem to be matching what LEGO.com is selling them for, but not so with the LOTR. I was returning something at TRU the other day - next time anyone is there, see if you can see the screen that comes up at their customer service desk - A manager was there, and I overheard him saying: "I can give it to you for $25" I looked over and saw a couple of ladies buying something that was out of a box or something. My ears pricked up, because I was wondering how he came up with that number. I don't know how, but I glanced over and saw the monitor, and my eye went right to the upper right-corner of the screen and it said 'M/U: 63%'. I used to work as a manager for a large international retailer, and I know that I could easily access the markup information for any article that we sold, that's how we decided how low we could go on dicsounts at sale time.

SO in a nutshell, you see tons of US postings about TRU jacking the prices up. In Canada it's not as bad, but they are making a KILLING. Long story short.. they had better honour that error, their gross margins are way higher than 25%!

[legoeggo]

Helm's deep is back up to 169, I hope they keep the 79 price, cause I ordered 2 of em!

[Shijima]

I actually think they will honour the orders ~ they have in the past if they made a mistake.

No, they haven't. They cancelled my Imperial Flagship order a year or two ago. Toys R Us is kind of a scummy company that way. Watch them send everyone Weathertop instead with its $5 markup.

My Imperial Flagship order was also cancelled, I believe the problem was though that they never even had the set in inventory.

[harry99]

Helm's deep is back up to 169, I hope they keep the 79 price, cause I ordered 2 of em!

Someone finally noticed ... I ordered a ton and a half of them, let's see what happens. My money is on that they will honour the price as their sales and fulfilment are completely detached from each other.

[Jasper Parnebrick]

Helm's deep is back up to 169, I hope they keep the 79 price, cause I ordered 2 of em!

Someone finally noticed ... I ordered a ton and a half of them, let's see what happens. My money is on that they will honour the price as their sales and fulfilment are completely detached from each other.

Hey Legoeggo, do you have the inside scoopt at TRU or something? I hope you're right, but wouldnt the parent company make that decision?

[Deathleech]

SO in a nutshell, you see tons of US postings about TRU jacking the prices up. In Canada it's not as bad, but they are making a KILLING. Long story short.. they had better honour that error, their gross margins are way higher than 25%!

They make a killing... but only when they actually sell the product.

I remember several years ago when the company was bought out and tons of TRU stores were shut down because their lot value was worth more than the actual stores were bringing in revenue. I haven't heard much since then about em, but seeing as most the TRU stores around me have gone under since then I can only imagine they aren't doing much better nowadays.

Charging 10-30% above MSRP is just bad business practice. What extra money they make in mark up they probably lose out ten fold in missed sales because so few people want to shop there. I know there is absolutely no incentive for me to shop at TRU right now because they don't have better stock, they aren't more conveniently located, and their prices aren't competitive.

[bigw1974]

I got my dad to order it for me, he got a receipts with an estimated ship date, so we'll see. Thanks for the heads up everyone!

[Ice]

If it's an error, there is no law that Toys R Us is required to honour the price. Usually large companies will honour 1 item at the erroneous price to make customers happy and provide good service. I have seen large companies decline to honour prices when it costs them big time (like advertising a TV at $79.99 when it's supposed to be $799.99). At this price, assuming it's an error, $100 is lost on each item. The gross margin on these things is probably around 25%, so it costs $135 to TRU. That's a loss of $55 per item, times 1000 orders, that's $55,000. I'd say TRU can afford to pay that for their error since their annual profits must be in the billions of dollars.

I don't think Toys R Us gross margin would be 25-30%. That would be for the individual small toy shops. These big box retailers gets them at a better rate due to the volume of LEGOs they sell. At $79.99, its probably around their break even point.

I ordered two sets, too. It is worth to try, and we should try. They must receive tons of complaints if Weathertop was shipped out. With the pressure on, TRUs may try to settle this by honouring the sale.

In fact, I am guessing that the shipping department does not care how much the set is. They just simply follow the order slip, which is "9474 The Battle Of Helm's Deep", and packs them into boxes.

Yep, that's how I think it works. The fullfillment company is completely different than the one taking orders. The fulfillment company (not really TRU) is in Missisaugua and the one taking orders in the USA (I believe Michigan or Wisconsin?).

Yes, their customer service/fulfillment is split up. Customer service for Toys R Us Canada is handled by reps in the USA while the warehouse is in Canada. The french line is probably in Canada though.

Those who ordered it for $79.99 will get it most likely. Its not like they won't be getting anymore in the future as its a new item (not like the Imperial Flagship).

Helm's deep is back up to 169, I hope they keep the 79 price, cause I ordered 2 of em!

Seems like they're putting the 2 sets that got messed up in pricing back to MSRP. All of the other sets are marked up and I'm sure Helm's Deep will be marked up to $179.99 and Weathertop to $79.99 soon too.

[ricefields]

tru does not have a 30% margin. Margins for retailers are in the 50% range. But tru may be slightly lower because they are not the walmarts and targets. so at$80 its either break even or a small loss.

