BrickLink Discussion Forum

In Suggestions, WoutR writes:

Was there not a page in my account settings where I could select my payment methods?
And a filter that hides stores that do not accept my payment types?

I know stores can select which payment options to accept. I also know that when
looking up an item in the catalog, you can filter by any type of payment option.
Once you get to the Wanted List level, the only option I can find is "store
accepts Instant Checkout", which is worthless to me. There _used_ to be an option
there where you could select "store accepts X payment option" I believe, but
it's been geared more towards their vision of the future now. I have no
idea where you can set a global default for buyer payment options, but I'd
really love to know where that might be. Although, in a month, there might be
no point, as I'm not going to buy here if I can't do offsite payment.

Author:

PurpleDave

Posted:

Mar 18, 2018 21:52

Subject:

Save Offsite Paypal!

Viewed:

321 times

Topic:

Status:

Implemented

Bricklink famously ground to a halt, twice, because it got hacked. The site
may have been restored to working condition, but a lot of us want nothing to
do with risking exposure of our financial accounts to anyone who may be lurking
behind the scenes. Sellers don't want to give Bricklink the level of control
required to accept payments through Bricklink. Bricklink has announced that
in about a month, they plan to scuttle offsite Paypal as a payment option, without
even taking any input from their core membership. The reason stated was that
new, usually one-time buyers, can't figure out where the payment button is
when they select offsite Paypal as a payment option, so they plan to basically
cut off any buyers and sellers who refuse to use any other form of payment, and
who especially want nothing to do with any onsite Paypal options.

Make offsite Paypal an opt-in payment option. Sellers obviously have to select
up front which payment options they will accept. Make all _buyers_ voluntarily
choose to see offsite Paypal as a payment option when checking out. If a seller
does not accept any other payment options, have them flagged as "does not ship
to you", just like if they were from another country and didn't have your
country enabled for shipping options. If a new buyer signs up, they should be
required to read an explanation of how offsite Paypal works, and confirm that
they want to be able to choose that as a payment option before they even see
it appear in lists.

But seriously, don't chase away a bunch of your regular customers in the
hope that you might be able to "grow your business" on the bank accounts of people
who just get sent here to buy a replacement part that LEGO Consumer Affairs can't
provide, or who are looking for just one retired set, and will never log in again
after they receive their shipment.

Author:

PurpleDave

Posted:

Mar 18, 2018 21:36

Subject:

Re: Have all members pay BL $1 to buy and/or sell

Viewed:

74 times

Topic:

In Suggestions, Brickwilbo writes:

Enable instant checkout in your store.

Enable instant checkout, and it won't stop anyone from selecting any other
payment option offered. Restrict payment to instant checkout, and you lose all
the customers that don't trust Bricklink to be secure enough to make exposing
their payment info to whoever might be watching.

Author:

PurpleDave

Posted:

Mar 18, 2018 21:34

Subject:

Re: Have all members pay BL $1 to buy and/or sell

Viewed:

63 times

Topic:

In Suggestions, calebfishn writes:

Your suggestion will not screen out "false" buyers. But it will discourage and
dissuade all the first time people who come to Bricklink to look around. I get
very few orders that are not paid, and the ones that don't pay, are in my
opinion people who are experimenting with the order system.

Some people probably are dealing with people intentionally jerking their chain
when it comes to false orders. Either they said something here that ticked someone
off, or they did something in relation to a previous sale that had the same effect.
Creating fake accounts just to place false orders would be a way to pester someone.
You couldn't really take credit for it (not if you have a valid account
that you wanted to keep clean, at least, though if you'd already been banned
I guess it wouldn't really matter), so the victim would never know _why_
they kept getting bogus orders. But if someone is the sort to go through that
effort for such petty vengeance, I doubt logic and reason really factor into
their decisions.

