Carlisle’s Lego shop is closing down its physical store in favour of going mostly online.
Brick Lane Toys, situated on St Cuthbert’s Lane, will be closing its doors on Saturday September 9 at 5pm.
Its online store Bricks in Bloom – which can be found on official Lego marketplace stores Bricklink and Brick Owl – along with its Carlisle warehouse on Crown Street, will both remain open.
The move comes after the business saw overwhelming success attending weekly Lego trade shows, prompting them to change their focus from the physical shop to events and online selling.
Store owner Leigha Middleton first set up the online shop in 2018 and went on to hire a wider team and open the physical store a few years later in 2021.
The online shop is the UK’s largest Bricklink store, offering over 11,000 items including collectible mini-figures, sets, replacement parts and more.
Liam Tanner, the store’s marketing and events manager said: “It’s bittersweet – we’re gutted to lose the store and that opportunity to engage with local customers regularly, but at the same time we’re really excited for the future of then business and the direction we’re going in.
“We’re not fully going online as we’re also doing Lego shows across the UK and we’ve done these for quite a while, but this year we’ve taken it to a whole new level attending shows almost every weekend.
“We’ve found that both our website and travelling to shows is proving in the current climate to be more cost effective and it helps us reach a much wider audience across the UK, which is our main goal.
“We’ve got two properties in Carlisle, one of which is our warehouse that has over two million pieces of Lego. So in one sense it has been partly to do with cutting the costs of the physical shop but we’re staying based in Carlisle so that customers can still reach us if they want to.”
Liam added that people will be able to visit the warehouse in the city by appointment only to shop for items and chat with the team.
He said: “People are welcome to visit the warehouse by dropping the team a message on Facebook, everything we sell in the shop will be in the warehouse.
“We’re also looking at the potential of doing pop-up shops in Carlisle during the Christmas period.”
The team also has plans to host various events over the summer months as a final parting gift to shoppers.
Liam added: “We’ve got loads of stuff going on and we’re still building our calendar at the minute, but we’re looking at doing a few in-store sales, giveaways as well as hosting activities, build competitions, play sessions and we might even be doing a party as well.
“We’re just trying to make sure that when we leave, we go out with a bang and make sure everyone is fully aware we’re still here and still part of the community.”
The team will also be attending an upcoming Brick Festival in the city taking place in November, with more details set to be released soon.
Updates on in-store events and sales will be posted to Brick Lane’s Facebook and Instagram, where its website is also listed.
Local people buying from the online shop are also able to have their items delivered by members of the Brick Lane team to save money on shipping.
