PRIMARY SOURCEthe Bricks & Minifigs operations manual, published at bamopsmanual.com
Section 12 of the Bricks & Minifigs operations manual is the vendor chapter, the part that tells a store owner where their inventory, their signs, and even their shirts are allowed to come from. It is one of the clearest places in the book to see who actually decides how a store is run, in a business the company requires every owner, on every email, to call “independently” owned and operated. The section can be found at bamopsmanual.com/12a-vendor-process and /12b-vendor-programs.
An owner does not go find their own suppliers. On day one they are handed the BAM Vendor Directory, a company-run spreadsheet, and introduced to a corporate Product & Fulfillment team that sets up their vendor accounts. The manual sorts vendors into operations, primary, secondary, and required. And the owner’s own email address is the leash: their BAM email is “the only email address that you are able to use to sign up and to maintain your relationship with all of our vendors,” the manual says, “because this is how they know that you are authorized to wholesale pricing.”
Part of the list is not a choice at all. For the sign on the store, the manual names two companies and prints, in capitals, “THESE ARE THE ONLY TWO VENDORS THAT ARE APPROVED TO MANUFACTURE BAM SIGNAGE.” A local shop may be hired to install the sign, but is “not, under any circumstances, to produce or manufacture signage for your store.” For anything carrying the company logo, it names two more: “Turbo and TeePee are the two official vendors authorized to produce any and all apparel with our BAM logo on it. You must use one of these two companies.”
BAM does not only choose the vendors. It is one of them. The manual describes a corporate department, BAM Product Fulfillment, “responsible for all the BAM-branded items, marketing promotions, and bulk discounts sold through our online store and shipped by our warehouse.” And before an owner may order from a vendor at all, the manual requires a purchase first: “You MUST purchase starter packs before ordering additional product from individual vendors.”
The section ends with a warning in bold capital letters. Every order is “the sole responsibility of each individual store owner to pay in full,” pre-orders cannot be changed or cancelled, and attempting to cancel one, the manual says, “may also cause your individual licensing agreement to be put at risk/default in moving forward with BAM Franchising Inc.” A late or cancelled order, to a vendor the company itself selected, is written as something that can put the whole franchise in default.
Read plainly, the vendor chapter describes designated suppliers an owner must use, a purchase required before any other, a franchisor that sells to its own stores, and a franchise that can be defaulted over a supplier bill. Whether all of that is disclosed to a prospective owner the way the law entitles them to see it is a separate question. What is on this page is only what the manual itself says. How the enterprise fits together.
A franchise that requires consistent storefront signage and brand-controlled logo apparel is ordinary, and a directory of approved suppliers is common across franchising. What the section shows is how much of a supposedly independent store is decided upstream.
Sources. The Bricks & Minifigs Operations Manual, Section 12, “Product & Fulfillment Guide (Vendors),” can be found at bamopsmanual.com/12a-vendor-process and /12b-vendor-programs. Earlier sections of the same manual are covered in the updates from July 25 onward.
The BAM Map is independent reporting on matters of public concern. Nothing here is a finding of any person’s guilt; the criminal charges referenced are unadjudicated and every defendant is presumed innocent. Sources are linked so readers can check the record. · Home · Map · The law · Bodycam