Author:

PurpleDave

Posted:

Mar 6, 2018 04:44

Subject:

Re: Search Locally

Viewed:

23 times

Topic:

In Suggestions, renhoffman writes:

I agree, an option to show sellers within a certain area would be nice, for example,
within 50 miles. When I lived in western NY, I was probably asked twice a year
if I could meet someone in NYC, a 7 hour drive each way.

My favorite example of misunderstood geographic scale in the US (in part because
it shows how full of it foreigners are for griefing us over lack of world geography
knowledge) was a story that a friend of mine from college loved to tell. His
family lives in western Michigan, and had relatives visiting from Germany. They
thought it might make a nice day trip to go check out the Grand Canyon.

Author:

PurpleDave

Posted:

Mar 6, 2018 04:39

Subject:

Re: Search Locally

Viewed:

22 times

Topic:

In Suggestions, ZacharyWathen97 writes:

7 hours? That is what it took for me to move from Kentucky to Kansas City almost
six years ago. I passed through from the south of Illinois to St. Louis, then
straight across the northern part of Missouri.

Much of that travel time is probably tied up in wading through NYC itself. I
was once in the LA area and suggested getting together some evening with some
friends of mine who were living on the other side of the city. They said it'd
take several hours just to get across town because of how overwhelmed the traffic
grid is there. Parts of NYC can be even worse if you're trying to get around
by car (there's a reason Manhattan's streets are a sea of yellow cars),
and transferring to public transportation would be far more expensive than just
covering the shipping cost. In contrast, Detroit proper is about 1/3 the size
of NYC, but you can skip across it in maybe half an hour if it's not rush
hour due to the more robust freeway system (there being an almost total lack
of useful public transportation in Metro Detroit).

Author:

PurpleDave

Posted:

Mar 5, 2018 18:41

Subject:

Re: Search Locally

Viewed:

36 times

Topic:

In Suggestions, Speg writes:

Other than actually picking the item up from someone in person, even same state
shipping isn't much faster than a state that's 1000 miles away. For example:
if I wanted to mail my immediate neighbor a letter, the mail person has to pick
up the letter, bring it back to the mail hub, sorting facility, then back out
for delivery the next day(s).

That's not true in my experience. Yes, there are sorting hubs all over the
US. If the package is shipped from the same region as the destination, it only
has to process through one regional hub (two of my recent shipments only processed
through the Detroit Regional Hub in Allen Park). If it's from another region,
it has to sort through their Regional Hub, which forwards it to your own Regional
Hub, and generally loses at least a day in the process. If it's shipping
from the opposite end of the country, I find it loses a second day just due to
increased drive time. If I'm trying to build something on extremely short
notice, that's the difference between arriving the day before a weekend show,
and the day after.

Author:

PurpleDave

Posted:

Mar 5, 2018 18:32

Subject:

Re: Search Locally

Viewed:

18 times

Topic:

In Suggestions, yorbrick writes:

Do you pay the same postage prices for both within and between states?

In Europe, the postage cost within a country is often cheaper (sometimes significantly)
than between European countries.

First Class (letter) postage is flat rate. When you get into packages, I know
weight and even size can come into play. I believe distance is also a factor
with certain classes of postage. But for sure it takes longer to get shipments
from across the US than from within your own district.

Author:

PurpleDave

Posted:

Mar 5, 2018 18:29

Subject:

Re: Search Locally

Viewed:

23 times

Topic:

In Suggestions, NicoBuma writes:

I guess that Europe has this option, because Europe is no nation, but a continent
with different countries... We're not a nation with differen states, so shipping
is different for each country and shipping from like Netherlands to Portugal
(both EU countries) can be a different price if I send from The Netherlands to
Portugal, than if I were to send the same from Portugal to The Netherlands. In
the US all shipping is the same (I guess).

