The LEGO® Company has been having trouble keeping up with stock on the Shop @ Home site for a few months now. The situation was exacerbated in the lead up to Christmas as numerous items went out of stock. At the current time, you can click through the themes on the US Shop @ Home page and see the “out of stock” messages for entire product lines. As of the writing of this post, you cannot purchase any of the Ideas sets. There is one Speed Champion product available. The Creator Expert/18+ section only has a few products available. The list continues as you have to go search elsewhere if you really want a set or you have to wait.

I thought the situation might improve as sets remained out of stock through December and LEGO would use the time to catch up. The only problem… not only did they need to catch up, they also needed to produce the soon to be released 2021 sets. So what do you do as a company with a supply and demand problem like this?

It all came up again over the past few days on Shop @ Home as fans, resellers, parents, collectors, and anyone else looking to spend funds on LEGO sets dove into the inventory that appeared online on 1 January 2021. Midnight hit and the orders started pouring in. There were two gift with purchase sets available. The first was #30628-1: Monster Book of Monsters. This set was available for purchases of $85 or more on Harry Potter sets.

The second set was #40448-1: Vintage Car. This set was based off of a fan design as part of the Ideas line and was much anticipated. It was available for all purchases over $85.

So what happened?

Midnight on the east coast of the US is 6 AM here in Germany so I got up a bit early to see if it was worth it to place an order. I’d like to know how many people were trying to order at that time because the site couldn’t handle it. I tried to add items to my cart and I kept getting error messages. None of the Harry Potter sets would add to my cart. I gave up. I checked LEGO.de (German site) and it worked okay. I try not to shop there as the exchange rate is getting worse and it is becoming more expensive for me to buy sets in Euros by the day.

I logged in later in the day… around 2 PM in Germany. #30628-1 was completely sold out on both the US and German sites. It was #44048-1 only. Some of the new 2021 sets were at backorder or sold out too like the new modular building.

The US site showed #44048-1 available as a gift with purchase through 3 January.

On 4 January, #44048-1 was not an option anymore. However, #30628-1 showed up again as available. I’m not sure how long that will last. It still shows available on 6 January so we’ll see what happens.

The big question from all of this… how will LEGO® break out of this downward spiral. It seems as though their supply chain cannot keep up with demand. My guess is it would take too long to stand up another factory. Should they decrease the new sets they release and focus on producing the existing ones in large quantity to keep up with demand? Should they place more limits on the numbers of sets you can buy per account? Do you think the shift will happen naturally as fans find other things to occupy their time or the pandemic eventually ends? Should they cut back on the number of retailers selling products? I’m curious to hear your thoughts. Feel free to post them in the comments or email me at store@bricksforbricks.com.

Happy building!