Lego to cut 1,400 jobs as sales slide

What’s going on? We all been distracted by bikes, Trump and Kim? Time to get the Christmas Lego order in I reckon.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-41160743

I guess everything isn’t awesome.

The other employees must be bricking it.

Boom tish

The other employees must be bricking it.

Well done!

I guess they could get a new management team in to help build the company back up again

since almost going bust years ago they’ve had double digit growth year on year – it had to stop at some point.

Turnover down 5%, profits 3% (down to a mere £600m) and cut 8% of the workforce?

That’s not struggling, that’s a blip.

That would be harsh by Trump standards.

For context, they’ve had massive growth in the last decade or so which is now slowing down.

Surprising that they’re still doing well in China despite several companies doing very high quality clones of their products.

cut 8% of the workforce?

It’s just a shame that people had to be lego

Bloody roads jammed for miles yesterday with queues for Legoland 👿 . Place must be raking in loads.

Though not owned by Lego. Guess they get some money from it though, or sales related to the place.

deadkenny – Member
Bloody roads jammed for miles yesterday with queues for Legoland . Place must be raking in loads.

Though not owned by Lego. Guess they get some money from it though, or sales related to the place.

I’ve not been for years (and never will again) but last time they were selling tiny bags of pick and mix lego for roughly the same £ per gramme as Cocaine, there was a queue!

Without digging too much, Lego Movie which must has been massive for them was 2014 which would have given them great results in 2015. Lego Batman Movie was last year which didn’t do as well as expected so whilst their downturn was mild this year and they still made £600m in profits, perhaps they projected another big year.

The next Lego Movie is 2019, so there’s a bit of a gap, it still seems like an excuse to me though, they’re still very profitable.

And this I think highlights an area of capitalism i’m really quite uncomfortable with. 1400 people lose their job because company ‘only’ made £600m profits is quite disgusting.

I guess they could get a new management team in to help build the company back up again

I’m sure they’ll make things click

1400 people lose their job

Constructive dismissal IGMC

Loving the BBC’s sensitive choice of picture for that article.

The next Lego Movie is 2019, so there’s a bit of a gap,

except for the one coming out this month (Ninjago, which I don’t really get but is apparently MASSIVE with kids so could be a good earner!)

What’s going on?

Er, it might possibly be because it isn’t about revenue and profit decreasing per se, but because their significant growth has

“added complexity into the organisation which now in turn makes it harder for us to grow further”

This is hardly news in the corporate world. Fast growing businesses become messy. Transforming that “mess” is something senior management like to do to make like they’re doing something useful. I should know, I work in one such business….

I am not surprised sales are sliding – the stuff is very, very overpriced.

(And no there isn’t an obscure pun in there if you are looking for one).

added complexity into the organisation which now in turn makes it harder for us to grow further

I thought Lego had got a bit pricey too 😕 I love the stuff, by the way.

Too expensive, and too much choice.

Back in the day you got square and rectangle bricks so as a kid you had to use imagination to build stuff. Now each kit is very specific and kids appear to pick it up, make it, and then not touch it again.

Too expensive, and too much choice.

Back in the day you got square and rectangle bricks so as a kid you had to use imagination to build stuff. Now each kit is very specific and kids appear to pick it up, make it, and then not touch it again.
That too. You make it. Then what? We used to make all sorts of things and when we were finished we’d dismantle (read ‘smash to bits’) and then make something else. Our two girls keep getting the stuff bought by one family member and they make it then it just sits there doing nothing.

Back in the day you got square and rectangle bricks so as a kid you had to use imagination to build stuff. Now each kit is very specific and kids appear to pick it up, make it, and then not touch it again.

Groan not this again

Back in the day you got square and rectangle bricks so as a kid you had to use imagination to build stuff. Now each kit is very specific and kids appear to pick it up, make it, and then not touch it again.

Yeah but once you;d built this kit I doubt you’d take it apart again to see if you could make a crappy car or boat out of it.