Some shipping is the same, like first class stamps. Other shipping costs are
based on distance. But the critical thing for me is that shipping _time_ is
based on distance. For instance, our LUG got contacted on short notice to do
a layout for a Harry Potter festival this past weekend. I spent the weekend
before designing a MOC of the Ford Anglia flying car, and spent a few hours building
a Want List and finding stores in nearby states on Sunday night. I sent e-mails
requesting invoices be sent immediately, and paid them at my earliest opportunity.
Out of the eight initial orders, I received five of them by Friday, one of them
on Saturday during the first day of the show, was informed right away that one
of them would be significantly delayed, and I'm still waiting on the eighth.
For the delayed order, I placed two more, neither of which I've received
yet. I'm in Michigan. The two "emergency" orders that have not yet arrived
are from New York state. They may have been significantly delayed by the massive
snowstorm that pounded the area going into the weekend, but even if that weren't
the case one of the initial orders was also from New York, had a full day head
start, and didn't arrive until Friday. So, the best I could have expected
from the other two was apparently arriving on Saturday with the other "late"
order. That order came from North Carolina, which is even farther away than
New York. And the other missing order didn't even get handed off to the
Post Office until today, but coming from Connecticut it should have had a fair
chance of arriving alongside the first New York order. Mostly I try to stick
to Michigan (obviously), Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, and maybe expand out into
Pennsylvania and Wisconsin if I need to. Unfortunately, needing a small pile
of assorted Medium Blue parts means I had to go farther afield. Fortunately,
even though I only had half of my orders arrive by Friday, I was able to figure
out some substutions to get the model built well enough that I could display
it for the whole event.

I can however see you'd want an option like that.
As a seller I would also like an option to set prices automatically based on
the last 6 months of sales in my country and not worldwide; which I haven't
found yet, or it doesn't exist either.

I have no idea about that, as I've never set up shop as a Seller. But like
the OP wanting to be able to buy locally, and me wanting to be able to buy from
nearby states the way you can from nearby countries, I doubt this is something
they would ever set up without being asked.

Author:

PurpleDave

Posted:

Mar 5, 2018 18:02

Subject:

Re: Search Locally

Viewed:

18 times

Topic:

In Suggestions, leopard37 writes:

If you navigate through the following you can filter by your own state. It doesn't
help you with what pieces those stores have but you could at least choose the
largest.

SHOP - Stores - Find Stores - choose your country, it then lists all stores
within that country - Filter by your state

I know how to get a list of all stores in the US split up by state, but that
has zero compatibility with the Want List. So, yeah, you're pretty much
shooting blind with the biggest stores in-state until you either find what you're
looking for or hit the point where you run out of enticing options (about the
point where you go from having a single clear "next" to 1-2 dozen). Or you can
search by Want List, filter by country, and keep opening stores until you find
some that are within striking distance. Even being able to _see_ which state
a store is located in from the Want List result list would be helpful as I could
then quickly scroll through and either select a store or dismiss it.

Author:

PurpleDave

Posted:

Mar 1, 2018 22:56

Subject:

Re: Getting Frustrated Now With Bricklink

Viewed:

114 times

Topic:

Problem

In Problem, tEoS writes:

It seems that I don't have a choice of what I offer for PayPal payments,
even though BL says I have a choice between onsite and offsite.

So...if someone switched to Onsite Paypal, it sounds like that's been shut
down to force users to sign up for Marketplace. If you have Instant Checkout,
I'm assuming the same applies. For Non-Broken Paypal, they probably shut
off the ability to add it to your store as an option if it's not already
there. But I just placed several orders last weekend, and all of them were offering
Actually-Works Paypal as a payment option. And of course, since that's what
I selected for all of them, all I had to do was log onto that site that didn't
grind to a halt after being hacked...twice, type in some payment info, and wait
for the shipments to arrive.

Author:

PurpleDave

Posted:

Mar 1, 2018 20:39

Subject:

Re: Getting Frustrated Now With Bricklink

Viewed:

81 times

Topic:

Problem

In Problem, leopard37 writes:

I've had two quotes within the last two days and the quotes have been accepted
and the system has created blank invoices send to the customer multiple times.
I then have to send an invoice manually afterwards for them to pay.

