Lepin 36013 City Shop Set Review (replica Lego 40305)

 Hi All, look what the postman left at my front door yesterday.  It's the Lepin version of the "Microscale Lego store 40305".   The Lepin brand store set number is 36013 and it has 405+ pieces.

 The Lepin set was tightly packed into a smallish box.  Contents of the box include the multi-page instruction manual, sticker sheet and ten clear plastic bags of brick parts.

The Lepin manual is copied from the Lego manual because it only shows 4 bags of parts.

Nice to see that the clear window parts are packaged separately.  My window parts were all scratch free.

The Lepin store includes two minifigures, a guy with floral shirt and a small boy with white hoodie and red cap.  I'm going to have to replace the  hands of the small boy because don't fit into his arms.

Let's review the building details now.  The store front consists of a large window and door.  I haven't yet placed the Lepin sign over the door yet.

There's a bank machine at the side of the building.  Is that Lego's way of saying how expensive their sets have become?  Ie. You probably didn't bring enough money, so you need to spend more to buy our sets.  Luckily my Lepin brand store was about half the price of the Lego version.

The back of the store is open and there's a cash register and a pick a brick parts wall.  Some sets are also displayed in the front window.

On the other wall, there are product boxes, for which I still haven't applied the stickers yet.

A quick peek from above.  There's also a yellow bin for parts or polybags.

The second floor of the Lepin brand store has two large windows and two red flags.  Yellow awnings over the windows.

There's windows on both sides of the building.  You can pop them out easily, although I'm not sure why you would want to.

The second floor has a bin with shield and a table for making your own minifigs.  There's more product on the wall between the front windows.

Here's the second floor attached to the first.  Brick clutch is good, however I find the brick plastic to be a bit on the soft side.

 And here's the completed roof.

Tada, the completed Lepin store 36013.

 Hey look, there's the not so official Lepin store mascot girl.   She arrived just in time to receive the latest shipment of the Lepin building sets.   If you need the Blue Brick girl, just search Aliexpress for PG8151 or PG1243 (Pogo brand minifigure).  There's also a red Brick boy minifigure PG1242 not pictured here.

 The Lepin delivery minifigures are actually from the Lepin Roller Coaster set 15039.  Also pictured is the Lepin Delivery Truck 02036.

I finally put the Lepin sticker on the store.  The sticker quality isn't that good, as you can hardly make out the wording.

Here's the Lepin store removable panels .

Finally, here's a few spare parts I got with the Lepin store.   The Lepin store is a nice addition to anyone's City layout.  I plan on making the Lepin store a full modular building for my Its-Not-Lego town in the near future.

Thanks for looking!

Set name:  The Lepin store
Set number:  36013
Clone of:  Lego 40305
Number of pieces: 405+
Number of minifigs: 2
Score:  5 out of 5

Lepin 15039 Not Lego Roller Coaster Set Review - Part One

 Hey It's Not Lego fans!  I'm presently vacationing in Hong Kong and today I decided to take the train to Shenzhen China.   I took the  Hong Kong East Rail line all the way to the terminus at Lo Wu station.  From here, you have to pass through Hong Kong immigration and then China immigration.

Even though I had a China Visa, the process still took about 30 mins to clear both countries exit and entry counters.   Once you come through the China side, it's mere steps to the Lo Wu Commercial Centre, which is a 5 storey mall filled with fake purses, shoes, and clothes.  Being my first time to the Shenzhen mall , I didn't know what to expect in terms of bootleg toys. So disappointingly,  I was only able to find 3 or 4 stalls that sold knockoff brand Lego.   There was only one stall that carried the set I was looking for, the Lepin 15039 Roller Coaster, which is the knock-off of Lego Roller Coaster set 10261. 

So then the fun begins ....

I entered the store and asked the clerk/owner for the price of the Roller Coaster set.  What's funny is that I didn't even hear what her first price was, it might have been about 1000 RMB, but as soon as she quoted her price, I immediately took out my phone and flashed her a screenshot from Taobao for the Lepin Roller Coaster.  I had grabbed it earlier in the morning to use as ammunition for bargaining.

The price from Taobao was 540 RMB, which I fully expected her not to match, but I threw it out there anyways.  She told me off saying she had to pay rent and salaries, etc, etc.   When I asked her for best price, she'd only move lower by 10 or 20 RMB.  I'd tell her she'd have to do better, she'd asked me what I wanted to pay.   From there it was a matter of her making offers and me making counter offers, she said 900, then 800, I said 560, she said 700, I said 580, she said 650, and I started to walk out the store.

 She told me to come back in and asking me to give her 650, I said no 580, she said no.  I got the impression we were at a stalemate so then I so I upped my offer to 600, then she said 630, so I started walking slowly out the store but a little more slowly to give her time to reset her price.  Just as I was barely within earshot, I could hear her say 610.  I really did want the set for 600 but since I came all that way, I didn't want to lose the set over 10 RMB.   Deal done at 610 RMB.

