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.

I haven't RTFT but Smyths aren't giving away free Lego out of the goodness of their hearts, they're doing it to try and get people to buy something whilst they're there. They're a business not a charity, can't see how they can be unreasonable here at all.

Lots of silly posters sticking the boot in. If they'd bothered to rtft then they'd know my son didn't leave with anything. Sick of people just jumping in. Of course I don't expect anything for free. I do expect that a free Lego event is not promoted alongside some of the most expensive pieces in the shop. Yes we live in a capitalist society but it's crappy practice.

Onto page 6 and the OP still doesn’t understand marketing .

I do expect that a free Lego event is not promoted alongside some of the most expensive pieces in the shop.

But why would you expect that? This isn't a publicity drive to encourage people to play with lego. They're literally trying get people to buy products. The free toy is just to get people through the door.

But the biggest ones are normally the ones that get the most excitement to see, it makes it a fun exciting event getting to see the fun big stuff up close for lots of kids.

This was a brilliant opportunity to talk to your son about marketing and the fact that nothing is ever free.

The company are only giving away things for free because they will sell more lego than the cost of giving it away for free.

If they don't make lots of extra money from the promotion then they won't do it.

It's not an altruistic, nice thing for the company to do. They are trying to make money.

Of course it will be promoted next to the expensive sets. They want you to buy the expensive sets. That is the whole point of the promotion.

Looking at the OPs user name I suspect this thread is a massive wind up!!

@Machiavellian the replies aren’t “silly”, there’s no reason to sigh

Everyone understands perfectly well.

It sounds like you did parent perfectly well in the moment.

What people are saying is there’s no reason to be fed up with the shop for creating a situation where you had to parent - that it is literally how these things work.

They used to do that at ToysRUs when mine were little. They'd just make their tiny boat/figure and move on though, they could see everything in the shop after all and knew they could only spend their pocket/school holiday/birthday money so it wasn't an issue. But I do remeymbe going in with them and telling them they could choose a small toy and DS1 hopped onto a £300 ride on electric BMW in hope!

I think you've missed the point of why they were giving away free Lego.

A free Lego event is marketing you chose to attend for the freebie but don't expect anything for free....strange. set expectations before going any child old enough for Lego knows it's not Christmas or their birthday and should be able to accept we are going to get a small Lego figure and look for ideas for the next gifting occasion we are not buying.

Yabu.
This is an important opportunity to teach your childcto always be cynical about commercial offers. All children need to learn that marketing messages are not to be trusted.

It really isn't, it's completely standard marketing. Your 6 year old is displaying the behaviour of a toddler and this can only be down to the way you've parented them.

OP. I’m going to literally spell it out to you
M A R K E T I N G

In its simplest definition, it is the business of selling and promoting.

The free Lego = Promoting
The Lego for sale = Selling

Does it upset you when kids comics come with a free toy but you have to pay for the comic? Or how about the old Buy One Get One Free in supermarkets? Did you used to complain that you had to pay for one to get the freebie?
Or even when they give away free samples of perfumes at beauty counters, but you have to pay if you want a full sized bottle?

@WYorkshireRose Blimey, that was mean. I suppose that's down to the way you were parented?

Thanks. I'm really not enjoying the tone of this thread anymore. I get it. I don't need a procession of people continuing to chime in.

Don’t post in AIBU then…
You've been overwhelmingly told you are being unreasonable, and precisely why-and you don’t like it.
Maybe you didn’t expect us all to understand marketing? 🤷🏻‍♀️

Getting really fed up of the pile on. Please stop.

@Machiavellian If you don't want to read any more replies it's easy enough to hide the thread. Generally works better than telling people to stop commenting on a question you invited them to answer.

It's not a big deal and if you hide the thread it'll be easier to let it go,.

Quite Machiavellian of you to expect a toy store to give away free big sets of Lego worth £££ just because your son wants it. That’s crazy entitlement. If you can’t afford something, you don’t buy it.

I'm not really sure what you apparently "get" seeing as your last post before this is exactly the same as your very first one "I do expect that a free Lego event is not promoted alongside some of the most expensive pieces in the shop. Yes we live in a capitalist society but it's crappy practice."

You still think the shop are being mean and nasty by, what, not cordoning off and hiding every single other toy in their shop other than the items they are giving away for free? Everyone else understands that the only reason the shop is giving away the free figures in the first place is to encourage people to buy other stuff once they've been enticed in by the free offer. People are proceeding to still "chime in" because you clearly don't "get" this is a completely standard and expected (and fair!) business model.

If it was a charity offering free stuff then you might have a point, but it's not a charity. It's a shop. The purpose of a shop is to sell things. You've chosen to post on AIBU (which is fairly notorious for being a bunfight) essentially asking "AIBU to expect a business to not act like a business?" and being surprised and offended that people say YES, of course you are!

I just felt it was unfairly displayed.

You understand ‘free Lego’ is a marketing exercise? Of course they’re going to display the sets they want to sell next to it. They don’t want people to just to come in for free Lego, that’s the whole point.

It’s not ‘unfair’ FGS.

Last post then that's it. Retail services emailed me back and apologised. Free Lego should have been held within its own cardboard crate and not displayed with other sets. They've thanked me for feedback to prevent it happening next time.