We are closing!
The Brixpando Shop has been a passion project of mine (Patrick, aka Brix just4me) for the past 2.5 years. For about the last 10 months, I have been running it full-time alongside my YouTube channel. However, it became increasingly clear that the amount of work involved was not proportional to the revenue generated. The only way to make the business truly viable would be to scale it significantly, which would require considerably more staff, warehouse space, and, above all, a much larger budget. Even then, the availability of bricks would remain a challenge, as the manufacturer does not offer direct sales. As a result, I have always had to rely, and would continue to rely, on secondary marketplaces such as BrickLink to source inventory.
In March 2026, things were further complicated by a significant drop in revenue. Based on my research so far, this was likely related to the crisis in Iran and the resulting economic uncertainty and market fluctuations. All in all, it was far from an ideal situation and ultimately the reason why I decided to bring this project, which has been running since 2023, to an end. However, this is not entirely a negative development!
In addition to the discounts coming soon, there will be one final opportunity to pre-order every product ever released! The only exception is the expansion set for Ahsoka’s T-6 Jedi Shuttle (75362), which was discontinued more than a year ago. There will also be numerous free promotions and special offers. Here is how it will work:
Phase 1 – Pre-Orders
time frame: 10th until 26th of July 2026
The first phase covers the pre-orders of currently sold-out products mentioned above. Every product can be ordered one final time and will be packed specifically to fulfill the orders placed during this period. Orders that do not contain any pre-order items will be processed and shipped within a few business days, as usual. If an order includes one or more pre-order items, it will be shipped once the required bricks have arrived and I have assembled and packed the corresponding packs. As a rough estimate, shipments of pre-order items are expected to begin around mid-August. Depending on the total number of pre-orders received, this timeline may be extended by a few additional days.
In addition, several free promotions will be available during this period, including the latest BRIXXY Seasons Edition for Summer 2026. You can find all current offers and promotions HERE.
Phase 2 – First Sales-phase
time frame: 27th of July until 09th of August 2026
In the second phase, the pre-order period comes to an end. From that point on, not all products will be available anymore—only those that are currently in stock. All remaining products will be discounted by at least 20% across the board. Items that are already on sale will receive even further price reductions.
In addition to these discounts, a new free promotion featuring a previously unreleased BRIXXY Edition will launch. As always, you can find all current offers and promotions HERE.
Phase 3 – 50% Sale
time frame: 10th until 23rd of August 2026
The third phase marks the final stage of the shop’s closure.
All in-stock products will be discounted by at least 50%, while items that have already been reduced will receive even deeper discounts. These offers apply exclusively to products that are currently in stock; no items will be restocked during this phase.
After August 23, all physical products will be permanently removed from the shop’s catalog. The current plan is for the digital building instructions to remain available online and continue to be offered for purchase.
Phase 4 – Final Live-Sale with Prototypes
time frame: weekend of 28th until 30th of August 2026
If any inventory remains unsold after the final clearance phase, the remaining stock will be sold during a live event. This will most likely take place on the Whatnot platform, with the exact date to be announced at a later time. All products and expansion packs—regardless of size—will start at a €1 opening bid and will be sold through an auction format. The exact scope and selection of items available during the stream will not be finalized until the week before the event.
The event will also offer a unique opportunity to bid on prototypes and built sets featured in my YouTube videos. These models were used for the presentations and launches of the expansion packs and are modified versions of the original sets. Just like the other auctions, all bidding for these items will start at €1.
Closing words
At this point, I would like to sincerely thank all of you for your incredible support over the past few years. It has been a genuine pleasure to design for and together with this community, and to see the excitement and enjoyment that the expansion packs have brought to so many people. The fact that this chapter is coming to an end is not necessarily a bad thing. Of course, it is an ending; but for me, it is also an opportunity for a new beginning and the chance to pursue something that may be even more enjoyable. That said, I will certainly miss the concept and unique spirit of this shop. Perhaps one day there will be an opportunity to bring this idea back on a larger scale. Only time will tell. Thank you for being part of this journey!
