Big Markdowns On Lego At Select Target Stores
Target stores are known to reduce toy inventory after the Christmas holiday and before big resets to their toy department, but this year’s Lego markdowns seem to be running a course we don’t recall seeing before.
Our local Target in Lansing, NY had a few clearance markdowns after Christmas but added a few new sets in the last two weeks, including a huge number of 75115 General Grievous. At the time we took the photo below they had around 35 total sets on the shelves. The initial markdown was 30% bringing them to $24 but now they’re 50% off, $17.48. Using Brickseek, many of the nearby stores have no stock but those that do have large double-digit counts; 44 in Fayetteville, 37 in Penfield, 29 in New Hartford and 31 in Vestal. All of the stores showing those large counts are currently at 50% off.
Yesterday we received a report on 75103 First Order Transporter from Joe K. in Pennsylvania. The photo below is from one of his two local stores, Wilkes-Barre, where they have 75 sets at the 50% off price. Dickson City has 50 and even Elmira, NY has 33.
What stands out about this isn’t the markdowns, even though Lego quite often sells out before reaching clearance and rarely hits 50% off, but that certain stores have so much stock available. Our smaller market store having 35 of the Grievous sets on hand seems way over the top but even in the larger market surrounding Scranton and Wilkes-Barre, having 75 in a single store is overkill. Besides that, why these sets? The buildable figures, in general, seem to sell less than the regular system sets and General Grievous isn’t necessarily the most popular character, especially since his last appearance was in The Clone Wars animated series that ended 2015. At $89.99, The First Order Transporter also isn’t a set we’d think stores would want a lot of considering there are no named hero characters among the minifigures and Captain Phasma, the one named character, lost some of her draw after a smaller than expected role in The Force Awakens.
Other Star Wars sets seeing markdowns over the last few weeks included 75092 Naboo Starfighter and 75109 Obi-Wan Kenobi. But the stock levels seemed more normal, with less than a case of each at our store, and they sold at the 30% discount. A quick check of Brickseek shows no stores in our area with them in stock.
We’d recommend checking your local stores to see what you might find as far as Lego clearances go. We’re not sure we’ll find out why some stores have so many of these particular sets but savvy shoppers should be able to get a really good deal on Lego by doing a little hunting.
