We're a little late, but as we promised back in September, it's finally time to share with you a review of the past year, and give you some perspectives for the year to come.

I Annual review

I.1 A few figures to start with (since 01/09/2023)

With over 300 new products offered during the year, our owners now offer over 640 different references, and a total of 846 products.

150 users have joined us, 22 of whom have also opened a store.

145 orders were placed (excluding cancelled orders), bringing the average to around ten per month, three times more than in our first year. The momentum is quite good, the relevance of a service like ours seems to be confirmed, and user feedback is as good as ever!

These 145 rentals were made by 90 different customers, more than a third of whom made several rentals. Once again, we see this as proof that the service is working well, and that users are satisfied and confident.

Here's a graphic representation of the breakdown of these rentals:

II.2 A look back at the year's main new features

II.2.1 Greater flexibility

Feedback and changes to agreements with our various service providers have enabled us to give our owners greater freedom to set their own rates. They are now free to set their own rents, deposits and bulk return prices. This greater flexibility allows everyone to adapt their prices to their own way of seeing things: some owners rent above all to earn enough to finance the purchase of new sets, others with a view to sharing their goods; some want to avoid deliveries and therefore offer more attractive prices for hand-deliveries; some offer free bulk returns because they don't consider sorting to be too much of a hassle. There seems to be something for everyone, and so far we haven't noticed any “unfair competition” or conflicts between owners.

We've also made it possible for owners to rent products other than their sets: by-products, MOCs, bulk parts. The aim is to extend the rental experience to the whole LEGO® brand universe. Bulk is also a regular demand, particularly from event organizers. However, at present, these new products are not finding takers, and only one MOC has been rented. The same is true of the LightMyBricks® light kits we offer.

We see two main reasons for this:

• visibility: these products are less easily accessible on the site, and less searched for by users (both on the site and on search engines). We're going to try and find a way of integrating them all together in a single catalog.
• offer: few of these products are currently on offer (no bulk, no original MOCs), so less appeal and opportunity for renters. We'll see how to relaunch a few more targeted communication campaigns.

We've also made rental periods more flexible, allowing weekly rentals and extensions to existing orders.

Short-term rentals meet the need to rent during school vacations, or for a one-off event. They also attract renters looking to cut costs. Unfortunately, the income generated for owners is reduced by the same amount, and becomes too low in relation to expenses, notably return postage (as well as commission, which is also reduced by the same amount). These orders therefore have a higher rejection rate. A message to this effect is displayed when the shopping cart is created if the duration is less than one month, and we'll see if it has an initial effect. Other solutions are currently being studied.

Order extensions are set up to enable renters to enjoy a set for longer. The owner is free to decide on the price to be paid, and a new deposit is secured to cover the new period. Until now, it has been possible to extend a rental free of charge. However, the new deposit entails a €2 fee for us (which is quite a lot compared to the commissions we charge). We used to bear the cost, but the increase in the number of extensions means we have to find another way of doing things. We are currently considering an extension with 3 options: no extension of the deposit (which already covers several weeks after the end of the order), an extension invoiced to the tenant, or an extension invoiced to the owner (with, for example, a deduction from the income of a future order). We still need a little time, but this development should come to fruition in the next few months.

Last but not least, we have set up a hand-delivered rental service, enabling renters and owners to exchange products directly, without having to use MondialRelay, and thus saving on round-trip shipping costs. The increase in the number of stores and lessees, as well as their geographical distribution, has enabled us to quickly see the first orders of this type arrive, currently numbering 14, i.e. 10% of the year's orders. Direct contact between our users also facilitates human exchanges, dialogue and discussions about the world of bricks. Owners also seem to be more committed to communicating their offer, attracting new customers to our platform.

II.2.2 More countries

The past year has seen many hours of work devoted to translating the site, which was not initially designed to support several languages. It is now available in French and English. We are still looking for volunteers to help us translate it into other languages :)

Availability in English was the first step in opening up the service to other countries. Initially, this was the case for Luxembourg and the Netherlands. It has to be said that, for the time being, it hasn't been a great success: while a few users in these countries joined us quickly after ads were posted on social networks, and even opened two stores, no rentals have followed. This is probably above all a communications problem: with no intermediaries in these countries, it's not easy to introduce our service. Language may also be an obstacle in the Netherlands, as English may not be sufficient.

