Smyth's free lego

[Machiavellian]

AIBU to think it's unfair to display free Lego on a table alongside full price, extremely expensive Lego? Cue one upset and confused child that couldn't understand why they couldn't have the displayed full price pieces for free.

@Machiavellian that's great then, fab parenting.

But YABVU to expect anything different of the store. It's a marketing ploy.

It's interesting the OPs user name calling themselves that, without understanding why Lego are doing this.

It's like everywhere that gives away free samples. They aren't doing it because they want you to have something for free, they're doing it because they want you to buy the full product.

I’m gutted to have missed this!

I agree with everyone else op (sorry). Though how you handled it sounds fine. I have a child this age. I think with these things you need to manage expectations very clearly upfront - “Should we go have a look at Smyths today and maybe see if there’s anything you want for your Christmas list? I saw a poster that showed they were giving away Lego figures again, if we’re lucky maybe we’ll get one.”

If they’re anything like mine they would’ve asked to see the poster and then said they were hoping for this one or the other.

I’m surprised at the child’s age , I thought we were going to be talking about a 3/4 yr old .

Username does not check out...

@TheWayTheLightFalls its still on! I’ve just been on the back of this thread - hadn’t heard about the free Lego and needed to go for a birthday party gift at some point anyway. Mine are delighted with their little bags! There was a choice of 5 or so different ones.

But everything is free to a child, they don't earn money so it's meaningless to them. They are just being told yes or no by you.

Don't take a child to a Lego shop if you don't want to tell them no, just go on your own to pick up a freebie and gift it on if they don't want it or use it in a party game or something.

Thanks for spelling it "cue" though, I'm so tired of "que" being used everywhere.

Your son will get over it in minutes. Kids do need to learn the value of things.

This. Better they learn about consumerism and capitalism young.
You sound a little bit entitled OP. Don't pass that on.

The only reason for a business to give away something for free is because they hope it will encourage you to then spend money on something else. It was almost certainly intentional that they put items for sale next to the free stuff in the hope people coming in to get the free item would then end up paying for something else. The free item is just to entice you into the store, obviously the shop don’t really want you to leave without buying anything though! Why do you think a business would want to give Lego away if it wasn’t to hopefully get people to buy something? They’re not a charity!

Whilst this scenario could be confusing to your son, a child, it really should not be this difficult for you to understand, or explain to him.

Your child is going to find life very difficult if you continue with this attitude.

It's free to sell products if child doesn't take no then leave without anything.

I walked into a store today, I am annoyed that they weren't giving everything away for free.

I don’t really get it. You took him in the shop so even if the more expensive sets hadn’t been directly next to the free Lego, he surely would’ve seen them anyway?
Sounds like a mountain out of a mole hill.

YABU for not understanding the basic principles of marketing.

Husband has taken our own small people to Smyths and has reported that the freebies have been bagged. They are now off to the Range to look at the cheapo off brand sets.

Sorry your son was upset OP. 6 year olds can still have their off days and not deal with disappointment very well. I don't think you can be angry with the shop though, it should be fairly obvious what their intention is with this giveaway.

At least you now know what to buy your DV for Xmas OP

I do wonder if at times these situations are an attempt to try to emotionally blackmail the stores to let them have the big expensive stuff for free.

I've seen a lot of videos online where parents give their child an Xbox for Xmas and it's actually a brick inside the box which then makes Microsoft send the family a free Xbox.

There is a lot of entitlement and people think that shops should just give away everything for free just because they want it, whilst everyone else works hard to pay for these things (and in turn end up paying for these freebies too).

I can't imagine any store worth their salt will hand out large Lego sets (or anything else substantial) for free though.

I love Lego and buy sets regularly. They often have GWP ("gift with purchase") sets on their website, and offer a programme called Lego Insider Points (where you can accumulate points from purchases and registering sets, to redeem little sets or Lego accessories. So they do all sorts of (to my mind appropriate) things like little giveaways to keep customers engaged. See also all the tie-ups with Marvel, Star Wars etc. This is another example of that to me.

Incidentally Lego is a hugely charitable company - they have a brilliant reBrickAble program and offer Lego to charitable groups working with children and similar. I've seen this firsthand in my own work (best workday ever!).

It’s not, though. It’s a Lego event. It’s meant to promote Lego to children. Its side benefit is to get you into Smyths on a Saturday. Presumably last year it achieved that, but didn’t directly influence on many Lego sales; so they’ve improved it this year.

If you did the usual, “we’re going to get X, we can’t buy anything else” before you went in, and he knew he was only getting a mini figure, and he kicked off anyway and didn’t want a free mini figure, than it’s just one of those things and this isn’t the type of event for him right now.

You felt it was unfair of the shop to try and sell you something?

@TheWayTheLightFalls Of course no shop would hand out a massive thing for free, but it doesn't stop people from trying though!

In this day and age a lot of people don't understand that if you can't afford something you can't have it.