There’s been a lot of conversation online about Bricks & Minifigs lately, and we know some of you have questions that come down to the community losing trust in us. We want to talk about how Bricks and Minifigs Herndon operates in a way that enables trust.
But, first I want to be clear about what we’ll be discussing here, and what we won’t.
What we will talk about
We’ve spent two years building Bricks & Minifigs Herndon to be a place the community can trust. We’ve made deliberate choices about how we hire, how we manage our inventory, and how we buy and sell. None of those choices were accidents, and none of them are things we picked up from a Franchise manual.
Over the next few weeks, we’ll share what we’ve built and why:
- How we handle inventory — and what two years of building a tracking system has taught us
- How we buy and sell — and why our process is designed to leave no ambiguity about who owns what
- How we hire — and why customer service matters more to us than LEGO expertise
Each of these is its own post. Each one is something we think matters for the people who shop with us.
What we will not talk about
We won’t be commenting on the parties involved in the Salem, Oregon situation while litigation is active. We trust the legal process and don’t think it’s our place to judge anyone publicly. That applies in our comments, in our emails, and in person at the store. As you will see in our follow up posts, we trust data, we trust evidence, we trust expert judgement. This permeates everything we do. The court of public opinion is not the right place to pass judgement on any of the parties.
Our social pages have always been moderated for relevance to our Herndon store. Our social media pages are how we connect with our customers. They are not a public forum. This isn’t something that we invented when this controversy started. When a commenter makes a personal remark about how one of our employees looks, we hide it, because personal remarks are not relevant to our place of business. Similarly, comments on the current controversy will be hidden because they are not relevant to place of business. This is also entirely consistent with how we operate within our store. If a customer comes in, and starts ranting about the CVS next door, we might smile and nod for a while, but eventually, the customer will be told to stop. Similarly, any comments on other stores and Corporate will be hidden, and any instance of abuse reported to the social media platform.
We will not reveal any proprietary information. Bricks and Minifigs makes us sign a NDA which, rightfully, protects their Intellectual property. We will not, under any condition, break that NDA. We do think that many of these things should become standard practice within the Franchise, and we hope that Corporate adopts some version of what we are doing.
This is also the last time we will be talking about the current controversy and how we operate our social media. Rest of the blog posts will be focused on how Bricks and Minifigs Herndon does things that intentionally build trust within ourselves and with the community. We might refer to the Salem store or Corporate, but not to pass judgement on them, but as a way to highlight how things can be done better
Also, this is not about how other Bricks and Minifigs stores operate. When we say we are independently owned and operated, we don’t say it to distance ourselves from other stores’ mistakes. We really mean that each store may have our own way of doing things.I know it’s easy for community to see us as this one big corporation, but what we really are is a federation of Lego store operators, who support each other, and pay the Franchise a fee, and follow their standards in exchange for using the brand name
Come see us
I know this has become cliche now: our store is there to serve the LEGO community. If you’d like to connect in person, we are holding our customer appreciation weekends on June 7, 14, and 21. Coffee and donuts on us. Please come.
We’ve been at this for two years next week. We’re proud of how we’ve built it, and we’re looking forward to telling you more.