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acciobrickWell, friends, we knew it was coming, we just didn't know how it would affect lego fans first. Unfortunately now we have an answer. 😕
International Bricklink and Brickowl orders have been impacted by the US's ending of the De Minimis exemption.
Brief Background: that's a rule that permitted small shipments to go untariffed, as that's more work (thus costing more money) than they traditionally would have generated. In the face of radically increased tariffs, that's no longer necessarily the case, and of course the sole point isn't to generate revenue anyway, but to shape international commerce / policy.
What's happening? As of tomorrow, Friday 29 August, international shipments still arriving (by and large) will start to be charged full tariff rates. In response, many parts of the world presently aren't shipping commercially to the US at all. Frighteningly, some countries have even suspended all mail delivery. The result greatly limits where American shoppers will be able to make purchases. As the inverse isn't also true, and this is non-reciprocal, the flip side of the situation for lego fans outside the US being we may see some reduction in prices, so keep your eyes peeled for sales as businesses compete for a smaller customer pool.
It's not just limited to the small businesses and their shipments, however.
Lego itself has been impacted by the current developments, most notably in the parts on offer in the North American Pick-a-Brick (PaB) stores.
New Elementary - a site I warmly recommend in addition to Stonewars to track new parts on offer via PaB - brings us the sad news that as of 25 August, thousands of Standard elements have been removed from the site / PaB stores for customers in the US and Canada. That can prove ridiculously irksome if, like me, you stash things in a shopping cart storing up for the eventual order to save on postage, only to now have a substantial portion yeeted from your cart, and no easy way to see what's gone. Things like that can genuinely make me rage quit shopping.
To explain the terms:
> For the North American PaB stores, Standard elements are those stored in and shipped from the European warehouse, while Bestseller elements are in the USA. (For the rest of the world, there is no such distinction – everything comes from Europe.)
source: New Elementary
Personally, I expect shipping to resume once the deadlines have gone into effect and the uncertainty is removed, that's not the primary problem. That would be that I also expect prices to be raised accordingly for the foreseeable future and for some things to vanish from the shelves, both brick and mortar and virtual, as the increase won't make for worthwhile sales. That will be unpleasant.
As New Elementary reports, there's no official statement from The LEGO Group yet about how this will affect customers in the longer term, but the fact remains that thousands of Standard elements have been removed from the service this week. I've just checked the US PaB store, and at time I'm writing this, there are 1455 Bestseller and only 81 non-Bestseller items available (presumably Standard elements, but we can agree they total no more than 81), which is insane. It's unlikely that quickly trying to order those parts now, and there isn't even a good way to determine what they are via filters, would help matters any as there's so much uncertainty attached, and what you don't need is your order cancelled.
Canada
Here's a bit of particularly frustrating news: adding insult to injury, our Canadian friends who bear no fault for the current unrest are once again impacted by the decisions of their neighbours to the south. 😬 They appear to be shopping from the same PaB menu (as a quick check of the inventory on their Canadian PaB lego store website confirms), and are facing the same treatment. 😕 (Elbows up; I'm with you in spirit. 🇨🇦 One way or another, this, too, shall pass.)
Mexico
It apparently doesn't stop there. Repeated attempts to call up the Mexican PaB store, both in English and Spanish to rule out that source of error, have revealed that there should be a store (and there are many goggle-able pages that reference the shop, for example the Mexican PaB colour selection, English version of the Mexican site), but the links to PaB are all either broken (Página no encontrada) or re-directing to the Spanish version of the US store, which obviously has the same inventory as the English version) so it looks they they're impacted too. (Sorry, amigos. 🇲🇽 😕)
Et tu, lego? No.
As tidy as it would be, you can't attach the blame to lego for this. Companies are like ships, there's just no way to change course or stop quickly, and regrettably the instability in one country is now affecting its neighbours. lego won't be the only one affected by this, it's just the product I know.
It will be interesting to see what difference the plant in Virginia, USA makes, but it's important to bear in mind how much of a lead up projects like that require to be there when needed. These are not adjustments to be made on the fly.
Europe, Australia & New Zealand
For some good news for the rest of us, we don't appear to be impacted by this. Although New Elementary reports roughly 350 elements were removed from the PaB catalogue on 25 August in sites around the rest of the world, it's most likely they were simply out of stock. In contrast with the above, as an example, the German PaB currently has more than three times as many pieces on offer (4706 items). I've checked a handful of other European shops, and they all show the same inventory, fwiw. 🇪🇺
For the moment at least, it seems the rest of the world is not affected by this issue, but as we can learn from the situations in Mexico and Canada, we're all interconnected. Nothing happens in a vacuum.
