Where do I buy LEGO® from?

When you know the answers to these questions, please be prepared for the following to happen:

1. You will be forever grateful for the new buying avenues opened to you, and your LEGO collection and building repertoire will expand significantly.
2. Your bank accounts will never forgive you (unless you are excellent at budgeting, then this will not be a problem).

Of course, I must first mention our own House of Bricks services and what we sell. We have a small shop on our website with all kinds of LEGO animals and items there. If you come along to any number of our events, you will find us with our exciting ‘Design A Figure’ service – this is where you get to sift through 6000+ parts to make and collect Minifigure parts and accessories. Since operating this service from 2015, we have become so well-loved, people have queued up to 30 minutes at our big events.

That aside now, let’s get to the point – when you live in New Zealand, where do you go to buy LEGO?  To answer this, I will break it down into the following four categories

1. New, current market LEGO® sets
2. Old, no longer in production LEGO® sets
3. New and used LEGO® parts (including replacement parts for missing pieces)
4. Other items

Where in New Zealand can you buy new, current-market LEGO sets?

There are many options for both physical and online shopping options. These stores receive LEGO stock roughly 3-12 weeks after a set is released by the LEGO company, which can vary dramatically. At House of Bricks, we have a preferred local store where we know the manager well and ask them to put our top-of-the-list sets requests aside for us. So be nice, be loyal, and you never know what your local toy shop will do for you. The top stores with the most extensive range of LEGO® set available are the following:

1. Toyco
2. Toyworld
3. The Warehouse
4. Farmers

Other smaller retailers include Countdown (for a minimal range of LEGO polybags and tiny boxed sets), Paper Plus, Whitcoulls, and various small locally owned toy stores. If you are keen on looking at the full range of LEGO sets and getting your hands on the sets the moment they are released, then the place to go is:

1. LEGO.com(NOTE: make sure you are on the NZ site – click on the flag that says, ‘change region’ and select New Zealand from the list)
2. The LEGO® Store at Westfield, Newmarket.

Where do I buy old, no longer-produced LEGO sets from?

Our go-to place for this is – on this site, simply enter the set number you are after (if you do not know this number, head to Brickset and search for the set), and you can almost access any set ever released. Here are some other options (please note the first three do come with a risk of stumbling across scams or getting inferior quality/uncared for sets)

1. Trade Me
2. eBay
3. FB Marketplace (for a trusted Buy Sell page, head to MFOL Buy Sell and Trade NZ)
4. Brickstore(they sell both old and new sets
5. Brick shows – MANY LEGO shows (known as Brick shows) happen all around NZ, and often there are sellers at these shows with old sets. If they don’t have the set you are after, ask them – you never know how they might be able to help you.

Where can I buy just LEGO® pieces from?

If you want to shop for LEGO pieces physically, then head to Auckland, visit the LEGO® Certified store at Westfield Newmarket, and experience buying from their Pick a Brick wall. There is a limited number, around 40 pieces to select from, and they change periodically.

Shopping online for just LEGO pieces gives you a much wider range. We have two preferred sites to visit as we have found them to be the most reliable.

1. Our webshop!  Check out our online store for parts, animals, and plants
2. Bricklink– This is our top spot to head to. You type in a part name (i.e., 2×4 brick) or part number (i.e., 3001, which is the number for the 2×4 brick and can be found on the back of most pieces of LEGO). It will bring up all the Bricklink stores in the world where you can purchase this part. All you need to do is decide which store has the best price for the number of parts you need. We will write up a whole separate blog on Bricklink as there is so much to know about it.
3. lego.com is a great site to visit for parts that you would like to guarantee are new. We also use this site to compare with Bricklink to ensure that we are not overpaying there. There are two areas to visit on LEGO.com:
   1. Pick a Brick(find this under ‘Shop by’ – ‘Bricks’ – Pick a Brick). This area is great for all your basic parts needs – bricks, plates, basic flower and plant elements, plus a few other fun parts.
   2. The Replacement partsarea found under ‘Support’ on the menu, then click ‘replacement parts’ – ‘buy bricks’. To use this area, you need to know one of the following two pieces of information: the part number you would like (such as 3001 for a 2×4 brick, 69060 for a Reindeer) OR the set number that the part appears in. If you enter a part number, it will bring up all the colours ever produced for that part and then show which pieces you can buy. If you enter the set number, a list will be produced of all the parts in that set. This tool is helpful if you lose a part to a set or the dog chews a piece, and you want to replace it.
4. You can go to different places for just LEGO parts, including Trade Me, eBay, Facebook marketplace, Brickowl, and the occasional specialised seller that might have a physical or online store. If you want a trusted FB buy/sell page, head to MFOL Buy, sell and trade NZ. CAUTION: please tread carefully and beware of deals that sound too good to be true – they are most likely a scam, they do exist, so please be careful.

What other items are available to buy that will work well with my LEGO?

There are many other services available to enhance your LEGO experience. Here are just a few ideas:

1. Rics Bricks– this business will custom print LEGO for you, has custom printed Minifigures, and so much more.
2. Lighting for your sets – there are no NZ stores that I am aware of, but Light My Bricks and Lightailing are the most popular online destinations.
3. Chroming of your parts could include a store overseas called Custom Bricks.

I hope this information has been helpful to you. Enjoy exploring the links provided, and please leave a comment if you know of other great places to purchase LEGO and related items. We will explore your suggestions and add them to the article for everyone to read about if we can.