At last... new brand stores for the UK

 

  • At last... new brand stores for the UK

    Posted by Huw, 26 Aug 2010 17:41. Filed under Shopping (UK).

    Thanks to a bit of detective work by fellow Brickish Association members who noticed job ads on recruitment websites (here and here) we can reveal that there will be TWO new brand stores opening this year in the UK. One in the Westfield Shopping Centre in central London and the other in St David's Shopping Centre, Cardiff.

    It's about time there was some expansion: we had 5 stores, then 2 were shut down (Birmingham and Kingston) and we've been at 3 for five years or so. Let's hope it continues and we see one in West Quay, Southampton (near where I live) soon!


    58 comments, latest one posted 33 months ago. (Commenting has ended on this article)
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Comments

Posted by Doctor Leg O'Brick in United Kingdom, 26 Aug 2010 17:57

why don't they have one in birmingham???!!!! They closed it down and now i have to go to argos or smiths. This means its about 2 miles away from any lego store!!

Posted by Captain Blockbeard in United States, 26 Aug 2010 18:08

Still no Lego love for Scotland or northern England? How sad seeing as I'll be moving there and would have to travel well to the south to see a Lego brand store.

Posted by rolomolo12345 in United Kingdom, 26 Aug 2010 18:20

i hope they open up more than just two! plus more in scotland! i dont live there but i feel sorry coz there is none is scotland or ireland

Posted by brankell5566 in Canada, 26 Aug 2010 18:23

Congrats! Now I wish there will be one in Vancouver Canada.

Posted by halfpenguinhalflego in United Kingdom, 26 Aug 2010 18:24

Put one in Yorkshire!

Posted by Alemas in Germany, 26 Aug 2010 18:55

Harrumph. Couldn't they put it anywhere closer to where I live? Oh well... Still, good move for LEGO to put one in LONDON! They'll earn thousands! BTW, why were 2 stores closed down?

Posted by Alemas in Germany, 26 Aug 2010 18:57

Funny... in the second job link, there's the OLD LEGO logo! But why do the Americans get so many LEGO Stores? :P

Posted by Wiseman_2 in United Kingdom, 26 Aug 2010 18:58

We need one in the North of England, not more in the South. One in Yorkshire would be best. Seems I'll be stuck with using the internet for orders for now...

Posted by AZFIREWOLF in United States, 26 Aug 2010 19:20

Alemas, there is a simple answer to your question. THE US IS BIGGER THAN THE UK. Thou your pound sterling is better than our greenback, but we have more stores so there. NA NA NA NA NA

Okay, just joking. No hard feeling Alemas.

Posted by DrDaveWatford in United Kingdom, 26 Aug 2010 19:29

Great - finally a brand store in London. Can't wait !

Posted by squiz in United Kingdom, 26 Aug 2010 19:44

Ah Huw, your the one who has raked all the Spartans out of the WH smith in town !

Good news about the stores. Neither of them are closer to me than the brighton one but its nice to see lego havent forgotten the uk.

Posted by Huffy1968 in United Kingdom, 26 Aug 2010 20:02

I never understood why they closed the Birmingham store...

Posted by mrdoofa in United Kingdom, 26 Aug 2010 20:19

we definitely need one in the north of england, lego need to realise that people do live north of London! LOL! Manchester, Sheffield or Leeds would be ideal. London already has one really in Bluewater. The nearest store to me is Milton Keynes and that is 170 miles away! Still it is nice to see a company expanding is these hard economic times.

Posted by OldNewLegoFan in Australia, 26 Aug 2010 21:00

better to have 2 more new stores then to have none like us here in Australia :(
if we wanted to go to a Lego brand store we have to jump on a plane $$$$ fly for 18+ hours,
come on TLG please give us Aussie's a few stores, looking at the quantcast statistics for this web site we are in the Top 5 with the 4 ahead of us all having stores, but no sniff of one over here....

Posted by Topsy Cret in Sweden, 27 Aug 2010 01:52

"At last"? What about us in Scandinavia? There's no store even near Sweden.

Posted by Orsie in United Kingdom, 27 Aug 2010 02:24

@huw i go to west quay lots aswell as we live near a train station so pop down to southhampton about every month! i would just love it if they had a brand store there!

Posted by bluemoose in United Kingdom, 27 Aug 2010 02:26

The Kingston & Birmingham stores closed because they weren't making enough profit. The costs of running a store can be very high, and these stores simply weren't selling enough sets to make them economically viable.

