In a recent Wired blog post, physicist Rhett Allain asks
Why Are LEGO Sets Expensive?
and answers his own question by stating,
I’m not sure I would say LEGO blocks are that expensive, but the statement is that they are expensive because they are so well made.
To his credit he immediately qualifies his claim by adding
Really, this has to at least be partially true.
Then professor Allain goes on to make his case based on size variances in Lego pieces and compares it with variances in other blocks used for “play constructions”. Finding no statistically significant difference with other plastic blocks he adds,
but the LEGO blocks appear to be created from harder plastic. Maybe this would lead them to maintain their size over a long period of time. (but no data)
Finally he builds a regression model of price of Lego sets to number of pieces in each set.
In essence, Allain made up his mind that Lego is expensive because of the intricacies in manufacturing, its cost of materials and number of pieces. He then collects data that would support his claim but quickly discards them with alternative explanation when data doesn’t fit his claim.
But lost in all this are some published hard numbers from Lego. They have 70% gross margin and 30% operating margin. Note that I am using gross margin reported in financial statements that usually include other fixed cost allocations to confound the numbers. That is Lego’s real contribution margin (price less true marginal cost) could be higher than 70%.
Even if Lego were to cut is price in half they would make as much gross margin as MegaBloks that makes Lego compatible pieces. Intricacies in manufacturing and cost of hard plastic do not contribute to Lego’s costs (or prices as Allain claims). That is Lego does not incur any additional costs because, “they are so very well made”.
Lego is priced thusly because they identified customers who value its offering and are willing to pay the price premium despite the presence of cheaper alternatives. All the reasons about details of pieces and their size variance are post purchase rationalizations we tell ourselves to justify the price we paid.
Your costs are just that, your costs. Costs are not something you pass on to your customers (unless you use that as ploy to pass on price increases).
Iterative Path 