Wider range and 3D printing: Inside the world’s largest Lego store

Global toy company Lego opened its biggest store in the world in Sydney, Australia, this week, bringing its highly interactive, direct-to-consumer shopping experience to new heights. 

The 900sqm store is the first Lego store in Australia to have a street frontage, rather than being placed in a shopping centre, and signifies the culmination of years of bricks-and-mortar expansion in the market. Lego launched its first dedicated store in Australia and New Zealand four years ago, and with the new store, located on Pitt Street Mall, it now has more than 20 sites across the country.

The new site beats out the brand’s Melbourne Central site, which previously held the title of largest Lego store in the Southern Hemisphere at 559sqm.

Lego ANZ vice president and general manager Troy Taylor told Inside Retail that having the world’s biggest Lego store in Sydney was exciting, and would hold the largest range of Lego sets in the country.

“There’s lots of unique elements you won’t see anywhere else,” Taylor said. 

“We have a giant gumtree which greets you when you walk in, made up of over 180,000 bricks. There’s koalas, a massive Sydney Harbor Bridge with 550,000 bricks in it, and the Southern Hemisphere’s first ever minifigure factory.”

The minifigure factory allows customers to create customised Lego figurines, which are then 3D printed in-store while they pick out accessories and other add-ons.

A ‘storytelling table’ is also present, which allows customers to understand the Lego design process, and what goes into making the brand tick.

The store also features a broader range of sets, including rare collector Lego sets targeted at adult customers, which may not be available at  smaller sites. 

Size isn’t everything

Richard Facioni, executive chairman at Alquemie Group, which operates Lego Certified Stores in Australia and New Zealand, told Inside Retail that while the store is the biggest in the world, that wasn’t necessarily by design. Rather, the brand was looking for a suitable flagship location, and when the Pitt Street Mall site came up, it ticked both boxes.

“It just happened to be the size that it is, and we’re very excited by that,” Facioni said. 

“As a result we’ve got a lot of global attention from the Lego community and the senior management team in Denmark.”

The site is Lego ANZ’s second store on a high street, Facioni said, with the brand’s New Zealand flagship in Wellington being the other. This gives the brand some real ‘presence’ and separates it as a more robust offering. 

And, launching just ahead of the holiday season ensures the business can trade at maximum capacity throughout the busiest retail season of the year.

In saying that, Facioni is keeping his expectations in check. 

“We’ve just had another interest rate rise, and that’s made people a bit nervous,” he said. 

The holiday season “is a bit of an unknown, but I think all we can do is do our best in the market and the environment we’re in.”

As one of the world’s most well-known and beloved brands, however,  Facioni is optimistic that Lego is perennial and will do well in a down market.

Taylor added that having the store open in time for the holiday period is an opportunity for the brand to reach more customers, and that, thankfully, most of the supply chain concerns of the last few years have largely evaporated and the brand is well stocked. 

“We’re in much better shape than we were a year ago, that’s for sure,” Taylor said. 

“We’re seeing goods come into the country much more freely, and problems like pallet shortages have subsided. It was pretty much back to normal for us once we entered the second half of the year, which is great because we can be more responsive to shoppers’ demands.”

Building to the future

Following the flagship launch, and the upcoming holiday period, the plan for Lego Down Under will return to business as usual. The store rollout, which began in 2019, will slow somewhat to avoid cannibalisation and the focus will instead shift to delivering on product launches.

“The great thing about Lego is that they constantly have new product launches, so there’s always fresh, new experiences,” Facioni said. 

“January is always a big month for product launches [at Lego], and it does quite well following the holiday period unlike a lot of retailers because of that.”

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