It is most definitely not working fine.

It's working fine for me. All I do is select standard "Paypal" as the payment
option (or empty my cart if it's not available), wait for the invoice to
come in, and then log in to Paypal to submit payment. Now, come late April,
it'll be jacked twelve ways from Sunday...

Author:

PurpleDave

Posted:

Feb 28, 2018 21:36

Subject:

Re: Getting Frustrated Now With Bricklink

Viewed:

62 times

Topic:

General

In General, SylvainLS writes:

With New, you can easily part out sets into your inventory. With Used, when
you don’t know which sets the parts are from (and whether they are all there),
it’s more work.

Exactly. New, you part out and list an entire set all at once. Used, you track
down and list a single piece. Then the next one is the same piece, but you have
to list it differently because you want to note differences in condition and
price them accordingly. The only reason I can figure that people can make any
money at all on Used is they can often get hugely undervalued lots on sites like
Craigslist or by hitting up garage sales. Or, you know, you can price it higher
than New and hope people will buy it without paying attention because "Used is
always less expensive".

Author:

PurpleDave

Posted:

Feb 26, 2018 17:13

Subject:

Re: Search Locally

Viewed:

47 times

Topic:

In Suggestions, RobNeptune writes:

As someone often buys pieces for a project in progress, I wanted to suggest that
the search feature allow you to filter by local sellers. This typically provides
a faster delivery, including occasions where I have been able to meet someone
nearby the same day.

I'd be happy enough with being able to filter by state, or cluster of states
in the US. Europe has something very similar to this in being able to search
by individual nation, but for US or Canada, that's functionally no different
than being limited to "Europe in general".

Author:

PurpleDave

Posted:

Feb 23, 2018 20:13

Subject:

Re: Inventory Change Request for Set 7735-1

Viewed:

40 times

Topic:

Inventories Requests

In Inventories Requests, CrazyChris writes:

It is common knowledge that the hinges with hollow studs were introduced around
1987.

Introduced =/= exclusive. Old molds can be run alongside new ones for various
amounts of time. Old parts can be in inventory for years as they bleed the stock
down, and until the stock hits a low threshold they might not order up a new
run of parts using the newer mold in that color. I shouldn't own one of
these in dark-bley...but I do:

4085b Plate, Modified 1 x 1 with U Clip Thin (Vertical Grip)
Parts: Plate, Modified

Author:

PurpleDave

Posted:

Jan 26, 2018 23:35

Subject:

Re: The utter powerlessness of buyers

Viewed:

80 times

Topic:

In Suggestions, undetected writes:

Wouldn't this mean that feedback would be even more valuable here?

It should. And maybe it would be if the feedback system wasn't abused by
individuals on both sides of the transactions. As it stands, there's a ton
of retaliatory feedback out there, on top of complaints that a lot of people
assume the neutral feedback is for when an order proceeds uneventfully (nothing
wrong with it, but nothing "above and beyond" about it either), while sellers
will tell you that a neutral is just about as bad as a negative because they
both count equally against you on your feedback score.

There's even a rule about not coercing the buyer/seller with the threat of
negative feedback, and they tell you to report it so they can hand out some discipline...but
then tell you not to bother if the communication took place via private e-mail
instead of through the Bricklink messaging system. So obviously anyone who chooses
to make such threats just has to go off-site with them in order to make it impossible
to report them for violating the ToS.

Same here. I sent my payment through paypal, three weeks before the seller shipped
it, after weeks of me urging him to ship it.

No, by that I mean you on Amazon the payment is how you place the order. Here,
there's no guarantee that a buyer will actually pay for an order once they
submit it, and some will try to weasel the seller into discounting the order
with the threat of negative feedback if they don't. And sometimes I'm
guessing they succeed, because there are sellers who are paranoid about picking
up a negative.