By the way, the decline in sales does not mean that there was insufficient interest in the concept, nor does it mean that you personally did not support the shop enough. In reality, the main reasons were the way the overall concept was implemented—particularly the fact that there were simply too few people available to handle the workload—and the challenging economic environment. When the cost of everyday life increases, people naturally become more cautious about spending money on things that are, objectively speaking, non-essential, such as hobbies. Whether the shop would have survived longer if the situation in Iran had not occurred, or whether the lack of manpower would have ultimately led to the same outcome regardless, is something I cannot say with certainty at this point. What I can say, however, is this:
Thanks for everything and enjoy the sales! 🙂
Patrick
aka Brix just4me
Here you can find the YouTube-Video regarding the closing of the shop (in German):
Q&A
Taken from the comments on the YouTube video.
Would it make sense to further develop the concept in cooperation with established companies or creators in the LEGO community (such as Brickstory, Held der Steine, etc.)?
I definitely considered it, but there were several additional factors that I didn’t go into in the video because it would have made it far too long. First of all, you need a substantial amount of startup capital to securely pay multiple employees for several months while also covering the cost of suitable business premises (which, in my case, were relatively inexpensive because I operated from a private apartment). The second major challenge is scalability. Since I exclusively used brand-new LEGO bricks, every expansion pack depended on the availability of those parts. If LEGO decides to discontinue a particular element, you’re suddenly left without a reliable supply. That’s manageable on a small scale, but once you’re stocking hundreds of different expansion packs, the amount of work required to constantly find replacement parts, update part lists, revise instructions, and sometimes even create new product photos becomes enormous.
With a larger team, it might be possible, but even then, it’s still a gamble. You don’t know whether the concept will remain economically viable in the long term, and there’s always the risk that the workload grows disproportionately as the business expands.
I genuinely think it’s a fantastic concept, and I’m sad to see it come to an end. But unless you manufacture your own bricks—or somehow gain control over production so the business can truly scale without supply limitations, it remains what it has always been for me: a fan project.
You mentioned in the video that this would really be a job for four people. Was the demand actually that high? I can imagine two people; one designing upgrades and creating YouTube content, the other handling sales. But what would the other two do?
It’s mostly all the work behind the scenes. One role would be dedicated to accounting, restocking, and maintaining the website alone, which already takes an incredible amount of time. I would have loved to improve the website much further, with a better homepage, full bilingual support, improved navigation, and many other refinements, but there simply wasn’t enough time. Product photography for the website would also fall into this area. Another role would focus on design. In fact, you could easily keep two or even three people busy designing new expansion packs. A wider product range attracts a broader audience, just look at lighting companies that create lighting kits for virtually every LEGO set imaginable. Then there’s YouTube and social media. I would have loved to invest much more time into platforms like TikTok and Instagram, but it simply wasn’t possible. On top of that comes marketing and business development, such as reaching out to other YouTubers and content creators to showcase the products. And finally, you need someone (or several people, depending on order volume) to assemble the products and ship customer orders.
When you break it all down, there’s actually quite a lot to do.
Wasn’t running the BrickLink store a better business?
(Background: A few years ago I also operated a BrickLink store selling individual LEGO parts alongside my YouTube channel)
The workload was slightly lower, but so were the profit margins. Since BrickLink is an extremely price-driven marketplace, adjusting your prices isn’t really an option. The newer shop was a significant improvement in that regard. Because the products themselves were unique, I could calculate prices based on the actual costs rather than hoping to make enough profit by selling most of the parts from a LEGO set individually.
So overall, I believe the newer concept was a major step forward. However, because it still depended entirely on someone else’s production, it was never quite the ideal solution.
Why shouldn’t a 24-year-old collector’s set be worth €2,000? In another ten years you’ll probably say, „No way it’s worth €6,000 now!“
(Background: This refers to my statement that I can’t really understand the current price development on the secondary LEGO market. Specifically, I mentioned that I don’t believe the UCS Naboo Starfighter (10026) should cost more than €2,000 today.)