Quite a few US stores have shut too, for similar reasons, but they just carried on opening new stores, which is why there are now well over 40 of them!

For the last few years the UK has been LEGO's 3rd largest market, fractionally behind Germany (where there are currently 7 stores). The US has been the largest single market (but still smaller than the combined European market). The population of the US is about 5 times that of the UK. The population of Germany is about 30% higher than the UK. When you do the maths, the UK buys more Lego per household, or per child, than any other country. LEGO might have taken the view that the UK market was close to saturation & there was little point in them putting money into trying to expand it; they could more effectively spend their money elsewhere. With the recession, one of LEGOs main retail partners in the UK (Woolworths) went bust, meaning that LEGO's products were harder for the public to find & buy. I suspect the new stores are, at least in part, in response to that ... yes, it does take large companies like LEGO up to 2 years to make decisions like this!

Posted by legominifig221 in United Kingdom, 27 Aug 2010 02:37

cool,now one in cambridge please

Posted by meccanotwitch in United Kingdom, 27 Aug 2010 02:41

But as others have pointed out, why arn't there any stores in the north of England. The nearest is Milton Keynes, surely this would make economic sense to have them spread out evenly.

Posted by bigospedros in United Kingdom, 27 Aug 2010 03:23

Surely, the Discovery Centre in Manchester makes up a little for not having any stores in the north ? There must be a shop part to it ...

Posted by NeilMartin in United Kingdom, 27 Aug 2010 04:26

@bigospedros, there is a well stocked shop (with a small PaB selection) at the Trafford Lego Discovery Centre but it isn't a Lego Brand Store so there are no exclusives.

Posted by helpme1986 in United Kingdom, 27 Aug 2010 04:33

I miss the Birmingham store aswell, as I work in the city centre it game me something to do at lunch!

I can see why they wouldnt make profit though as it was in the most expense part of town, the bull ring!

I do hope they open more stores around Birmingham but really they need to open some up north!

Posted by Hamish100 in United Kingdom, 27 Aug 2010 05:22

I agree with Legominifig211, a store in Cambridge would be nice.

Posted by Darthblaker74744 in United Kingdom, 27 Aug 2010 05:29

awww yeah im defiantly gunna go to the grand opening in Cardiff :) now i can participate in club events

Posted by johnny-t in United States, 27 Aug 2010 06:23

2 MORE STORES!!! I can't believe LEGO hasn't built a store here in Vegas! Tons of LEGOs fly off the shelf here at TRU, Target, and Wal-Mart. There are plenty of specialty stores and malls on the strip too, a perfect place for LEGO. And for us, the closest LEGO store is 4 to 5 hours away in California. It's time for a Las Vegas LEGO store!!!! :)

Posted by scottwb2010 in United Kingdom, 27 Aug 2010 06:56

This announcement comes jsut a week after I sent an email to Lego customer services about an enquiry relating to the shop at the discovery centre in Manchester and the fact it was not an official Lego shop. To cut a long story short, I asked if Lego were looking to oen a store in Scotland or the North of England as the 3 current stores are all in theSouth of England. The reply statedthat at the moment they were not aware of any LEGO® Brand Store openings in Scotland or north of England. But that they are always looking into opening more stores to make themselves more available to fans. But before opening a store there is lots of planning and researching that needs to be done.

They also said they would pass on the enquiry to the marketing team. I know it would take a lot of sales to make a shop finacially viable but you would think there would be interest in a shop further north than London.

Posted by Monty in United Kingdom, 27 Aug 2010 07:39

Never did understand why they closed down the Birmingham one - it was only there for a couple of years after the new Bull Ring Centre opened - surely it was successful in such a large regional shopping centre. When they knew their fate, the staff actually gave me some of their old display models for nothing. Luckily i live near enough to Milton Keynes so i go there now. SAH is all very well, but i have not been happy with the courier they use these days - I won't name them. So I say the more Brand shops there are as an alternative to SAH for exclusives the better - and you often get impromptu parts sales at the stores as well as in-store pick a brick.

Posted by Huw in United Kingdom, 27 Aug 2010 08:14

@squiz, no it wasn't me, I don't have any yet, but I do know who it was!

Posted by AMthedude in United Kingdom, 27 Aug 2010 08:55

I too live near Southampton and I'd love to see a Lego store in West Quay! Make it happen!