Author:

PurpleDave

Posted:

Jan 26, 2018 17:57

Subject:

Re: The utter powerlessness of buyers

Viewed:

87 times

Topic:

In Suggestions, undetected writes:

If this is a problem unique to Bricklink, I wonder why. I do have to say, the
first year, I made a bunch of purchases and didn't even know that there was
a feedback system. I got positive feedback as a buyer, and I didn't even
realize it. I had great experiences then, and I would have gladly left positive
feedback.

Bricklink is a community on top of being a place of business. I suspect that
influences decisions very differently than being purely profit-motivated. They
also never handled the money until recently, which is something that exposed
sites like eBay and Amazon to much greater risk, which can be reduced by improving
the quality of the transactions. For the part about buyers trying to blackmail
sellers into providing a discount after the order is placed, I think that's
also something that's a lot easier to attempt here. On Amazon, you have
to pay for the order to place it. On eBay, you can win the bid before paying
for it, but since eBay owned Paypal, and eBay initiated the payment process,
it was a lot easier to keep track of whether payment matched the price. Here,
once the invoice is sent out, Bricklink has no way to observe the payment as
its made except for during Onsite Paypal and Instant Checkout, vs the dozens
of other forms of payment that can be accepted.

Author:

PurpleDave

Posted:

Jan 24, 2018 20:54

Subject:

Re: The utter powerlessness of buyers

Viewed:

78 times

Topic:

In Suggestions, undetected writes:

On Bricklink, there is a number associated with a seller, but that number doesn't
indicate whether the seller has 100% positive feedback or 30% negative feedback.
It's just a number of feedback.

When you're shopping in a Bricklink store, the feedback percentage is visible
in the upper right. The problem is the feedback system here is so unreliable
that many of us don't even bother to pay attention. Follow the posts on
this forum, and you'll see a buyer complain about a seller threatening to
leave retaliatory negative feedback if the buyer leaves anything but positive
feedback (even if the seller had truly terrible service). Then you'll see
a seller complain that a buyer is threatening to leave negative feedback unless
the seller gives them a discount off their entire order. And after reading about
both of those, and realizing that these stories pop up with alarming frequency,
you'll also start to wonder why anybody actually cares about the feedback
system here, too.

Author:

PurpleDave

Posted:

Jan 14, 2018 21:00

Subject:

Re: Add option to Exclude Paypal for EU

Viewed:

34 times

Topic:

In Suggestions, Teup writes:

However, I ship without tracking all the time and accept PayPal payments. In
reality it's really no big deal. I've never once had a malicious buyer.
It seems like a far fetched and inefficient way to make money, going through
all the negativity of arguing with the seller, claiming through PayPal.. no person
- decent or otherwise - will be interested in that hassle, unless the order
is valuable. But in this case you would likely ship it with tracking anyway,
and the relative cost of the tracking would be much less.

I know someone who got scammed, once, in a way that tracking probably wouldn't
prevent. It was for a set, and I suspect those are more likely to be targeted
by scam buyers because they're easier to flip afterwards. I heard someone
ask advice on whether to sell sets or parts at an AFOL event, and the response
was that parts are more profitable, but sets will always sell. Now, I just peeked
in both of your stores, and while you have a much higher part to set ratio, his
sets are only about half a case of CMFs from a couple years ago. I didn't
browse his parts, but the account is only two years old, and the store has only
34 sales. Either this seller has actually been hit with a scam already, or it's
just a case of being new-seller cautious.

