Although you should certainly be able to find plenty of LEGO deals locally, you might also want to check out LEGO available online.
I believe that you will appreciate this opportunity more and more as you venture deeper into the world of LEGO. 😀
But for now let’s just say that the benefit of online shopping is that you will have a much greater selection than at any local store.
The drawback is that you will have to wait some days until your LEGO arrives, and in most cases you will also have to pay for shipping. However if you really-really want a set that is not available locally, you probably wouldn’t mind to pay a bit extra. Also, around major holidays, many of the online shops offer free shipping and excellent LEGO deals!
➡ BUYING NEW LEGO:
- Lego.com:
this is LEGO’s own website! You can find pretty much everything they currently have in production as well as web-exclusives. You can also find out about new releases, new store openings, sales, etc. Around holidays they usually offer free shipping. I also highly recommend requesting their paper catalog. You will receive it about 5 times a year. It is a great way to see all the new themes, sets, etc. You can call LEGO at 1-800-453-4652 to request the latest copy.
- Amazon.com: Amazon is one of the largest online retailers. Although they started out with books years ago, now they sell pretty much everything under the sun – including a great selection of LEGO items. And, they offer FREE SHIPPING on orders over $25! You can’t really beat that!
- If you are looking for LEGO sets that your local stores ran out of don’t forget that most of them have an online shopping option as well. Toys’R’Us, Target and Wal-Mart all have robust websites with great LEGO deals. In fact they often carry web-exclusives.
➡ BUYING USED LEGO:
Just like in the real world, you also have options to buy used LEGO online. This is a great way to find discontinued sets and parts.
- eBay.com:
eBay is like a giant, international garage-sale. It is a place for individuals to sell items they no longer want or need. It is also a great place for shoppers to find both common and extremely rare items at bargain prices. There are some caveats shopping there, but I will say that it is a great place to find LEGO items! To learn more read Shopping for LEGO on eBay.
- Craigslist.com: this is a huge classified ads site. You can select your state and city and look for ads in your area. I personally haven’t had luck with this site finding LEGO, but other people report great LEGO deals. I believe it very much depends on where you live.
- BrickLink.com: this is the largest website for LEGO trading. It is a place for individuals and businesses from all around the world to buy and sell used and new LEGO sets, parts, instructions, and everything else related to LEGO. To learn more you can read Shopping for LEGO on Bricklink. But I would say that if LEGO becomes a serious hobby for you, you will be hanging out here a lot! 😉
You may also want to check out these posts for further ideas:
Amazon is a great place to buy legos! They offen have the best deals by far, shipping is free for orders over $25, and they don’t charge sales tax! So it end up being a better deal then shopping at a local TRU or lego store!
Agree on the Amazon deals! They are great! Also ebay is great to find some good deals. Especially from moms who are getting rid of their kids’ old toys.
I have posted groups of specialty Lego Minifigures (soldiers, pirates, forestmen, etc.) I’d like to trade 1 for 3 for common Lego Minifigures. We use the common minifigs for the items we sell at a fund raiser for the Lego League at my son’s school. Thank you – Sam
http://cincinnati.craigslist.org/search/sss?query=Lego+Minifigures+Trade+Burlington&srchType=A&zoomToPosting=&minAsk=&maxAsk=
Your Civil War soldiers are really nice. Hope you get the trade you are looking for. The other ones are so common that I don’t know how you could trade them for more common-er, but maybe someone will like them. 😉
I want to share a tip for getting the free shipping on Amazon. They offer free shipping for orders over $25. If you have an order that less than $25 they even tell you how much more you need to spend to get free shipping. You have to decide if you want to spend more to save on shipping.
The temptation is to just buy something else you wanted and thus spend more than you intended.
But there is a site that can find you that cheap item to reach $25. It’s called Filler item. You enter the amount you need and it searches amazon and lists things that price. http://www.filleritem.com/
Last time I ordered DVDs from amazon I was 1.50 short of $25. I used filler item and found a couple cheap books and got free shipping.
Hm… never heard of that service! Thanks for sharing! can be very useful at times! Although with my Amazon wish-list I will probably never run out of stuff to buy. But when you are only a bit short this service can be very useful. Thanks for sharing! 🙂
Two online sources worth mentioning in addition to the above are http://www.minifigbay.com and http://www.firestartoys.com
Used both a number of times, parts are, and as importantly to me, service is, good.
Thomas, thanks for sharing that! This article is mostly written to those new to the LEGO hobby, but you got me thinking that I should write a post about more advanced LEGO buying resources; like for custom minifigs and accessories, etc. Thanks for sharing! 🙂
If you are looking for used or out of production LEGO sets, The Plastic Brick is a great place to look online. We are one of the largest single sellers of used LEGO sets.
http://theplasticbrick.com
Can anybody suggest what the best way is to price used Lego bricks for sale is? Also, can anybody suggest what kind of prices are fair when buying used Lego? Thank you
Jim
jim.pernock@yahoo.com
Jim, it really depends on the quality and content of the lot you are planning to buy. It is going to be different picking up a mixed lot of LEGO used by kids at a garage-sale, versus picking up the personal collection of an adult LEGO fan.
If you are presented with a mixed lot and you quickly need to make an offer, I would suggest you try to identify what’s in the box by the odd pieces and minifigures. Does it look like the collection is newer Star Wars sets in excellent condition? You can offer more. Or is it a pile of mostly generic bricks and elements? You would offer less.
I would suggest that you familiarize yourself with the BrickLink price-guide, so you can quickly identify LEGO sets and the era they come from. You can easily look up what a particular set or minifig has sold for in the last 6 months, and you can use that number to make an offer. If the lot is completely random, the rule of thumb is to keep the price at or below $5 per pound.
For selling you can also use the BrickLink price-guide, and sell at or below the 6 months avarages. If your collection is fairly small I would be more agressive with the prices. If you have a large selection you can list for higher prices as buyers will likely find more then one set/item from their wanted list.
In general LEGO is priced at 10 cents a piece. When you are buying for yourself, if you can get them less than that you are fine. If you are guying for resale you won’t want to pay more than 3 cents a piece to be able to cover the cost of selling and still make a profit.
I would reccomend brick owl if you are looking for spare parts. the parts are extremely cheap
John, yes, BrickOwl is an alternative, however their selection is extremely small compared to BrickLink. So unless you are looking for the exact parts the sellers carry there, it is not a particularly good option. But yes, it might work in certain situation.
For Lego in Canada, we go to http://www.migatoy.ca
They ship fast and service is good.
For Lego in Canada
They ship fast and service is good
I would like to trade a reddish brown Chewbacca from the 2004 millennium falcon for any clone. Lately I have been trying to build up my clone army since it is already pretty big with about 250 clones.