As I always do when entering a supermarket, I head directly to the toy department. Admittedly, not every supermarket has a great selection and it often takes ages for them to stock new ranges, but it’s still worth a peek when buying some bread. Today, I popped along to my local Tesco Extra store, it has a decent-sized but poorly stocked toy department. So when I was greeted with a sparse LEGO set display, it wasn’t too much of a surprise. However, I also noticed that many boxes have a small sticker on them declaring ‘Ready to Buy? Just take this box to the checkout’ upon further inspection, the boxes were empty of LEGO elements. But these were not dummy boxes, the store appears to be ripping open boxes and removing the content. Some boxes had security tags on them with the content intact, while others had the content removed and a security tag.
It’s unclear exactly what you get when purchasing a LEGO set at Tesco, stock is not kept at the checkout and staff were unclear on if you got a ‘fresh’ box with the content intact or the box you take to the checkout if then filled with the relevant content. There was a suggestion that if the box was the last of the stock of that set, it would have the content put in it.
It’s clearly being done as a security measure, however, it’s a poorly thought-out system which could see bags or stickers go missing, loose elements damaged and technically causes sets to become ‘used’ before even being sold. It’s also unclear if this practice is endorsed by the LEGO Group. This practice may not be done in all Tesco stores but it might be something to look out for.
