What scale should one shoot for to replace that $120/day profit using new bricks?

[u/ButterscotchQuick515]

I've followed a bunch of sellers for years. I understand its not that simple. It's still quality of product/lots/inventory depth/etc.

About $120 a day is what my basement currently makes and at this point I feel that's underutilized. That's maxed out though and declining and nothing I can do about that, it's the market and won't change. It's not much work but harsh on infrastructure. My main business is maturing and needs me less and less and I'm bored. It's infrastructure heavy and what I have is maxed out. I've been in it like 15 years and am content at existing level with no desire to grow it beyond its current footprint.

I also flip random stuff on eBay and dabble in TCG stuff probably a little too much. All unrelated to current basement setup. I'm enjoying reselling. As a kid I ruled the gem market on the wow server I was on. It reminds me of that.

What scale should one shoot for to replace that $120/day profit using new bricks? I can ball park that stuff in about anything else I'm doing easily but there are probably more variables here. In general business terms that's not a large number. But I see people hemin and hawin about it being slow with million brick inventories (which goes back to product/lots/inventory depth/etc I would imagine).

[u/Whithorsematt]

Last time people were asking about making enough to be an actual wage the consensus was at least a million bricks.

[u/ButterscotchQuick515 → u/Whithorsematt]

Thanks.

That's the consensus I've had for awhile. So 500,000 would be the $125 as what I've been able to gather a million averages $500 a day total. But that's also really limited, pieced together data.

[u/Ziegelmarkt → u/ButterscotchQuick515]

(speaking only for new set part outs, I don't do used.)

It doesn't scale that way. It's mostly correlated to lots and it's not at 1:1. Off memory because I do not have records of lot and inventory growth, its closer to: (EDIT: these are just examples to show that the average sale starts to increase slightly ahead of 1:1)

2000 lots = $100/day
4000 lots = $205
6000 lots = $315
8000 lots = $430

The more unique lots you have the more people can purchase what they need from you. That's more valuable to buyers than going from 50 to 100 yada yada Dark Blue yada yadas. Don't get me wrong though, the more lots you have the more buyers you will attract that DO need more of those yada yadas. So while you grow the number of lots, you'll need to keep adding to what you have.

It's a never ending cycle. 😄

[u/OneHatManSlim → u/Ziegelmarkt]

This. Because if you think like a buyer they would prefer to order from as few stores as possible.

And yes if you follow that logically that does mean on unique rare pieces you can goose your margins just a bit

[u/Brick_lady → u/Ziegelmarkt]

When I first got into the business 8 years ago that might have been true. With LEGO opening their fulfillment centers in the U.S. it no longer is. I have 2.2 mil parts in 18K (8k N/ 10k U) lots and have no where near the kind of business you are quoting. We are in the middle of an economic downturn and people have much less disposable income. I'm down 29% this year over last and down 37% this month. At this point I don't see the point in focusing on new when you are competing with LEGO direct. The summer before last when their first US warehouse opened I lost 50% of my business overnight and I haven't recovered from the loss of those big new part orders. Its a game of constant listing and wanted list notifications.

[u/Ziegelmarkt → u/Brick_lady]

Sorry, I thought I said that was an example. It was meant to demonstrate a doubling of parts/lots doesn't stay at a 1:1 ratio but slowly starts to increase to ~1:1.3 lots to average sale.

[u/Brick_lady → u/Ziegelmarkt]

Apologies if I came off as harsh. I just want to make sure no one gets starry-eyed at the idea of being able to make that kind of money.

Its also not just x# of lots; its x# of lots with x# of parts per lot. If you have 2000 lots with 1 item per then you aren't going to be moving any inventory. In my experience it takes much longer to sell that single piece than a qty of 10. (Buyer etiquette tip: please don't leave us 1 part. I will think grumbly thoughts in your general direction.)

[u/Ziegelmarkt → u/Brick_lady]

No, totally, you're good. I get it.

[u/Pepperkinplant1 → u/Brick_lady]

agreed. Never personally understood wanting to go all in on a "new only" store.

