Bricklink/BrickOwl - Discussion, questions, & answers

[Pebble&Park]

2 minutes ago, longshot said:

Wouldn't old light and dark grey top the list of price per piece?

Probably. I deal mostly in new pieces so those aren't really on my radar screen.

[Huskers1236]

1 minute ago, Pebble&Park said:

Probably. I deal mostly in new pieces so those aren't really on my radar screen.

The BL store I sell bulk to loves when I have old grey for her as she says it sells out immediately

[RedBaron]

Sorry to change the subject, but has anyone had problems linking their Paypal account to Bricklink?  It seems neither Bricklink nor Paypal can figure out what the problem is.

[Elkkthunder]

11 hours ago, Phil B said:

Yes, use BrickStock (brickstock.patrickbrans.com). Once installed, press Ctrl-I I (i, not L) then click on the magnifying glass icon, type in the set code including the "-1" suffix and press OK. Once loaded, do Ctrl-A to select all pieces, Ctrl-G to download prices (defaults to average 6 month). Then use column sorting to get what you need.

Thanks, that works. Sounds like bricklink doesn't offer any option only the separate program.

its helpful so far to figure out if it is worth completing bulk buys

[thoroakenfelder]

I love brickstock. I wish I could use it on my kindle

[Tgnmonster]

Hello all! I've been a rabid collector for my whole life, and over the last 3 years I've been reselling on a small-time level as a hobby, generally to fund a family vacation each year.

Recently, I opened a bricklink store as an extension to the hobby. I've been setting the prices of some things at 75% of the 6 month average, and others right on the average. I'm not looking to quit my job, I just do it because it forces me to organize, and I'm having fun with it.

The question I have, is how do you guys decide what's a good candidate to part-out, and what's a good candidate to "leave in storage" for reselling later?

For example, I seeded a few First Order Transports (I grabbed a slew of them), and a few of the clearance racing sets to supplement what I already had up there. After doing this, I then felt guilty about breaking up perfectly good sets. ;-)

Any thoughts or advice?

[thoroakenfelder]

2 hours ago, Tgnmonster said:

 

The question I have, is how do you guys decide what's a good candidate to part-out, and what's a good candidate to "leave in storage" for reselling later?

For example, I seeded a few First Order Transports (I grabbed a slew of them), and a few of the clearance racing sets to supplement what I already had up there. After doing this, I then felt guilty about breaking up perfectly good sets. ;-)

Any thoughts or advice?

I think you have to make the decision when buying it. Is your business model going to be investing and hoping to achieve great returns later? Don't invest your emotion in the stuff you're planning to resell.

[Phil B]

2 hours ago, Tgnmonster said:

Hello all! I've been a rabid collector for my whole life, and over the last 3 years I've been reselling on a small-time level as a hobby, generally to fund a family vacation each year.

Recently, I opened a bricklink store as an extension to the hobby. I've been setting the prices of some things at 75% of the 6 month average, and others right on the average. I'm not looking to quit my job, I just do it because it forces me to organize, and I'm having fun with it.

The question I have, is how do you guys decide what's a good candidate to part-out, and what's a good candidate to "leave in storage" for reselling later?

For example, I seeded a few First Order Transports (I grabbed a slew of them), and a few of the clearance racing sets to supplement what I already had up there. After doing this, I then felt guilty about breaking up perfectly good sets. ;-)

Any thoughts or advice?

I assume here that you are selling individual bricks in your BL store (you can sell full sets or vehicle/minifigs/building kind of part-outs as well on BL)....

Keep in mind that you won't necessarily sell all pieces from a set, or at least not easily/fast. Actually, depending on the type of set, you might find very little interest in most of your parts, even when priced below the 6 month average. The trick with BL is to find sets that have the right in-demand parts, and at a price where the in demand parts provide enough ROI that they make the purchase (and part-out) worth your while. Where that price is depends on your own objectives and tolerances, but you'd need a very good discount on your sets to make 75% of 6mth average work out for you.

[MinifigW]

Did anyone notice that the postage price calculator only shows PM shipping options now?

[dman2900]

Is there a way to import your Brickfolio into Bricklink? This is where i have all of my sets already cataloged and it would make it so much easier.....

Thank you for any info....

[thoroakenfelder]

On ‎3‎/‎25‎/‎2017 at 9:19 PM, MinifigW said:

Did anyone notice that the postage price calculator only shows PM shipping options now?

I'm seeing first class rates. I need to figure out how to get rid of the first class envelope.

[Phil B]

Is there a BrickOwl scam going on or is this just a coincidence? Sold 2 sets via BO in the last few days, one to a guy in VA, the other to a lady in the UK (Norfolk). Both cases accounts were freshly created (few hours old tops), but address is fully verified by BO between Paypal and BO. In both cases the price (shipping included) was comparable with what could be gotten elsewhere, maybe slightly higher by a dollar or two. Sold 75046 Coruscant Police Gunship for $91 shipped to VA (EBay price is $90) and 41074 Azari and the Magical Bakery for $58 (Amazon/EBay for $45-$50 before GSP) to the UK.

