LEGO merging Pick A Brick and Bricks and Pieces into single experience

Today, the LEGO Group has announced that it would be merging its two on-demand brick services. Combining Pick A Brick with Bricks and Pieces to create a single experience, the merger comes with faster fulfillment times, adjusted pricing, and some new perks from LEGO. Head below for the full breakdown.

LEGO merging Pick A Brick with Bricks and Pieces

Alongside selling its actual building kits, which take much of the spotlight, the LEGO Group has also had programs that allow you to pick up specific bricks for your collection. Historically, Pick A Brick has served as a way to score a bulk selection of LEGO’s more popular pieces, most famous for the walls of pieces at in-person LEGO stores. Bricks and Pieces on the other hand offers a larger selection of parts, which tend to be less curated than the other offering.

Now both of these programs are going to be merging into a single experience. Each of the distinct selections will still be offered, just under a single front-end interface meant to streamline the process.

Aside from the convenience of having everything in one place, the biggest perk of the merger is that fulfillment times will be drastically reduced. Typically you’d expect anywhere from 13 to 18 days of turnaround time with the prior system, which will be dropping around to an estimated five days. It’s worth noting that this will only apply to the top 1,600 elements, and those looking for more unique bricks will have to wait through longer processing times.

There will likely be some shipping delays for a short time after the company launches this experience. Speaking of, there will be some other growing pains for the LEGO Pick A Brick and Bricks and Pieces merger.

LEGO Pick A Brick merger going live later this month

The change is slated to go live officially at the end of the month come January 23. For 48 hours following, both of the programs will be temporality paused as the LEGO Group gets everything in order. During this scheduled downtime, individual elements will still be available for purchase through Bricks and Pieces.

Arguably the bigger offense for many will be the planned pricing changes. Not too much has been stated on the topic, though the LEGO Group does mention that it plans to adjust pricing select bricks accordingly. Here’s a direct comment on the matter:

We’ve worked hard to align prices between the two different experiences and keep the prices as low as we can while reflecting changes to market conditions. There will some elements that will be at a slightly higher price and others at a lower price.

In the past, different colours of the same design often had different prices. Now the prices will be more consistent, with some exceptions. Certain colours (like gold and silver), pieces that glow in the dark, and decorated elements will still be priced differently across the same design.

LEGO launching Build a Mini program, too

Alongside merging its Pick a Brick and Bricks and Pieces storefronts, the LEGO Group is also trialing a new experience. In much the same tune as those services, a new Build a Mini program will be launching in Europe and Asia. As the name suggests, builders will be able to design their own Minifigure out of a selection of elements. It’s also worth noting that the LEGO Group mentions the “Build a Mini selection of bricks will only be available for this experience.” So it looks like there will be some exclusivity not just to the program itself, but to the new bricks as well.

9to5Toys’ Take:

A lot still remains to be seen from how the LEGO Group will handle merging Pick A Brick and Bricks and Pieces. While it does look like pricing is going to change as the experience is simplified, there’s no telling just how widespread those adjustments will be, let alone how much pricier things will actually be.

That being said, this is all certainly a step in the right direction for the LEGO Group. Its now subsidiary BrickLink has long been a preferred option for builders to score specific pieces for their own creations, and these changes may very well shorten the gap between the two.

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