[Claybricks]

Is there a reason Toys R Us isn't selling "The Orc Forge" yet?

[Ice]

Is there a reason Toys R Us isn't selling "The Orc Forge" yet?

Thats a Target exclusive in the USA so you'll probably find it at Zellers.

[Joseywales]

I work at a zellers and can tell you that according to the retail cost (easily found by any staff who knows how) for zellers is about 30-34% less than the MSRP, this works out to a 50% mark-up. While zellers is often seen as the black sheep in Canadian retail they do really good toy sales and I doubt anyone is getting much better product costs than that (remember wal-mart threatened to stop carrying lego if the price in canada wasn't set to the same as USA and lego didn't appear to buckle under the pressure there). So yes I would bet they would be losing a decent chunk of money on this mistake if they honor it as their cost is likely around 112-120.

I hope they honor 1 set per person or something people who ordered a ton of these for resale hurt the chances that everyone else will get in on the deal because the loss could be too much for TRU to swallow.

[mshiels]

Is there a reason Toys R Us isn't selling "The Orc Forge" yet?

Thats a Target exclusive in the USA so you'll probably find it at Zellers.

Except that with the demise of an awful lot of the Zellers stores, it seemed that TRU got ahold of/sold off the Zellers excelusives - which may mean TRU in Canada will have the Orc Forge, with TRU USA will not since it's a Target one in the states. Weird for sure!!

[Jasper Parnebrick]

Is there a reason Toys R Us isn't selling "The Orc Forge" yet?

Thats a Target exclusive in the USA so you'll probably find it at Zellers.

Except that with the demise of an awful lot of the Zellers stores, it seemed that TRU got ahold of/sold off the Zellers excelusives - which may mean TRU in Canada will have the Orc Forge, with TRU USA will not since it's a Target one in the states. Weird for sure!!

Yes, I have seen Lego that is supposed to be a Target (Zellers) Excusive at Toys R Us in Canada too. I wondered what that was about. Zellers often carries better offerings than Wal-Mart, even though Wal-Marts are like 3x the size!

[ricefields]

I work at a zellers and can tell you that according to the retail cost (easily found by any staff who knows how) for zellers is about 30-34% less than the MSRP, this works out to a 50% mark-up. While zellers is often seen as the black sheep in Canadian retail they do really good toy sales and I doubt anyone is getting much better product costs than that (remember wal-mart threatened to stop carrying lego if the price in canada wasn't set to the same as USA and lego didn't appear to buckle under the pressure there). So yes I would bet they would be losing a decent chunk of money on this mistake if they honor it as their cost is likely around 112-120.

I hope they honor 1 set per person or something people who ordered a ton of these for resale hurt the chances that everyone else will get in on the deal because the loss could be too much for TRU to swallow.

I find it hard to believe that zellers only gets it for 30%-34% off msrp but cannot question someone that works there! There are many people who sell lego privately through kijiji, craigslist and ebay who manage to get product at cheaper prices than zellers. Often I benefit from 30% off msrp and no tax from a few sellers. so if they are making money off me, there has to be others who can get more than 30-34% off msrp.

[meclo]

I find it hard to believe that zellers only gets it for 30%-34% off msrp but cannot question someone that works there! There are many people who sell lego privately through kijiji, craigslist and ebay who manage to get product at cheaper prices than zellers. Often I benefit from 30% off msrp and no tax from a few sellers. so if they are making money off me, there has to be others who can get more than 30-34% off msrp.

True enough, I've noticed that too. I kind of assumed it was people who go to the States a lot and buy Lego at US sale prices, and then bring the sets back up for resale...though I've never asked them. But I'd love to get in on whatever channel they're using to get more than 30-34% off MSRP!

[Joseywales]

I find it hard to believe that zellers only gets it for 30%-34% off msrp but cannot question someone that works there! There are many people who sell lego privately through kijiji, craigslist and ebay who manage to get product at cheaper prices than zellers. Often I benefit from 30% off msrp and no tax from a few sellers. so if they are making money off me, there has to be others who can get more than 30-34% off msrp.

Well personally being a student I can get up to 40% off at Zellers if there is a sale of BOGO 50% off, 10% off for Student pricing card and then another 10% off for my staff discount. From someone I know who used to work at TRU they got a pretty good discount on any purchases they made there though I can't remember how much it was. So those are possibilities, however I'd guess most canadian sellers with good deals are buying from amazon France when they get a good deal or are border hoppers who hit up good sales in the states, or are just straight up thieves, Ebay is a great place to get rid of stolen goods.

[ricefields]

its not amazon france - i have tracked those from the beginning and you cannot most sets through on discount with the taxes to make steady sales. from the site, you can see what you can get cheap and its been mostly the train and technic sets. once in a while something else is discounted pretty good. There's only been a few really good deals and they apply to large sets: cargo train, london bridge, unimog, fire temple

10% off is pretty low for zellers staff!

[Joseywales]

Don't I know it :)

[sneaky07]

Just got an email from TRU, my order for Helm's Deep was cancelled due to a pricing error. Booo. But was offered a one time $45 off the same item. So essentially 25% off.