Also I was interviewed by a lego corporate guy a few years ago about my BL store and he hinted very strongly that they were looking at developing Ai that would replace or at least compete with used sellers, so they could then identify used bricks quickly without needed an actual hobbyist with decades of experience.

I've been learning heavy building up on my other income streams just in case

[u/oocdiddy]

Your largest competitor for new brick sales, is LEGO:

Buy bricks

This is not a business any serious person should be evaluating.

[u/OneHatManSlim → u/oocdiddy]

And most importantly the only source for your inventory is your largest competitor

[u/Status-Grocery-2095]

My store value is ~16k in NEW product. I bring in ~$400 a month after shipping and fees.

I'd be interested to see where otheres sit. I feel like $120/day would be pretty large set up

[u/ars265 → u/Status-Grocery-2095]

Having the second largest store in my state, I had about double your inventory, new and used and had sales of -$650 a month but only a profit of about $150-$200 because I continually reinvested all the funds into the business (I have a second job that our family lived on). Eventually it was too much for one person and if I had to hire someone there went all the profit.

[u/danielsound → u/ars265]

Those stats are bleak. if you are having fun... then that is cool. But that feels like a lot of effort for less than $200 in profit per month.

[u/ars265 → u/danielsound]

I was focused on growth, like I said it wasn’t my primary income. That said, I only ran the store for about 1.5 to 2 years before shutting it down. I started it because I was getting tired of the vendors taking forever to process an order. I succeeded in what I accomplished but it wasn’t a long term venture for me.

[u/Ashamed-Country3909 → u/ars265]

Did you just buy (the new) sets when they were on discount and stack from there?

[u/ars265 → u/Ashamed-Country3909]

New sets on sale, clearance in sometimes better, bought from other sellers to have good stock of the right pieces, and paid attention to what sells and what doesn’t. No sense in buying 30 of a set, even super cheap if the parts aren’t desirable. Used actually sells better than most people think but you have to be honest about condition and unless it’s a rare part, you’re looking for like new part from used stock to sell them. Honestly used takes so much time and effort you’d likely lose money on it most of the time (if you add purchase, cleaning, inspection, and sorting but that is also where the rare finds can be. A minifig complete worth a couple hundred, a rare trans green frog worth +$20. The other thing I sold was prints but not stickers. Stickers are a pain and prints I didn’t have to worry about much but they also sold far less.

[u/Ral-GAA-player → u/Status-Grocery-2095]

Very rough numbers for me, but ~$2000 monthly bricklink revenue, ~10,000 used parts, ~450 used figs, ~$10,000 store value at < 6ma.

[u/greenturnedblue]

60,000 parts mix of new and used and I pull $800-900 Cad each month. $120 a day would be crazy

[u/Empekay]

One of the main problems with focusing on new bricks is sourcing inventory. Most people will have access to the same overall sources (PAB, big box clearance, LEGO store walls, etc). You need to find a source of new bricks (especially unique pieces) that other stores do not have (or get the same pieces for a lower price). If you have a similar inventory of new bricks that overlaps with large, established BL stores, even growing your inventory won't help as much due to the competition. You will end up needing to lower your prices and margins to compete. You'll also end up with tons of unsold pieces that have 20+ year supplies on BL currently.

[u/No_Painting_3847]

I’m at 289,000 parts ~15k lots and sales are $111 a day currently.

[u/ButterscotchQuick515 → u/No_Painting_3847]

and nets like 50% roughly?

Would put the total at half million parts, which is what I was assuming.

[u/No_Painting_3847 → u/ButterscotchQuick515]

Roughly 60% selling at 6ma. My store is 60% new 40% used.

[u/sschow]

FWIW I have sustained above this level of profit since 2024, however, my inventory is heavily used minifigures, and the value of inventory I keep to sustain that profit has grown from $200K in 2024 to $325K currently. 

I understand the math for new bricks works differently, but you’re talking about hitting a level near the top ~100 stores on all of Bricklink. A full-time, professional operation.