What I mean is that I don’t believe the set itself is actually worth that amount. I’m not making the typical „it’s just plastic“ argument. My point is that a large part of today’s LEGO market is no longer driven by people who genuinely enjoy the hobby itself, it’s driven by collectors and investors. For many of them, it’s no longer about how great the set actually is (because, in the case of the UCS Naboo Starfighter, it’s certainly not a €2,000 building experience). Instead, it’s about owning the rarest and most exclusive collectible. Whether that collectible happens to be Pokémon cards, LEGO, or Funko Pops is almost secondary. People simply learn enough about each hobby to identify the rarest items. In other words, many of today’s buyers aren’t necessarily LEGO enthusiasts, they’re collectors who happen to collect LEGO. That’s why I see today’s prices not as a reflection of the set’s intrinsic value, but as an artificially inflated collector’s value that would never have developed under normal market conditions.
If collectors eventually move on to another hobby (assuming LEGO ever becomes less attractive as a collectible) those prices could fall just as dramatically. It’s no coincidence that most of this price explosion happened between 2021 and 2026 rather than during the previous two decades. Before then, large numbers of collectors simply weren’t focused on LEGO (or Pokémon) as investment-grade collectibles.
So, is the company’s pricing strategy or some artificial shortage of production to blame?
That wasn’t really the point I was trying to make. I wasn’t aiming to criticize LEGO itself, its pricing strategy, or topics like artificial scarcity—that’s a discussion for another day. What I wanted to highlight is that, for many people entering the market today, the passion for the hobby is no longer the primary motivation. Instead, LEGO has increasingly become an investment. Up until about five years ago, most LEGO fans cared about how beautiful a set was, how much they personally enjoyed their collection, and how they could get the most enjoyment out of the hobby—even if that meant keeping some sets sealed. Today, LEGO has increasingly become a status symbol. Many of the people who entered the hobby since 2021 see it primarily as a store of value, an investment, or something that signals exclusivity and success. I’m not saying that’s inherently wrong. The problem is that it unintentionally takes away from those who fell in love with LEGO because of the sets themselves. Prices continue to rise because many buyers simply want to own rare items, not necessarily to build or enjoy them. At the same time, this also influences the company’s product lineup. Display models sell extremely well because they appeal to collectors and status-driven buyers, so we naturally see more display pieces and fewer traditional play sets.
As a result, a company that once shaped so many childhoods risks becoming a brand that’s valued primarily as a status symbol. What used to be a hobby centered around creativity and enjoyment has increasingly become a competition to assemble the most valuable collection of rare sets and minifigures. The focus is no longer on the set or the minifigure itself, but on its monetary value. I find that genuinely disappointing.
(And one small thought people often overlook: if everyone can simply buy status, then it isn’t really status anymore. But that’s a discussion for another day ^^)
You mentioned the „hate“ within the LEGO community. Were you referring to the divide between LEGO fans, fans of other brick-building brands, and people who buy Chinese replicas?
Not really. When I talked about the negativity within the brick-building community, I wasn’t referring to the different groups themselves, whether someone prefers official LEGO sets, other brick-building brands, Chinese alternatives, or follows a particular YouTuber. What I meant is that, within all of those groups, there’s a relatively small number of people who seem determined to ruin the hobby for everyone else. I don’t think that had a major impact on my shop itself. If anything, controversial comments generate more attention. The real victims are the people who simply want to enjoy the hobby.
From a psychological perspective, hobbies exist because they allow people with shared interests to form communities. But when those communities become increasingly hostile, people suddenly feel as though they have to justify why they enjoy their hobby in the first place. At that point, it stops feeling like a hobby. The fun that originally brought people together slowly disappears.
Of course, you can always say, „Just ignore it.“ Ignore the people who tell you things like, „You’re an idiot if you buy that.“ But even if you consciously ignore those comments, they still affect you on a subconscious level. That kind of underlying stress simply isn’t something a hobby should create, especially not one as creative and enjoyable as LEGO.
In the end, everyone should enjoy whatever makes them happy. The moment people start telling others that they’re enjoying their hobby the „wrong“ way, it stops being a hobby and turns into something else entirely.