Posted by Morgan19 in United States, 27 Aug 2010 09:10

Is there a page on LEGO's site somewhere that indicates *when* announced stores will be opening (any where in the world)? Or is it more dependent on the shopping center's website to release the info?

There's one opening near my new home, but all I've been able to find is "Fall 2010" anywhere I look, even on the mall's site, and I'm trying to narrow that down some...

Posted by I like Lego in Canada, 27 Aug 2010 09:26

Hurray for the UK!

Posted by Matthew in United Kingdom, 27 Aug 2010 09:44

Oh come on, why can't we have one near Manchester? We've got the discovery centre shop but that's hopeless When I went, in build a minifigure it had construction, police and checked shirt torsos, black or red legs, and cool glasses, square glasses or standard heads. It didn't even include headgear (which was lucky because they only had construction hats in the Pick a brick which I had to pay extra for.) I even had to pay for the case for minifigures and in Pick a brick they only had 2x2 and 2x4 in basic colours, red seats, levers and walkie talkies. Hurry up brand store!!!

Posted by darthdc in United Kingdom, 27 Aug 2010 10:51

All thats left in Birmingham is the Entertainer and WH Smiths and they both charge above RRP (Smiths charge about 30% more). We definately need more in the midlands and north.

Posted by shieldsy in Ireland, 27 Aug 2010 10:54

I wish Ireland would have one of these stores.

Posted by Legohamster in United Kingdom, 27 Aug 2010 11:04

At last more brand stores! But, they are still down south and the north needs a LEGO store, the closest one to me is 260 miles away!

Posted by Camusdarrach in United Kingdom, 27 Aug 2010 12:06

Well, it's nice to see that Lego are opening up new shops in Britain, however the London one is in Shepards Bush, NOT the city centre, seems an odd place to me, surely Central London would have been a better choice, esp given the number of tourists that visit on a daily basis...

Great to see one in Wales, but let's hope that the North of England and Scotland gain a shop at some point, Can't see Leeds (shame since I live there) getting one, maybe Manchester, or even Newcastle (Metro Centre in Gateshead is an obvious choice, located between Northern England and Scotland), but we shall have to wait and see, in the meantime, I look forward to my 300 mile round trip to Milton Keynes.....

Posted by bluemoose in United Kingdom, 27 Aug 2010 12:21

When a new shopping centre opens they often have introductory rental rates that run for a couple of years to attract new stores. I suspect that the closure of the Birmingham & Kingston stores was shortly after the introductory rental rate ended. It would have increased to the 'standard' rate which would have been much higher (probably double), making life difficult for the stores.

I know that LEGO are well aware that there is a pent-up demand for stores in the North & in Scotland ... finding the right sort of store in the right part of the country is tricky and can take a long time. If they can find locations that meet all their criteria, we will see stores in Northern England & Scotland in the next few years.

Posted by Camusdarrach in United Kingdom, 27 Aug 2010 12:55

Very true about introductory shop rentals, as thats what Westfield is doing with the White City shopping centre..

However, I congratulate Lego for expanding the number of British retail outlets, esp during these difficult trading times, and we should support the new shops, so we don't end up in a couple of years time with a repeat of what happened at Birmingham and Kingston......

Posted by DrathMaul1997 in United Kingdom, 27 Aug 2010 13:14

Cardiff???? Yee ha!

Posted by Xiaolong in Belgium, 27 Aug 2010 13:49

I agree with OldNewLegoFan, TopsyCret and shieldsy. Why always UK and USA? There are more countries in this world.

Posted by Pulpdiction in United Kingdom, 27 Aug 2010 14:32

The reaons the Birmingham store never did any good is becasue no one I know knew it was there. I don't live in Brum but its closer to me than MK which I can only get to about twice a year, I'd be able to go to the Brum store monthly. If you don't promote it who know it's there.

Also rents in Birmingham will be a lot less now than they werre then, there a a few empty shops with more appearing all the time.

Posted by bluemoose in United Kingdom, 27 Aug 2010 14:59

@Xiaolong - Germany does better for stores than the UK, even with the two new UK stores. It's a shame that LEGO hasn't opened stores in countries other than US, Canada, UK, Germany & Denmark, but, frankly, they are following the market & investing in stores where it makes financial sense for them to open them at this time.

