The addition of two exclusive prints to the VIP Rewards center right before the start of the May The 4th Be With You retail extravaganza caused more than a few to reassess how they were going to distribute their VIP points at midnight on May 1st, when the latest LEGO Star Wars promotion kicked off.
For many shoppers, the prints weren’t available at the start of the promotion, and the number of VIP points (equivalent to US$30/CA$35/UK£20/DE€23/AU$40) they cost was enough to drive a large number of collectors away.
Despite access and cost woes, with a narrow window of opportunity – May 1st to 8th – and the ability to add these to collections only available to those who had joined the VIP Rewards program, LEGO expected the prints to fly off the shelves. They didn’t.
Now they’re starting to arrive on doorsteps, and the complaints haven’t stopped because while the prints are nice, and there’s no denying that the images are attractive and their quality is pretty high, it’s hard to get passed the packaging they came in.
Two large boxes for two sheets of paper is not how most fans were expecting their prints to arrive, and while we all appreciate our orders arriving in good condition there’s no denying this goes against the message of sustainability that LEGO has committed to.
How could LEGO have done a better job shipping these prints? For starters they could have cut the prints a little smaller – shaving off a few millimeters would have saved paper and would have meant that they could have been included in the box that those orders of the 75341 Luke Skywalker’s Landspeeder were sent in, bent corners would have been avoided, extra boxes wouldn’t have been needed and secondary (and in some cases tertiary) deliveries wouldn’t have been necessary. Smaller sheets would have also meant that the standard Mylar sleeves would serve as protection. Failing that, a card-backed envelope would have been a convenient, cheap and sustainable option.
As good as the prints look, having no means to preserve or display them means that they’re not going to be in many collectors’ spotlight.
When the new VIP Rewards program got rebooted in the middle of 2019 it had some teething problems – members lost points, vouchers were awkward and the bonus items weren’t inspiring – but slowly LEGO sorted these issues out, it all started running smoothly again and social media moved on. It seems LEGO has given the AFOL community something else to be unhappy about.
Special thanks to LEGO Customer Services for providing these prints for review.
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