gregpj Posted January 20, 2015 Share Posted January 20, 2015 I never thought about quantity being important, my experience as a buyer has been ordering 20 or 30 different parts to complete a dozen sets that I bought off craigslist in bulk and put together with my son, I thought that was how everyone used the site. You're thinking like a Brickpicker here!! You gotta think like a "normal" person!! Personally, I'd wager that the big parts buyers are MOC'ers. I've only placed a half dozen orders in the last two years to replace missing parts (I don't do a lot of bulk buying though). We have however placed dozens of orders in the last couple years for our own building needs. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stragus Posted January 20, 2015 Share Posted January 20, 2015 I never thought about quantity being important, my experience as a buyer has been ordering 20 or 30 different parts to complete a dozen sets that I bought off craigslist in bulk and put together with my son, I thought that was how everyone used the site. Quantities are extremely important! Orders with 200 small lots are a real pain to process, it's way too time consuming. The good orders have few lots, quantities of 50-1000 for each lot, and total amounts in the 3 digits. You may want to review that expectation of 10 orders per day!... Our inventory holds 128k parts; in the last 30 days, we received 85 orders (32 orders on BrickLink and 53 orders on BrickOwl). Regarding feedback, about 85% of buyers leave feedback on BrickLink and about 23% do so on BrickOwl. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
holleman67 Posted January 20, 2015 Share Posted January 20, 2015 Parting and organizing 200k thousands pieces is the challenge. Not as much on the shipping & handling side. I'm In the process of building my store now and you are 100% right. The challenge is seperating and staying organized. I'm literally seeing that right now. I am working on the organization part as I reach 10k parts. Will be building to 20k by month end. Just need the time to do this. Sent from my HTC6525LVW using Brickpicker mobile app Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chinothegeeko Posted January 20, 2015 Author Share Posted January 20, 2015 You're thinking like a Brickpicker here!! You gotta think like a "normal" person!! Personally, I'd wager that the big parts buyers are MOC'ers. I've only placed a half dozen orders in the last two years to replace missing parts (I don't do a lot of bulk buying though). We have however placed dozens of orders in the last couple years for our own building needs. Exactly. I've spent over $800 in the last 2 weeks buying parts mainly from big stores who had the quantities and variety I needed all for 2 big LOTR modular types I'll be working on. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
holleman67 Posted January 20, 2015 Share Posted January 20, 2015 I'm pissed they didn't include dividers in the stack ons. Oh well, just ordered some from home depot. Also got a label maker in today. Sent from my HTC6525LVW using Brickpicker mobile app Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mrdelish Posted January 21, 2015 Share Posted January 21, 2015 (edited) For reference, I opened a store on BL in October and just broke a grand in sales. We have ~70,000 items in ~3,000 lots and get a couple orders a week. Every part is from recent sets, though I'm planning on adding a lot of my childhood parts soon. For those that use both Bricklink and Brickowl, how do your sales compare? How do you sync inventories in both? I'm considering doing Brickowl though I'd have to find or script a way to automatically sync the two. Edit: I just found Bricksync, which seems quite nice Edited January 21, 2015 by mrdelish Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest betsy805 Posted January 21, 2015 Share Posted January 21, 2015 I agree on picking something to focus on. My store is small (16,000 parts) and it focuses on plants, animals, figures, figure parts, and weapons/accessories. I usually average an order a day (18 for this month so far). Certainly not get rich quick though! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DadsAFOL Posted January 21, 2015 Share Posted January 21, 2015 Bricksync.net or brickpacker.com both will sync for you. We use bricksync. Orders on brick owl have really taken off last couple months. We get 300 orders a month there now, so about half. We have a large inventory so YMMV, but my philosophy is sell on as many places as you can get viewed by potential customers. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
comicblast Posted January 21, 2015 Share Posted January 21, 2015 I agree on picking something to focus on. My store is small (16,000 parts) and it focuses on plants, animals, figures, figure parts, and weapons/accessories. I usually average an order a day (18 for this month so far). Certainly not get rich quick though! Do you sell the rest of the bricks on eBay?It's not easy getting 16k pieces of the types of pieces you specified. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest betsy805 Posted January 21, 2015 Share Posted January 21, 2015 (edited) I have a large network of moms in the area that buy the lego ($7.50/pound) when I'm done taking out what I want. Win win! EDIT: I should clarify that I do this with used lego, not new!! Edited January 21, 2015 by betsy805 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bbaer6676 Posted January 21, 2015 Share Posted January 21, 2015 Do you guys have any luck with bionicle, hero factory, technic parts? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DadsAFOL Posted January 21, 2015 Share Posted January 21, 2015 Technic sells really well. Lots of people need parts to expand their Mindstorms projects. Bionicle does have avid followers, but I'm a Lego traditionalist so I won't part out any Bionicle. :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bbaer6676 Posted January 21, 2015 Share Posted January 21, 2015 I'm loving bricksync so far (and brickowl). I was up and running with my BL inventory in BO in a matter of minutes - sales within the day. I use to consider myself good with computers, was a computer science major at one time. I cant figure out that bricksync config file to save my life. Makes me feel pretty stupid. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