Given that I always include tracking, and have my shipments properly insured, I'm proceeding with shipping. But I am curious if this could have some potential issues down the road; whether others are seeing an uptick in new BO buyers too (perhaps they did some promos to get more customers?) or whether there is a known scam around that is going to bite me later ....

[Tgnmonster]

Out of curiosity, what sort of buy-in do bricklink sellers try to hit when buying sets to part-out? 

Aside from sets that may have a greater value in selling as a full set, I've been trying to hit at least 1 to 3 for purchase price vs part-out value (6 month average). Should I be trying to achieve better prices than this for cost vs part-out?

Thanks all!

Edited April 4, 2017 by Tgnmonster

[Pebble&Park]

7 minutes ago, Tgnmonster said:

Out of curiosity, what sort of buy-in do bricklink sellers try to hit when buying sets to part-out? 

Aside from sets that may have a greater value in selling as a full set, I've been trying to hit at least 1 to 3 for purchase price vs part-out value (6 month average). Should I be trying to achieve better prices than this for cost vs part-out?

Thanks all!

As a general rule, 2.5 or 3 to 1 is a good ratio. However there are several other factors to think about. Among them are -

1) How popular are the pieces in the set? Some Ninjago sets for example have a great part out ratio but many of the pieces are extremely long tail and the minifigures are tough to move;

2) How many of the pieces from the part out set are already in your store? If the part out set has a high overlap with your current inventory, then you are diminishing the impact it will have on the breadth of your store;

3) How large is your store to begin with? Larger stores can command higher than average prices, which brings more sets into the 3-1 or 2.5-1 ratio. Small stores might have to price under the average, making the universe of partable sets smaller.

[longshot]

I personally dont even think of parting out a set unless it has a minimum of three times value and shoot for 5x for the reasons above. Not all the parts will sell so may be sitting on them for some time. I dont mind over lap as long as it isnt in a part that is soooooo specialized that it sells very infrequently.

Does anyone know an easy way to list in either BL, BS or some other platform the popularity of a given brick compared to all others?

Thanx guys

[donbee]

Out of curiosity, what sort of buy-in do bricklink sellers try to hit when buying sets to part-out? 

Aside from sets that may have a greater value in selling as a full set, I've been trying to hit at least 1 to 3 for purchase price vs part-out value (6 month average). Should I be trying to achieve better prices than this for cost vs part-out?

Thanks all!

I had been trying to put together some discussions on these kinds of issues for a couple months now, but I've been so swamped these days with my real business and taxes coming up and all.

So I'll be MIA for a bit, but I wanted to put in my $0.02 while I got a minute.

 

I've heard the 2x and 3x rule, but many pieces may be misleading. For example, part out a friends set. Lots of rare colors, often New pieces, lots of minifig accessories. They all fetch high prices, but there's not much demand for them compared to a bley tile. Getting familiar with how many are actually sold each month, and how many want lists they're on is important.

 

I always use 6-month avg sold as a reference point, but look at the current average listing too. Sometimes there can be a large discrepancy. For some reason that piece sold really well last month so a glut of sellers jumped in and under-cutted so the difference between the two is large and you're over priced. Or the opposite, someone cleared out all the cheap listings and now the available are listed higher than last month's average sold, and you're selling too cheap.

 

What I used to do was look at a set's avg 6 month sold part-out value and cut that price in half and expect that is the true value of all the pieces. So what is my buy in compared to that price?

But what I've found is that I don't sell 90% of those pieces. It would take too long to explain all that, my point is that you don't sell the majority of those rare pieces unless you have significant quantities or other pieces that go well with those pieces. So don't expect to sell every little piece in a set in the short term. Parting out is a long term strategy.

 

So now, as mentioned by someone else, I look for key pieces that I think I can turn over quickly to get my investment back as quickly as possible. Namely minifigs, but there are high demand pieces that sell well. Finding them and their compliments is key. I am slowly pulling out of the brick by brick business, but I still use it as a draw. I part out sets that I think will compliment my other sets or high-profit pieces.

[paulvdb]

17 hours ago, Phil B said:

Is there a BrickOwl scam going on or is this just a coincidence? Sold 2 sets via BO in the last few days, one to a guy in VA, the other to a lady in the UK (Norfolk). Both cases accounts were freshly created (few hours old tops), but address is fully verified by BO between Paypal and BO. In both cases the price (shipping included) was comparable with what could be gotten elsewhere, maybe slightly higher by a dollar or two. Sold 75046 Coruscant Police Gunship for $91 shipped to VA (EBay price is $90) and 41074 Azari and the Magical Bakery for $58 (Amazon/EBay for $45-$50 before GSP) to the UK.