International Bricklink and Brickowl orders have been impacted by the US's ending of the De Minimis exemption.
Brief Background: that's a rule that permitted small shipments to go untariffed, as that's more work (thus costing more money) than they traditionally would have generated. In the face of radically increased tariffs, that's no longer necessarily the case, and of course the sole point isn't to generate revenue anyway, but to shape international commerce / policy.
What's happening? As of tomorrow, Friday 29 August, international shipments still arriving (by and large) will start to be charged full tariff rates. In response, many parts of the world presently aren't shipping commercially to the US at all. Frighteningly, some countries have even suspended all mail delivery. The result greatly limits where American shoppers will be able to make purchases. As the inverse isn't also true, and this is non-reciprocal, the flip side of the situation for lego fans outside the US being we may see some reduction in prices, so keep your eyes peeled for sales as businesses compete for a smaller customer pool.
It's not just limited to the small businesses and their shipments, however.
Lego itself has been impacted by the current developments, most notably in the parts on offer in the North American Pick-a-Brick (PaB) stores.
New Elementary - a site I warmly recommend in addition to Stonewars to track new parts on offer via PaB - brings us the sad news that as of 25 August, thousands of Standard elements have been removed from the site / PaB stores for customers in the US and Canada. That can prove ridiculously irksome if, like me, you stash things in a shopping cart storing up for the eventual order to save on postage, only to now have a substantial portion yeeted from your cart, and no easy way to see what's gone. Things like that can genuinely make me rage quit shopping.
To explain the terms:
> For the North American PaB stores, Standard elements are those stored in and shipped from the European warehouse, while Bestseller elements are in the USA. (For the rest of the world, there is no such distinction – everything comes from Europe.)
source: New Elementary
Personally, I expect shipping to resume once the deadlines have gone into effect and the uncertainty is removed, that's not the primary problem. That would be that I also expect prices to be raised accordingly for the foreseeable future and for some things to vanish from the shelves, both brick and mortar and virtual, as the increase won't make for worthwhile sales. That will be unpleasant.
As New Elementary reports, there's no official statement from The LEGO Group yet about how this will affect customers in the longer term, but the fact remains that thousands of Standard elements have been removed from the service this week. I've just checked the US PaB store, and at time I'm writing this, there are 1455 Bestseller and only 81 non-Bestseller items available (presumably Standard elements, but we can agree they total no more than 81), which is insane. It's unlikely that quickly trying to order those parts now, and there isn't even a good way to determine what they are via filters, would help matters any as there's so much uncertainty attached, and what you don't need is your order cancelled.
Canada
Here's a bit of particularly frustrating news: adding insult to injury, our Canadian friends who bear no fault for the current unrest are once again impacted by the decisions of their neighbours to the south. 😬 They appear to be shopping from the same PaB menu (as a quick check of the inventory on their Canadian PaB lego store website confirms), and are facing the same treatment. 😕 (Elbows up; I'm with you in spirit. 🇨🇦 One way or another, this, too, shall pass.)
Mexico
It apparently doesn't stop there. Repeated attempts to call up the Mexican PaB store, both in English and Spanish to rule out that source of error, have revealed that there should be a store (and there are many goggle-able pages that reference the shop, for example the Mexican PaB colour selection, English version of the Mexican site), but the links to PaB are all either broken (Página no encontrada) or re-directing to the Spanish version of the US store, which obviously has the same inventory as the English version) so it looks they they're impacted too. (Sorry, amigos. 🇲🇽 😕)
Et tu, lego? No.
As tidy as it would be, you can't attach the blame to lego for this. Companies are like ships, there's just no way to change course or stop quickly, and regrettably the instability in one country is now affecting its neighbours. lego won't be the only one affected by this, it's just the product I know.
It will be interesting to see what difference the plant in Virginia, USA makes, but it's important to bear in mind how much of a lead up projects like that require to be there when needed. These are not adjustments to be made on the fly.
Europe, Australia & New Zealand
For some good news for the rest of us, we don't appear to be impacted by this. Although New Elementary reports roughly 350 elements were removed from the PaB catalogue on 25 August in sites around the rest of the world, it's most likely they were simply out of stock. In contrast with the above, as an example, the German PaB currently has more than three times as many pieces on offer (4706 items). I've checked a handful of other European shops, and they all show the same inventory, fwiw. 🇪🇺
For the moment at least, it seems the rest of the world is not affected by this issue, but as we can learn from the situations in Mexico and Canada, we're all interconnected. Nothing happens in a vacuum.
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Date: 2025-08-29 09:57 pm (UTC)(no subject)
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Date: 2025-08-29 11:13 pm (UTC)Or in Trump's case, continued insanity...
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Date: 2025-08-31 05:57 pm (UTC)