holleman67 Posted January 21, 2015 Share Posted January 21, 2015 I use to consider myself good with computers, was a computer science major at one time. I cant figure out that bricksync config file to save my life. Makes me feel pretty stupid. I'll be diving into that system later this weekend. Anyone know if there is a way to combine listings? For example I have two listings for 2x4 bricks from different sets I've parted out. I can just alter one listing for the qty and delete the other but I was hoping for a more streamlined method. Sent from my HTC6525LVW using Brickpicker mobile app Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thumper Posted January 21, 2015 Share Posted January 21, 2015 Do you guys have any luck with bionicle, hero factory, technic parts? Yes, all good sellers... The thing with Bionicle is that you have to have two distinctive inventory types; one of masks (sought after by collectors & usually sell in one-offs here & there sporadically) and one huge inventory of detail parts available. The most common customers are serious moc'ers who need parts in multiples, for texture effects & greebles etc. this unfortunately leaves you with lots of dud parts that are hard to move. Once you figure out which are the best parts to inventory it's easy to accumulate them cheaply for nice roi & bulk the rest elsewhere off BL. not too many folks rebuild original sets in this theme so small individual part orders are few. Technic parts are always good sellers, but again it's a matter of good quantity and wide type selection available. it's all about making an order worth the price of postage... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stragus Posted January 21, 2015 Share Posted January 21, 2015 I use to consider myself good with computers, was a computer science major at one time. I cant figure out that bricksync config file to save my life. You need to register for the BrickLink API:http://api.bricklink.com/pages/api/welcome.page Make sure to set an IP and IPmask of 0.0.0.0 unless you know your IP is static. Then you need to create a BrickOwl API key: www.brickowl.com -> Profile -> API keys -> Create Copy & paste the API key stuff into the configuration file, and you are good to go. Just ask if you have any question! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bbaer6676 Posted January 21, 2015 Share Posted January 21, 2015 You need to register for the BrickLink API:http://api.bricklink.com/pages/api/welcome.page Make sure to set an IP and IPmask of 0.0.0.0 unless you know your IP is static. Then you need to create a BrickOwl API key: www.brickowl.com -> Profile -> API keys -> Create Copy & paste the API key stuff into the configuration file, and you are good to go. Just ask if you have any question! Thanks for the help. This is your program isn't it? I did the brickowl API but couldnt figure out the bricklink, thanks for the link Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stragus Posted January 21, 2015 Share Posted January 21, 2015 Thanks for the help. This is your program isn't it? I did the brickowl API but couldnt figure out the bricklink, thanks for the link Yup, I'm the one to blame for not giving BrickSync a pretty user interface. I'm just not that kind of programmer. The software works pretty well though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bbaer6676 Posted January 21, 2015 Share Posted January 21, 2015 Looks to be working some didn't transfer because of unknown id's but not many. Thanks again for your help. Very cool program. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bbaer6676 Posted January 26, 2015 Share Posted January 26, 2015 So i used brinksync to setup brickowl and now the orders are starting to come in. Got three in the last 2 days using both services. I have realized though i need to come up with a good system of organization so i was hoping someone might offer suggestions so i dont have to reinvent the wheel. Almost all my bricks were parted out sets so i have them grouped by set. This seems to be a horrible idea. Should i do part number then color, or color then part number or keep all colors of the same part number together? Brian Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DadsAFOL Posted January 26, 2015 Share Posted January 26, 2015 Use drawers and/or trays that are generally in alphabetical order by category. This will help as you pick (fill) an order move in a logical progression through your inventory. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
holleman67 Posted January 26, 2015 Share Posted January 26, 2015 I have mine set up by part, I don't have enough parts (10k) to seperate by color yet. I have the plates in order by size, then bricks in order by size and so on. I may change that but that is what I have come up with so far. Sent from my HTC6525LVW using Brickpicker mobile app Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Robb Posted January 26, 2015 Share Posted January 26, 2015 Use drawers and/or trays that are generally in alphabetical order by category. This will help as you pick (fill) an order move in a logical progression through your inventory.what are the categories? Forgive me if this is a stupid question but I only know of a few categories. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MathBuilder Posted January 26, 2015 Share Posted January 26, 2015 what are the categories? Forgive me if this is a stupid question but I only know of a few categories. http://www.bricklink.com/catalogTree.asp?itemType=P Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Robb Posted January 26, 2015 Share Posted January 26, 2015 Thank you. Another question: why might bricklink and brickset have different numbers for the same part. (Maybe I just ran across a unique part problem) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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