Wish these had been available a few years back when our kids were in their peak Lego building phase.
The key question I have is about BlueBrixx distribution to places that science and tech oriented kids (and gift-giving extended family) look for toys and models. Does BlueBrixx have any distribution other than online?
While adult fans will find things online, having boxes and models physically on display somewhere that kids can see them makes a huge difference to whether a certain kind of model ever gets considered for a wish list and can even determine whether or not it gets built.
While our kids loved to peruse catalogues to decide what projects they wanted to do next, our occasional visit to the Lego store outside Montreal or a Playmobil vendor really sparked their enthusiasm. I don’t think that it’s only the Lego branding that gets in the way of building the North American market for a competitor.
Beyond online purchases and catalogues, our kids picked up their advanced LEGO, Playmobil, SnapCircuits, Smithsonian models etc. at museums, hobby stores, a few toy stores that targeted learning toys across a broader age range and even children’s hospital gift stores. It seems like family had picked up gifts from similar places where they lived.
Since it’s a new and relatively small company from germany all stores I know of that sell the products are also located in germany. However, they have been expanding very rapidly in the last years and even faster since they got the Star Trek license, but it’ll take a while to gain popularity in north america. Also a lot of their growth came from a certain german youtuber, so It’ll take some time for it to even be physikly sold out of germany.
The company needs to get some representatives out to the toy trade shows and conventions in North America to break into the market. That’s how the models get picked up by genre sellers and distributors.
Even getting a representative seller at various Comic-Con’s and regional cons would be worth it to sell to core fans and build a base. Our kids have walked around cons with money to spend and come away with nothing but a t-shirt and pins because there really wasn’t much on offer for Star Trek suitable for their ages.
I mean this sounds logical, but I think they want to get established in central europe before expanding (which isn’t a bad tactic), that’s at least my assumption
Edit: we also could all just call shops close to us and ask them if they have the product ;) (if that tactic still works)
I’m in Canada, and our local hobby, game and comic stores are dependent on the distributors or the ability to order directly from the manufacturer. We usually start with them, and when we can’t order through them, go online.
Even for some of the small specialty presses producing Star Trek books, we’ve been obliged to order through Amazon because the publisher isn’t working directly with Canadian stores, even though the books should move without difficulty under the North American free trade agreement.
Final point, Canada has the most intense Trek following in the world, even more than in the United States. TNG was the top rated show during its run - of any television show, not just in its genre. So, if a company can’t sell Trek merch here, they won’t be successful.