9 March 2022 update: Added some tips from Target.com. Added the Reddit Lego Deals page.
Buying LEGO can be expensive. At the in person sales that I have done, I have seen many a parent balk at the prices of sets and minifigures. "That set is how much?" While I don't know what the LEGO Company's profit margin is per set, I do know that they are doing okay. Thankfully, there are some ways to get discount LEGO sets.
LEGO Shop @ Home: Buying from the source can sometimes be a good deal. This however is not always the case. For most of the year, they throw a lot of sets up for sale that they weren't able to sell. There are a few key times however. The Star Wars set sales during the May the Fourth sales and the Brick Friday Sales offer some great deals. Often they throw a few other sales in there, but you need to pay attention to them. If you get on their mailing list, you can get notices of when they are coming up.
LEGO Shop VIP Program: While it’s not the greatest VIP program in the world, it gives you the opportunity to build points to garner discounts in the future. For every $100 you spend, you get $5 off in the future. Sometimes LEGO offers double VIP points so $10 back for spending $100. While some of the other deals they offer aren’t the most exciting, if you plan to buy a set from LEGO, you might as well get the points that go with your purchase.
BrickSet.com - Amazon.com deals in the US: Amazon has kept a good deal of discounts on sets. If you pay attention, they have a great deal of some of the main lines (CITY, Friends, Star Wars, etc.) at a 20% discount. As they approach Christmas time, they often increase sales to include discounts of 30% or more. It's definitely worth it to check this site out before buying a LEGO set to see if there's a discount. BrickSet used to have a Walmart sales site, but that one has since been shut down.
BrickPicker.com: BrickPicker is more of a resource for those who collect, invest, and sell on the secondary market. It focuses on LEGO sets that have long since retired and where people are willing to pay big money for some of the rarer sets. They do show some current discounts on Amazon in various countries and if you follow the forums, you can see what deals people are finding at some of the big brand stores.
Walmart and Target: Both of these retailers have either pushed all of the fan sites to take down their sales searches or people took them down on their own. I'm not sure what happened, but I have yet to find an easy way to find the LEGO deals at these stores. Has anyone found something useful out there? If so, please let me know. I have found that joining Target Circle gets you 1% of every purchase that you can use towards your next purchase. It’s not a lot, but it’s something. Also, Target will run deals every so often where they will send you a $10 eGift card for every $50 purchase.
Ratuken.com (formerly Ebates.com)- Okay so this is not a way to save money buying LEGO in a direct way. However, there are a few ways you can take advantage of it. For those of you not familiar, Ratuken/Ebates is a website where you sign up, go to the website before you shop, and then Ratuken/Ebates and you get a cut of the total sale when you are done. If you sign up, you get spam emails every day. The good news is, you can use it to buy LEGO. LEGO Shop @ Home typically offers 2.5% cash back. You place an order, they hold onto 2.5% of the sale, and then they return it to you in quarterly payments. You can receive a check or link it to your PayPal account. Historically around Christmas time Ratuken/Ebates has between 5% and 7.5% cash back deal on LEGO Shop @ Home. Combine that with Double VIP points and it was a pretty good deal! Also, you can share their site with friends and get a referral payment (amount varies). The link I placed is just to the site and not an attempt to get the referral payment out of you. Amazon.com and Walmart are linked to Ratuken/Ebates too, but often they are linked to specific categories of products. I have yet to see them give cash back for toys.
Of note, recently I stopped getting cashback on Ratuken with purchases from LEGO.com. Perhaps I over purchased? Has anyone else seen this issue?
Brickseek.com - A reader told me about this one. This site was originally created to help people find LEGO sets. It has since expanded to a much larger inventory. You can still search for sets though. You can pick stores near you or you can search for online deals as well. While I have not used this site personally, I’m told it’s not always 100% accurate for what is in the store, but often times it lets you know when items have been placed on clearance. The reader who emailed me about this one said he got a few sets for around 50% off.
SlickDeals.net - A reader mentioned this one to me as well. It is another site that lists deals and you can search specifically for LEGO sets. The site is run by people posting the deals they find. So it’s only as good as the information that is posted. If you live close to a store and go often, it might be useful for you to use if someone posts a tip. It looks like this site works overseas as well.
Facebook Groups - I will admin that I don’t have the time to use social media so I’m not the best advocate here. A reader mentioned to me that there are Facebook groups out there for people to share deals they have found related to LEGO. If you are into Facebook, it might be something worth checking out.
Thanks to OJG for the last 3 tips!
Reddit Lego Set Deals - Some of the deals may not be deals to you or ones you care about, but you can always scroll through to see if there’s anything worth your hard earned funds.
What else am I missing? Feel free to comment on any sites I'm not aware of or you can email me here.
I'm not an affiliate to any of these sites and I am not paid to endorse any of them. If you want to support Bricks for Bricks, you’ll have to wait until my BrickLink store re-opens in a few years. Thanks and happy building!