Posted by atkinsar in United Kingdom, 27 Aug 2010 15:16

Cardiff will be my nearest store at just over an hour away, not too bad but I doubt it will be a regular journey I'll make. I also noticed from the job advert for Cardiff that it starts mid-October, so maybe the store will open soon after that, maybe start of November?

Posted by bluemoose in United Kingdom, 27 Aug 2010 15:29

"November" is what we've heard, and they'll be aiming for as early in the month as possible to cash in on the pre-Christmas sales bonanza :-)

We'll get news closer to the time and we'll post it here on Brickset.

Posted by Duq in Ireland, 27 Aug 2010 16:19

I feel so sorry for all you guys in the UK that you had to make do with only 3 shops and a park. I lived in Holland and now in Ireland. Both countries had zero brand stores, then none were opened, and now we still have no brand stores....

Posted by Huw in United Kingdom, 27 Aug 2010 18:06

Well Duq, look on the bright side, at least none have been shut down and it's unlikely that any will be shut down any time soon, either :-)

Posted by Icarax123 in United Kingdom, 28 Aug 2010 08:35

Oh good, I'll be sure to go to the grand opening of the one in the WSS! Does anyone know if November applies to both stores or just the one in Cardiff?

Posted by darthdc in United Kingdom, 28 Aug 2010 16:27

And to think that some of the RRPs are steep as it is. TRU are selling 8404 at £99.99.

Posted by cara in United States, 28 Aug 2010 21:03

Are LEGO stores all run by the company or are they franchises?

Posted by bluemoose in United Kingdom, 29 Aug 2010 04:44

All the current Brand Stores are company owned & operated; the staff are all employees of the LEGO company.
There used to be a few Independent toy stores in the UK that specialised in LEGO & were allowed to brand themselves as 'Lego' stores, but I haven't seen one of these for years. I think there may still be a few independent toy stores operating like this elsewhere in the world where Lego doesn't have its own stores ...

Posted by legofoofleflyboy in United Kingdom, 29 Aug 2010 06:28

I think there should be one in places like Doncaster, Lincoln, Sheffield, Nottingham ( Basically anywhere near me!).

Posted by Brick Builder in United Kingdom, 29 Aug 2010 09:41

I recently went to Manchester and saw a lego shop at the Trafford Centre to my surprise. Its in the area where if you park outside john lewis's, you will see a walk way going across the main road. the lego shop is in that area. weather its a season shop i dont no but if in the area worth a look.

Posted by bluemoose in United Kingdom, 29 Aug 2010 09:53

That's the LEGOLAND Discovery Centre.
http://www.legolanddiscoverycentre.co.uk/manchester/en/index.htm

Posted by brickzone in Ireland, 29 Aug 2010 13:22

At least the new London one is seemingly easy to get to for people without a car (like day trip visitors from Ireland :) - seems that it is next to one of the Tube stops?

It would be nice to see a Lego store in Ireland, but I think Lego is possibly more accessible here in Ireland than many other countries even so, given that Smyths Toys stock a large part of the line-up at reasonable prices (just gone up a little, but still competitive) and good stock levels (constant resupply as if they have some kind of magical autostocking shelves) and is in many locations throughout Ireland, not to mention the prevalance of Argos (who seem to have enough stock, in contrast to some of the tales of woe from UK Lego AFOLs) and other options like Tesco, Art & Hobby, World of Wonder and other toy stores. Toys R Us are up North also and of course Irish AFOLs have a pretty easy time ordering from the UK online (e.g. Amazon).

If Lego do open a shop in Ireland, it would probably be nicer to have it north of the border, as the UK prices still seem a bit better than euro prices!

Posted by Redbullgivesuwind in United Kingdom, 30 Aug 2010 04:42

no i don't want one at west quay. Im going back to uni at winchester and i know where my student loan would go..... Though one in woking or guildford would be amazing

Posted by bluemoose in United Kingdom, 30 Aug 2010 14:21

So much negativity :-(
If you want to complain, go tell LEGO. Meanwhile I'll clear up all the off-topic posts.

Now, please, back on topic ...

Posted by Davidrestall in United Kingdom, 01 Sep 2010 13:19

Can we not have a store in Devon as in Exeter be nice please

Posted by starfire2 in United States, 01 Sep 2010 13:56

I know I'm not in the UK but we too have one opening here in Phoenix AZ in October at the Arrowhead Towne Center.

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