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LEGO, unfortunately, has always been overpriced
It has always been priced at the market clearing price; enough people value it as currently priced that they don't care that you happen to disagree.
gbj_tester-
It has always been priced at the market clearing price; enough people value it as currently priced that they don't care that you happen to disagree.
You'd have to explain to me what exactly you mean by that, as I don't know much about economics. I don't understand the above based on the definition of 'market clearing price' on Wikipedia, but that may of course not be very good.
I certainly don't peg 'overpriced' to 'what can LEGO get away with'. LEGO has always been a middle-class toy. Sure, there are plenty of people who can and will afford it at RRP, but that doesn't mean that they think it's not overpriced. As with Giffen goods, people are often proud to show off that they can afford something expensive/as a status symbol.
Also, if you're aware of the absolute circus of discounting LEGO--always some 20% discounts on the go somewhere, double that at other times, prices going up and down all the time with some retailers, it's quite clear that there are numerous issues with prices, including the fact that LEGO often tries out how much higher it can push the price by placing quite small sets at double what you'd expect to be the RRP, particularly with City and Star Wars sets.
While I'm sure the quality is often not as good or nearly as good, it is striking, now that LEGO's patent-assisted monopoly has expired, how much cheaper the imitators are. I've lost count of how many brands I've seen, but it must be close to 30 by now, and some get pretty good reviews (some also get terrible ones). I mean, I'd be the first to admit that they benefit from decades of development work by LEGO and that imitation obviously requires far less investment in innovation, but the price differences are just so big in some cases.
Lastly, there are numerous issues with how LEGO sets are put together today to reduce the value people get from them (long story) so that they have to buy more. Quite a few commentators that I've listened to are very critical of that, although you obviously also get completely uncritical people.
Hey ho, it's apparently the biggest toymaker in the world now, so I guess you have to expect that kind of behaviour. I'd still prefer it if they did things differently.
Oliver Schick
The best way is to find some in a skip, as happened to someone on here a while back, but I can't remember who it was.
If you want a large set, you will probably spend an arm and a leg. Then again, you could spend all that LEGO time watching discounts. :)
I'm sure there are good deals on job lots in the usual on-line marketplaces, but I never go near those.
If you want to buy new and just want LEGO, rather than sets (and remember you can download all of LEGO's building instructions from their site), I'd say this is currently a good deal (I've linked to it before):
https://direct.asda.com/george/toys-character/lego/lego-classic-creative-building-bricks-box-set-11016/050149557,default,pd.html?cgid=D30M2G1C2
It may contain colours you don't want, but it's quite a lot of stuff for the money, certainly way cheaper than sets.
Other than that, Argos occasionally do quite significant discounts of around 40%, and other outlets sometimes up to 33%, but usually just 20%, which I think isn't really a discount. You could sometimes get stuff at half price in LEGO shops, but I haven't seen that for some years.
LEGO, unfortunately, has always been overpriced.