Author:

PurpleDave

Posted:

Jan 11, 2018 19:18

Subject:

Re: Add option to Exclude Paypal for EU

Viewed:

32 times

Topic:

In Suggestions, SylvainLS writes:

Anyway I don’t very much like the “I want to block buyers who could pay the way
I want but won’t” attitude, I’d rather see a “I give perks to buyers who pay
the way I prefer.” But I guess it’s because I’m a buyer

I don't really have to worry about that, since anyone who wants US buyers
pretty much has to offer Paypal. But what I miss now is the feature that I very
briefly was able to enjoy, where I could search by stores that accepted _regular_
Paypal. The last time I tried to use that, all I could select was "Instant Checkout",
which just compounds the problem of Onsite Paypal. I don't load Bricklink
on the computer I use to do financial stuff, and I don't do financial stuff
on the various devices I use to shop Bricklink. Kinda hard to make either of
those work under those circumstances.

Author:

PurpleDave

Posted:

Jan 11, 2018 15:16

Subject:

Re: Add option to Exclude Paypal for EU

Viewed:

32 times

Topic:

In Suggestions, yorbrick writes:

Yes, that would be fine. When sellers say EU countries must pay via bank transfer,
I often leave the store as UK-EU transfers can be more costly than by PayPal
by the time the rate has been factored in. Especially if I already have EU funds
in PayPal.

Heh. I hadn't ever thought of that, but it does sound inconvenient to have
a Paypal account that's flush with Euros if you can't find anyone in
the EU who accepts Paypal or anyone outside the EU who accepts Euros.

Author:

PurpleDave

Posted:

Jan 2, 2018 20:52

Subject:

Re: wanted list

Viewed:

36 times

Topic:

In Suggestions, esprob writes:

allow options for purchased items in wanted list to be removed.

When you submit an order, there's a link on the next page that brings up
any and all Want List items that are included in the entire order (not just the
latest batch). You can then shuffle them around to other wanted lists, delete
them, adjust the levels, etc. Many of us prefer to maintain a separate Want
List for items that we've purchased but that haven't yet arrived. When
they do, if they're the correct item in the correct quantity, then they can
be deleted from that list while we're also updated the order to Completed.
If there's something wrong and we can't get it resolved with the original
seller, we can return any missing items to an active want list to repurchase
without having to go to the hassle of rebuilding the missing parts of the want
list from scratch.

Author:

PurpleDave

Posted:

Dec 23, 2017 18:53

Subject:

Re: Login problems on ipad

Viewed:

28 times

Topic:

In Suggestions, drclarkjr writes:

In this day and age, a 10.5” tablet isn’t really a mobile device. In my case
it’s my main computer. Gotta believe that is true of an increasing percentage
of people.

Inside it's just a regular old iPhone with a bigger battery and screen.
It even runs the same basic OS as an iPhone. It's a mobile device, and,
as Apple seems to be fond of pointing out via Scout, it's not a computer.

Your best bet is to log in from portrait mode and save your password while doing
so. Thereafter, whenever you click on the login box it should give you the link
to enter the password for you on the top of the keyboard, and it really won't
matter where the window appears on (or off) the screen in the future.

Author:

PurpleDave

Posted:

Nov 30, 2017 21:46

Subject:

Re: No Instant Checkout = Force must offer Quote

Viewed:

41 times

Topic:

In Suggestions, bagelboybugle writes:

Some sellers dont like it apparantly. Incidentally, a similar % of sellers were
well set against introducing a multi-currency platform, funnily enough not many
of them packed up shop in protest when it was implemented. Its a different idea
of course.

Multiple currencies cease to be much of an issue when, as a seller, you can choose
to only accept the one you actually use on a daily basis, and when, as a buyer,
you can usually let PayPal deal with the hassle of currency conversion. Quotes
are absolutely going to mean more work for sellers. And the more orders they
process on a daily basis, the more often they'll end up with quotes that
become voided when other buyers buy inventory that's included in those quotes.
The simple way to make the quote system not cause you headaches as a seller
appears to be exactly what so many sellers have chosen to do: Leave quotes turned
off.