It sounds like a load of blocks to me

DAMN THEM WITH THEIR SPECIFIC KITS & NON RECTANGULAR BRICKS!!!

1400 people lose their job because company ‘only’ made £600m profits is quite disgusting.

You don’t think they’re playing well?

Perhaps they’ve run out of stuff to license, which no doubt underpinned their massive growth.
I’m just waiting for the deadliest catch & tour de france sets to come out next.

Too expensive, and too much choice.

I think I read somewhere a little while back that, adjusted for inflation, Lego is about the same price it was when I was little.

How on god’s green Earth is too much choice a bad thing? I appreciate that you don’t approve of modern Lego (because you mention it on every damn thread), but Lego “Classic” is readily available.

I think I read somewhere a little while back that, adjusted for inflation, Lego is about the same price it was when I was little.

Yes. The sets are more expensive relatively, but that is because they are much bigger (more pieces) plus they are WAY better designed/more funner. The price-per-piece of e.g. a police station from 1990 is approx 10p adjusted compared with today (9.5p)

How on god’s green Earth is too much choice a bad thing?

It makes their tiny brains hurt? 🙂

(because you mention it on every damn thread)

This is the first time I have posted on a Lego thread!

He probably meant your other login.

And, anyway, it isn’t 🙂 https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=FunkyDunc+lego+site:singletrackworld.com/forum

make way!

You don’t think they’re playing well?

IGMC then.

I assumed the ‘too much choice’ comment to mean ‘other kids toys that aren’t lego’ rather than too many Lego sets

Growing up in the ’80s I recall my parents saying that Lego was an expensive toy. When I started looking after my own pocket money I think I was aware of this too. And as someone else said above, the kits are bigger now, even the little kits have more pieces and the big kits are far far larger than any from my childhood.

While I had a decent base of generic bricks, my childhood Lego collection also contained a lot of kits that had instructions to build specific things. I remember both building according to the instructions and building what my imagination suggested. I’m sure that most kids are still capable of doing the same thing.

One change that does disappoint me is that the boxes that Lego sets came in used to have pictures not just of what was covered by the instructions but also some other things that could be built with the set’s contents. That may have helped kick-start some young imaginations and it’s a pity it doesn’t seem to happen anymore.

Back in the day you got square and rectangle bricks so as a kid you had to use imagination to build stuff. Now each kit is very specific and kids appear to pick it up, make it, and then not touch it again.

Becoming much less so, I think – it was discussed on R4 this morning, and apparently they’ve made a deliberate decision to cut back a lot on the special parts, be more creative about reusing the parts they’ve already got. Not least because the moulds for injection moulding to that level of precision are very expensive – you’re not really buying plastic when you buy a Lego kit, you’re buying tooling.

I never realised until yesterday, but “Lego” was invented by Hilary Page who setup Kiddicraft (now Fisher Price) in Purley, Surrey, but Lego stole the design.

Apparently he came up with the tubes in the bottom of the 2×4 brick that means it fits together better. Lego copied everything, even the dimensions (after converting from inches to mm)

Lego never say anything about it in their history!

http://www.hilarypagetoys.com/Home/History
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiddicraft

Lego just say

“Our products have undergone extensive development over the years – but the foundation remains the traditional LEGO brick.

The brick in its present form was launched in 1958. The interlocking principle with its tubes makes it unique and offers unlimited building possibilities. It’s just a matter of getting the imagination going – and letting a wealth of creative ideas emerge through play.”

https://www.lego.com/en-gb/aboutus/lego-group/the_lego_history

The instruction books with the earliest kits had procedures for other stuff you could build with the same blocks but as the kits became more specific the additional builds became trivial.

Always remember rocket jr dropping his Lego Batmobile that had taken him many hours to build. I think his interest in Lego ended right there.

It’s just a matter of getting the imagination going – and letting a wealth of creative ideas emerge through play.

What imagination is needed to buy a specific kit and follow the instructions to make eg a Death Star?
“Here’s a box of bits, build something” v “Here’s some instructions, follow them”