FYI:   610 RMB = $89 USD, $120 CDN.  ymmv based on current exchange rates.

I asked to open the box to check the contents, and she didn't resist.  There were 2 inner boxes and both looked half empty, and I lamented as such.   She said if there were any missing parts to circle them on the instruction manual and come back to her and she'd order the missing parts for me.  As she was packing it up for me to go, she mentioned that this set was really popular with the foreigners, lol.

 As soon as I got back to Hong Kong, I cracked open all the boxes and took and inventory of the bags, just for peace of mind.   Here's the unboxing pics!

This is how I lugged this monstrosity onto the train back from Shenzhen.

I got the box but in reality, when I return to Canada, I'll probably leave the box here in HK, just no room in my suitcase for it.

Here's the back of the box.

Top and side view.

Side view.

Bottom view.

When you open up the main box, you get 2 separate inner boxes labelled A and B.

Here's what kinda freaked me out.   The boxes are huge but not full at all.  Kind of like when you open your box of cereal only to find the box is only half full because the contents have settled.

I emptied all the bags from both inner boxes and sorted them all to make sure I had all the bags.

My Lepin Roller Coaster set contained 86 numbered bags, 1 un-numbered bag containing some spare parts, 2 bags of red track, and a stack of green baseplates.

The instruction manual is a thick booklet with a bunch of separate addendum pages inserted throughout.   Here's my numbered bag inventory:

Set 1:  bags 1-8
Set 2:  bags 9-15
Set 3:  bags 16-22
Set 4:  bags 23-29
Set 5:  bags 30-39
Set 6:  bags 40-47
Set 7:  bags 48-55
Set 8:  bags 56-61
Set 9:  bags 62-70
Set 10:  bags 71-79
Set 11:  bags 80-86

It looks like all the parts are there, so that's a bit of a relief.
I won't be building the Lepin roller coaster until I return to Canada in the new year, but I'll definitely do a write-up from my build then.    See you then!

Lepin 02047 Not Lego City Service Station Set Review

Hey there, I'm just doing a quick post of my Lepin 02047 Service Station building set.  This set is  a knock-off of the Lego City Service Station set 60132.

This Lepin set has 540 pieces and comes with 4 original looking mini figures, a lady driver of the maroon coloured sedan, two service station employees and the driver of the street cleaner.  I was very pleased with the minifig quality.

I ordered my brick set thru private seller Jeremy whom I found on Reddit.  This is my 5th purchase with Jeremy.  My set arrived about 3 weeks after my order request.

The Lepin service station instructions can be found in this thick booklet.  It has  instructions to build the service center as depicted on the manual cover and also alternate instructions to build a small car wash and service bay.  Although I didn't use the stickers, I found them to be of excellent quality.

The bags are numbered according to the instruction manual steps, one thru five.  Step one builds the sedan and the tow truck.  Step two builds the street cleaning vehicle. Steps three, four and five build the service station, the interior, the pumps and the overhead awning.

Here's a look at the maroon coloured sedan.  In the alternate instructions, the vehicle becomes a convertible instead of the sedan.  I should point out that I swapped out the wheels that came with the set with the wheels from a Bela brand armoured truck

The two truck has a lifted suspension and a working tow hook.

The sedan conveniently has bars in the front and rear that allow the tow truck to hook it up.

The street cleaning vehicle has rotating brushes in the front and has a shovel and broom as accessories.  The rear of the vehicle lifts open where you will find a brown storage bin.

Moving on to the service station, it has two sections, one is the office area where you pay for gas and buy some minor supplies, and the other part is a rest area where you have two seats, a table and a pizza.  I put together the outside sign, but it doesn't look like much without the corresponding stickers.

As mentioned earlier, this is the store with some products on a shelf and a cash register.

And this is the seating area.  There's no back wall which makes it easy to play with.

The service station as seen from the inside.

A charging station and roof lighting is added to the exterior, along with a ramp.

The gas pump is fairly detailed with hose, nozzle and payment terminal.  Without the stickers, it doesn't look as realistic as the pictures.

And finally the service station with awning attached.  Following are a few more views of the Lepin service station, completed but no stickers.

Final thoughts

Although there's over 500 pieces, the Lepin service station is not that big a set.  The sedan is big enough to seat two minifigures, but I find the two truck a bit on the small side.  Here it is next to the Lego Tow Truck 60056.

Here's the street cleaner compared to the Enlighten version that I reviewed awhile back.

The service center has a nice design but with a few more bricks could easily be converted into a larger modular building.  I would strongly recommend using the provided stickers to add more realism to the set.

My Lepin set also came with a brick separator, a small bike and a bag of spare parts.  The retail value of the Lego service station 60132 is approx $90 USD.  The Lepin 02047 version ican be found for about $20 USD on Aliexpress, with free shipping. 

Everything was excellent about this set including the price, so for that reason, I give it a top score of 5 out of 5.   This set would definitely be a nice addition to your brick city.   As always, thanks for visiting Its Not Lego and See you next time!