Author:

PurpleDave

Posted:

Nov 28, 2017 10:00

Subject:

Re: No Instant Checkout = Force must offer Quote

Viewed:

45 times

Topic:

In Suggestions, PaulOfBricks writes:

I should of made it clearer but everybody seems to be missing that fact I'm
only saying it quote should be 'offered'

Yeah, I got that. I didn't at first, but I only had time to read the first
post before I got home. By the time I did, you'd clarified your position.
However, if something becomes a mandatory option, it's very easy to make
it a mandatory process. If someone is forced to adopt to a quote system, they
may find it's too much trouble to run quotes alongside non-quoted purchases,
and start forcing everyone to go through the same quote system even when they
don't want to.

And it's not that I don't care about the shipping prices. I stopped
ordering from Czech stores because of the horrible VAT-exemption laws there (everyone
there charges VAT worldwide, or a hefty flat fee for filing paperwork to prove
exemption status). But I'm not going to freak out over $4 vs $2 for shipping
on an order.

Author:

PurpleDave

Posted:

Nov 27, 2017 19:57

Subject:

Re: No Instant Checkout = Force must offer Quote

Viewed:

57 times

Topic:

In Suggestions, PaulOfBricks writes:

I think it should be mandatory by Bricklink that any seller not using Instant
checkout will

Automatically will have the Quote option enabled.

What is the harm in that?

I voted No. On the surface, I don't really care if sellers enable the Quote
function, but I don't want to see it become a mandatory part of my shopping
experience. I have zero interest in Instant Checkout. If someone doesn't
have one key element that is the only reason I placed the order, I'd rather
be able to just cancel out of it without having my money even get involved, much
less having to wait for refunds to clear (something which can take a few weeks
if PayPal flags the refund for investigation like I've had happen a few times
in the past), where IC forces you to pay up front and hope your seller has their
inventory locked down.

For Quote, my main concern would be that if everyone is forced to have it turned
on, and sellers start getting thoroughly sick of having quotes auto-cancel because
elements end up being short due to other orders coming through during the turnaround,
we might see stores restricting sales to quoted orders, preventing me from being
able to just place my order and be done with it.

I'm looking at the amounts you're talking about, and in the one example
all I can see is maybe a $2 difference. I'm not big on just throwing away
money, but I've run into stores where simply placing the order could cost
$20-50 more for very basic parts. $2 extra in shipping costs seems like a bargain
at that point. I've placed orders where the cost of the parts was less than
1% of the invoiced total, not because the seller decided to rake me over the
coals on shipping, but because the order was for maybe $0.25 in parts. Generally,
that would be a very cost-prohibitive way to order parts, but sometimes I find
that there's literally only one store without a massive minimum buy that
has something I need for a MOC, and they have absolutely nothing else I want
to buy from them. So, I can either suck it up and pay shipping on maybe one
or two pieces, I can scrap my plans and see if I can come up with a new design,
or I can play the long game and hope someone else lists that part under more
favorable conditions...and probably cut my output down to nothing in the process.

Author:

PurpleDave

Posted:

Nov 27, 2017 19:22

Subject:

Re: No Instant Checkout = Force must offer Quote

Viewed:

51 times

Topic:

In Suggestions, Bricklord writes:

What extra work? One has to calculate the shipping on every order to invoice
for it anyway. This is simply a buffer between the prospective buyer committing
to an order and simply getting a quote. If they decide the shipping is acceptable,
they accept the quote and you are already done. Invoice them from the order itself,
and once paid pull, pack and ship. There is no extra work, and far fewer NPB's.

I regularly shop in waves. I might get a Want List notification for something
I _really_ want and just place an order for that to secure it (something Quote
pointedly interferes with because it would leave me hanging out there waiting
for turnaround on a quote while literally everyone else on the site could just
pop it in their cart and buy it while I'm waiting). Afterwards, when I have
more free time, I might browse the store to see if there's anything else
I feel like picking up. When I'm designing stuff for shows, I might order
parts for one MOC, design something else, and order parts for that MOC with open
orders usually getting preference for any additional parts I need to buy. So,
for any orders like that, I'd have to request a quote for each additional
wave of parts I want to order. If any of those parts sell out, I'd have
to request new quotes from that and probably other stores. If it throws the
order too far out of whack, I may have to drop all of my quoted orders and figure
out new options...and request more quotes. And by the time all of those delays
have been sorted out, I'd be lucky to even finish paying for everything before
I'd hoped to display the result, let alone actually have time for the parts
to arrive so I can build stuff.

