Lego Invest
Lego investment is real. There are websites which provide information of the current value of second-hand Lego sets. The problem was there were no platforms which gave a good overview table of the sets which are not on the market. The goal with this website application was to make the investment decision easy to make without doing further research. The structure and UX were important parts of this project. This website is not available to the public.
The platform was created in CodeIgniter which is a PHP framework. The details of each Lego set are stored in a database with several tables, controlled with MySqli. Through CRON jobs the website checks if the ‘available in Lego Stores’ Lego sets are still available and in which countries. It also collects the second-hand market value of each set.
In the top right section of the header, the user can enter a unique identifying number of a Lego set (each has one), then the system automatically collects the details of the set and stores in the database. There are some statistics regarding the sets recorded in the database in the secondary header: number of sets in the database, number of sets available in the Lego Stores, number of sets not available in Lego Stores anymore, numbers of sets registered but not released yet, the required minimal number of Lego pieces in a set to be featured in the platform.
Clicking on any of the menu doesn’t reload the website. An AJAX call is made to change the content of the body. The user can check the Lego sets in the following categories: recently cancelled in Lego Stores (60 days), not available in Lego Store, available in Lego stores, wishlist, purchased, not yet released.
The ‘recently out of Lego Stores’, ‘not available in Lego Store’, and ‘purchased’ menu carries the same table structure. This highlights the number of Lego pieces, for how long the set was available in the Lego Stores, and how much the value of set changed compare to the original market price. Sorting is also implemented.
The ‘available in the Lego Stores’ and the ‘wishlist’ shows a different style of table. They focus on showing if a set is about to leave the Lego Stores. It shows in which countries the sets are available, the amount of Lego pieces, and the price of the set. It is a type of notifier to start considering a purchase before the Lego set will be unavailable. When a Lego set becomes unavailable in all of the Lego Stores, an e-mail notification is sent to the users.
Clicking on the ‘L’ button to the right of any listed Lego set, makes an AJAX call to bring up more information about the set. It shows the Lego themes the set is part of, the availability in each country, the original price in each country, and the second-hand price from two sources. Here the user can add the set to wishlist, save the amount of purchased set, and leave a comment.