II.2.3 More tools

On a more technical level, the past year has seen the development of an API enabling users to manipulate certain objects programmatically (profile, store, products, LEGO® knowledge base, inventories). Documentation is available here: https://dev.locabriques.fr/api/docs/.

In keeping with the spirit of a service that is first and foremost designed for its users, these interfaces enable everyone to develop the tools they want. Order management should soon be integrated.

The other major tool developed this year (which explains the delay in publishing this article :D) concerns bag inventories, the idea of which is to create a knowledge base (which we haven't found anywhere else) detailing how the parts of a set are distributed in the numbered bags corresponding to the assembly instructions. This base should enable owners who so wish to rent out their products with this sorting rather than the colors. However, there are no plans to impose this sorting method, which is more time-consuming.

Full details of this functionality can be found here: https: //locabriques.fr/blog/nouvelle-fonctionnalite-les-inventaires-par-sachets/

II.2.4 And still more exchanges!

On a more personal note, this year LocaBriques has enabled us to “meet” yet more nice people interested in our service. We really enjoyed talking with you, studying your proposals, understanding your comments and implementing your suggestions. By developing this project together, we continue to make it a platform that exists by and for its users. Our sincere thanks to all those who have contributed to the project, whether through lengthy discussions, a question answered, or a simple message.

II Perspectives

Several future developments have already been mentioned above, but others are also under study.

First of all, we're making the same observation as last year: orders are fairly unevenly distributed between stores. Of last year's 145 orders, 103 concerned just two stores. Admittedly, this distribution seems quite naturally linked to the number of products offered by the stores (the 2 concerned holding more than half of the products available on the site). This is still more or less true of the 3rd store on the list (ours), but the order is not so clear after that. We're increasingly convinced that a store's rating is also a factor. A store with no rating is less trustworthy for the renter, who will turn to a store with a better reputation, and therefore to the stores with the largest offer, since they generally carry the sets found in other stores. This year, we tried to place orders in stores that didn't have any, and we found that these stores took orders within a few months.

We're looking for the right way to counter this teething effect, by encouraging renters to rent in stores that haven't yet had their first order. This could be done via discounts or a points system, for example. We'll try to come up with a solution within the year. In the meantime, don't hesitate to rent in unrated stores: the system is designed to protect both renters and owners, so you don't take any particular risks with an owner who's simply never had a chance to "show what they're worth".

The big project we're facing, identified a long time ago but with no progress on our part, is the support of new carriers. At present, MondialRelay gives us complete satisfaction, delivery times are reasonable, and no parcels have been lost or reported as particularly damaged. On the other hand, relay point drop-off, the only method currently supported by LocaBriques for shipments and returns, limits us in the countries to which we can extend our service. In fact, only France, Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands are eligible. To expand to other countries, we need to either find equivalent service providers, or support home delivery with drop-off at national postal services.

This development presents two major difficulties, which explain why we haven't made any progress. The first is that LocaBriques was not designed to do anything other than use MondialRelay's services. The order process, the guarantee of acceptance, the liability shift, and the very code of the service are based on the fact that products are exchanged via collection and delivery at relay points. There's a lot of development work involved, and the more technical among you will be aware of the difficulty of making in-depth changes to a data model without risking breaking everything that already exists... The second difficulty is more concrete: as there are no relay points in other countries, it's not easy to find out about the various delivery service providers, how they operate and how reliable they are. It's also impossible to test a delivery without having someone in the country. 
But we're not giving up, and hope to make further progress in the coming year.

We also have some simpler ideas in the pipe:

• monthly payment for long rentals (although this doesn't seem to be in great demand)
• the introduction of a points system to reward users who help the service to develop (by posting a review following an order, providing photos to communicate on the networks, placing the first order for a store, etc.).
• the redesign of internal messaging, with PJ support and a conversation-based approach rather than independent messages
• increasing the visibility of offers proposed by owners: some discount coupons are displayed in the store description, which doesn't seem to be consulted very often. They could be offered directly in the shopping basket

To conclude, the past year has again been very rewarding for us (well, from the point of view of service development and ideas, not financially - we still have to replenish the coffers regularly :D), and we're well motivated for the coming one, so the adventure continues!

Thanks again to all of you!