mentions Lego , I believe many people's first reaction is definitely "expensive". However, in August 2022, Lego just launched a wave of 5%-25% price increase, and its sales have not yet dropped but have increased. You should know that LEGO's total annual revenue is nearly 16 times that of the total annual revenue of 14 toy peers in China's 14 companies.
As a familiar educational toy, LEGO's revenue has always increased and not decreased. Of course, there are many domestic imitation Legos, but once you have played it, you know it is fake. Many people are wondering: Chinese rockets, aircraft carriers, spacecraft, etc. can be imitated. A simple building block, why don’t we have high imitation Legos?
1. Phenomenon: In terms of Lego's craftsmanship level, in the Pearl River Delta, it can only be considered as the mid-to-low-end craftsmanship level
Everyone has come into contact with a very magical thing, that is, mobile phones. We can look at the buttons and frames of mobile phones. They are generally made of plastic products, because metal affects signals, glass and ceramics are prone to breakage, and plastic is often used.
- We need to know that in fact, except for the charging port and microphone, the other joints are waterproof, do you know? This is because the workpiece errors are all micron-level, especially the key parts of the phone's bezel.
So, what are your phone border buttons or Lego, which one is more anti-aging and which one is more wear-resistant? By comparison, you can know that according to the LEGO craft level, it can only be considered as the mid- and low-end craft level in the Pearl River Delta. As we all know, mobile phones, especially the border buttons, are basically all made in China.
- In other words, domestic manufacturing technology can be completely imitated. After all, domestic mold technology is quite good. For example, the following picture is Dongguan , a medium-sized mold factory. This type of company can produce Lego molds with equipment, which is more than enough and has even higher accuracy. They usually produce high-precision parts of mobile phones, so how can they not handle the toys?
Do you know? The slow-wire processing machine in this factory can achieve a mold accuracy of 0.005mm, which is the legendary LEGO mold accuracy. Remember, this is not the factory of the national team, but just a small and medium-sized enterprise in Dongguan.
- From the data, the current volume of the domestic building block market is about 20 billion, while the current mobile phone market in China is 1.03 trillion. Do you understand? In fact, the money domestic consumers are willing to pay for domestic building blocks is less than a fraction of the mobile phone market, which will also lead to the technology being improved to the high level of LEGO and the manufacturers are insufficient motivation.
Here, I will summarize it, the core of the problem is that it is not cost-effective at the moment, which is the same as the ballpoint pen steel back then.
2. Analysis: Since the technology is not difficult, why are domestic imitation building blocks sold cheaper than Lego?
Everyone will get a mistake: it is because domestic building blocks cannot imitate Lego, so they are cheap. In fact, it is wrong because domestic building blocks that users can accept are so cheap, and manufacturers have no cost space to achieve quality. Therefore, domestic building blocks on the market are often counterfeit products and their quality is limited.
Why is it better to be fake? Because of injection molding, the most expensive mold opening requires a large number of molds to make a set of toys, which is very expensive, even a simple set of Lego. The margins of the small factory are all made into Le high-level molds. Using Le high-level materials, the things made may be more expensive than the genuine Lego. Of course he can only use the bad ones, otherwise how can he make money? Even if all major manufacturers can do it, Lego's legal department is not a vegetarian. If you sell two pirated copies, you will eventually pay Lego millions. Are you crazy?
- Reality is so cruel. In the LEGO consumer market, you cannot buy domestic building blocks at one tenth of the price of LEGO, and then ask for the same quality as LEGO.Because at this time you can buy twice the price, would you be willing? I'm afraid it's 20% more expensive.
What's more, in the domestic market, there are always friendly competitors who are eyeing each other and other merchants who dare to fight for low-price and inferior quality, which forces your top domestic brands to dare not sell at a higher price.
- is visible. As a product, toys have their own cost limits. It is not a rocket or machine tool, and those with high accuracy requirements must go to heaven. In the past few years, the tolerance for domestic building blocks was positive and negative, but it has made greater progress in recent years.
In my opinion, it is probably within 10 years. In the near 5 years, the building block particles of domestic leading brands should be able to remain flat or even surpass Lego.
3. Essence: It is not that Lego cannot be imitated, but that domestic building blocks cannot imitate Lego's IP money-making ability in a short period of time
It can be said that Lego's manufacturing technology is completely undifficult, but the problem is that domestic consumers have very limited willingness to pay for the quality of domestic building blocks. So, what is the essence of this?
In fact, the difficulty is that it has no design and copyright, nor does it have the same marketing capabilities . You should know how much LEGO spends every year on copyright and marketing? How many designers are there every year? This scale is not comparable to any counterfeit brand of yours, and the money your boss may not make sure that someone else's designers will have more money.
- In other words, only miracles in this world cannot be copied, but the reason why we cannot copy 100% is that when you recognize this brand, or even the LEGO IP, it has relied on its size to occupy the pits you divide into your cognition about it.
Perhaps it is precisely because of the large number of imitations in China that it has achieved the brand height of Lego. Although you are making imitations, the brand of "Lego" is truly implanted, and many people will have the mentality of "not having money to buy fake Lego, but having money to buy real Lego", which indirectly creates the brand value of "building blocks are Lego, and Lego is building blocks".
- It can be said that what domestic building blocks cannot imitate in a short period of time is Lego's brand IP money-making ability. Because Lego's particles are actually just a way to build, and the patent is not protected. What is really protected are its newly designed building block particles and Lego's classic figures in recent years.
For example, the simplest Lego figures are sold for more than 60 to 100 yuan, but in fact, the cost is a few yuan, which is simply a huge profit. There are also IP support such as Star Wars, Marvel DC, etc., which are all the shortcomings of domestic building blocks and are also unusable.
- does not have a phenomenal IP, so the product will of course not be able to gain a sense of recognition and high premium. This is what domestic brands cannot imitate at present. Of course, domestic building blocks are also actively seeking a way to break through, creating many Chinese-style brand images, such as Pleasant Goat, Palace Museum, etc., and are becoming increasingly powerful.
So, how long will it take for us to solve this problem? In fact, this is a comprehensive problem. Not only does the country need to have a good IP, but consumers also need to continuously improve their confidence in domestic building blocks, and China needs to protect brands that are brave enough to explore.
Last words: Domestic brands can imitate manufacturing technology, but what Lego produces is not building blocks, but handicrafts
Recently, I heard a rumor that a domestic CAD software company is connecting with Lego. Before, Lego seemed to use French SolidWorks, and the price is 5 times that of this domestic company. This domestic software company has better services and updates, and has fully independent intellectual property rights. At present, they have completely acquired BYD and ZTE .
- So, in the future, Lego may not only be made in China, but also enterprise service is also a Chinese company.As for Lego itself, can't we leave something for the Danes? Do you have to make cookies and cheese to be content? Why can’t you make this one and that one every day? You really make everything cheaper and the quality is the best. Will other countries around the world collectively drink the northwest wind?
