Rise and Fall of West End Toys

Thanos75 · 2025-03-27T13:16:42.000Z

When I first started my Lego reselling journey over 15 years ago I was selling Lego out of the back of my truck. Before Covid it wasnt uncommon to see those beautiful little yellow clearance tags on hundreds of Lego sets for super deep discounts. I would pick them up and sell them cheap enough for others to make money. For years it worked for me and I was known as a reliable resource for other resellers. Thats when West End reached out to me. The rise for me was when I was contacted by West End telling me im losing money by not teaming with them to sell my bricks. They convinced me to send in a trial shipment so I did. Rich himself showed up. Very nice guy we had a good conversation and off he went with a pallet of sets. It didnt take long before I was getting amazing returns from that first shipment. I couldnt get another shipment to them fast enough. Every few months I would ship in big ammount and watch the deposits roll in. It made the buying and selling of Lego easy for me and many others. Thought this could go on forever. The fall took several years. It was a slow decent and started with the little things. My shipments were still going in and the funds were still getting deposited but the communication started dropping off. I was confident in my Lego knowledge but sometimes I would find these deals and I could just call or send picks and they always answered with good advice and we both made good money. Overtime that personal contact started dropping off. I figured they were just getting so big that they were busy. Then the news came out that they were moving into a much larger location because they are growing. I was excited for them and for us sellers. Thats really when the bottom fell out for me. I got a T-shirt in the mail telling me of the name change . Different people were picking up orders communication slowed way down. Orders were getting mixed up . Deposits slowed way down. Got to where I would only get a payout after calling many many times to "remind" them. Now im still owed money , have stock with them and I have been totally ghosted. So what to do know. The money im owed is way less then many others. I was fortunate that a few months back I actually got a big chunk of what was owed paid. Im not sure what will come from it but where to go now. Like many others I have shifted my selling strategy . There is more competition and places like Amazon doesnt make it easy. Will there be another West End? Will someone learn from it and start another platform for us to team up and grow our businesses? Im not sure what is going to come from the rise and fall of West End but we all have learned a lesson .