Given that I always include tracking, and have my shipments properly insured, I'm proceeding with shipping. But I am curious if this could have some potential issues down the road; whether others are seeing an uptick in new BO buyers too (perhaps they did some promos to get more customers?) or whether there is a known scam around that is going to bite me later ....

It is my impressions that I get more of these new buyers on BrickOwl than on Bricklink but so far I have not had any problems with these new buyers other than the occasional lack of patience because they don't always realize how long international shipping can take. Of course I only sell parts and the orders in my store are usually low value so it may be different if you sell sets that are often higher value.

[thoroakenfelder]

12 hours ago, donbee said:

I had been trying to put together some discussions on these kinds of issues for a couple months now, but I've been so swamped these days with my real business and taxes coming up and all.

So I'll be MIA for a bit, but I wanted to put in my $0.02 while I got a minute.

 

I've heard the 2x and 3x rule, but many pieces may be misleading. For example, part out a friends set. Lots of rare colors, often New pieces, lots of minifig accessories. They all fetch high prices, but there's not much demand for them compared to a bley tile. Getting familiar with how many are actually sold each month, and how many want lists they're on is important.

 

I always use 6-month avg sold as a reference point, but look at the current average listing too. Sometimes there can be a large discrepancy. For some reason that piece sold really well last month so a glut of sellers jumped in and under-cutted so the difference between the two is large and you're over priced. Or the opposite, someone cleared out all the cheap listings and now the available are listed higher than last month's average sold, and you're selling too cheap.

 

What I used to do was look at a set's avg 6 month sold part-out value and cut that price in half and expect that is the true value of all the pieces. So what is my buy in compared to that price?

But what I've found is that I don't sell 90% of those pieces. It would take too long to explain all that, my point is that you don't sell the majority of those rare pieces unless you have significant quantities or other pieces that go well with those pieces. So don't expect to sell every little piece in a set in the short term. Parting out is a long term strategy.

 

So now, as mentioned by someone else, I look for key pieces that I think I can turn over quickly to get my investment back as quickly as possible. Namely minifigs, but there are high demand pieces that sell well. Finding them and their compliments is key. I am slowly pulling out of the brick by brick business, but I still use it as a draw. I part out sets that I think will compliment my other sets or high-profit pieces.

What you're talking about is velocity. How fast the key pieces and even the supplementary pieces sell. Brickstock shows how many total quantity of each part and how many total lots sold in a month. I was looking at some pieces to see if there was a large number sold in the previous 6 months and seeing that more sold than what was showing as currently in stock.

 

I tend to price at last 6 months by quantity as it is generally slightly cheaper than last 6 months. I feel like that puts it a little closer to where people shopping for bargains will see it. Plus it devalues the parts a little meaning that if you see 3x or more, you're getting a better value than 6 months.

[LegoMan1212]

I'm sure it is in here, but I can't find it.

How do I take inventory from my BrickStock and Upload it into Bricklink?  It looks like I have to copy and paste in the white box?  This seems 1990's-ish where with the wanted list it seems I can just dump my file in easy-peezy.   What am I missing and if I have to copy/paste the format, how do I get it into the desirable format?  Thanks

[Phil B]

23 minutes ago, LegoMan1212 said:

I'm sure it is in here, but I can't find it.

How do I take inventory from my BrickStock and Upload it into Bricklink?  It looks like I have to copy and paste in the white box?  This seems 1990's-ish where with the wanted list it seems I can just dump my file in easy-peezy.   What am I missing and if I have to copy/paste the format, how do I get it into the desirable format?  Thanks

You use the "Mass-Upload to BrickLink" option, which opens up BL in your browser and automatically puts all the XML into your copy buffer. Just press CTRL-V in the white box and you're ready to go.

[LegoMan1212]

2 minutes ago, Phil B said:

You use the "Mass-Upload to BrickLink" option, which opens up BL in your browser and automatically puts all the XML into your copy buffer. Just press CTRL-V in the white box and you're ready to go.

Thank you for the response.  Are there 2 versions of Brickstock, one with this option and one without?  Wondering if I need to pay for a Brickstock version to access this?  I got nearly there but it generated a lot of errors (says missing Item condition and Price not numeric) when they are clearly there in my brickstock.  

[Phil B]

I have the licensed version with the Seller features, and for me it works out-of-the-box. Perhaps this is a seller feature, and that's why it doesn't work. A license is $20, easily recouped and totally worth it.

[LegoMan1212]

Very helpful, thanks Phil.  Everything is working smoothly now.

[thoroakenfelder]

Am I missing how to export my wanted list from bricklink? I haven't kept up my database in brickstock and it's hard to get a total part count from bricklink.

[dman2900]

Is there an easy way to convert the Brickfolio file to be imported into Brickstock or into Bricklink?....Thank you in advance!