And of course, if _everyone_ is asking for quotes instead of placing orders,
you're going to have a ton of overlap on certain elements, with only one
of them being able to actually complete the order causing all of the other quotes
to become invalid. So, you might be getting a few quotes that fall off because
the parts got sold to someone else, but if you start quoting every order I suspect
that rate will go up exponentially.

Author:

PurpleDave

Posted:

Oct 18, 2017 21:53

Subject:

Re: Printed v Stickered Tiles

Viewed:

28 times

Topic:

In Suggestions, FergH0va writes:

While your suggestion is incredibly helpful and correct, I do not believe it
negates the request. Unless you're savvy enough to know/figure out/remember
your advice, it sure would be a helpful change to the inventory categories!

I do remember how to do that sort of thing, sorting by "-sticker -stickers",
sorting by "-female" when I want a male head or torso, etc. I'd still
like to see stickers split off from decorated in all categories because it'd
save me repeating the same step over and over and over and over and over again.

Author:

PurpleDave

Posted:

Sep 16, 2015 17:04

Subject:

Re: Excluding Sellers with Minimum Order Amount

Viewed:

61 times

Topic:

In Suggestions, fosterbengoshi writes:

I would like to suggest that this be tweaked so that buyers can input a dollar
value to exclude only stores that have a Minimum Purchase requirement greater
than the amount they input. As it stands now, ALL stores with ANY Minimum Purchase
amount (even if only $1) are excluded if the box is checked on this page.

When I do a Store Query from a Wanted List, all of the returns list the store
minimum in the far right column. That space is blank if they have none. It
works for me, and it's more effective than a checkbox. If I have hundreds
of parts in, say, fifty lots of parts to order, a $30 minimum won't scare
me off if the store can fill half of my list. If a store only yields one or
two lots from that list, even a $5 minimum might not be worth the hassle, depending
on whether I can get those parts elsewhere, if I can find other parts I actually
want to pad out my order, and if the store primarily deals in New parts (I hate
wading through pages upon pages of parts when every time I get interested in
something, it's always listed as Used).

Author:

PurpleDave

Posted:

Jul 19, 2015 14:41

Subject:

Re: bug

Viewed:

25 times

Topic:

In Suggestions, brix4kix writes:

Hi I have never posted here but I think this should be looked into. When you
receive a payment with E-CHECK the system should not mark as paid ore received
but it should state under payment status of (clearing) until it actually clears.
so the buyer and seller can see. Also when E-CHECK is used a message to buyer
and seller that order is on hold till payment has cleared.

Under the old system, back before I got a Paypal account, every time I put a
USPS money order in the mail, I marked the order as Paid. I no longer had the
money in my possession, and it let the Seller know I wasn't an NPB. I also
marked as Paid orders where I mistyped their Paypal address and the payment was
in limbo, in which case some of them let me know I'd made a mistake (and
I think one seller filed NPB). E-checks deduct quickly (usually within a day)
and pay out a few days later, but to the buyer it's like using a money order.
They don't have the money anymore, even though the seller hasn't received
it yet. For that matter, almost all of my Paypal payments are bank deductions,
and I suspect they show up right away but take a few days to clear because the
few times I borked the payment address, and sometimes when I received a refund,
it always took a few days for the money to be released.

Author:

PurpleDave

Posted:

Jul 19, 2015 14:29

Subject:

Re: Catalog - listing don't open in new Tab

Viewed:

25 times

Topic:

In Suggestions, Brickwilbo writes:

Hello,

Is it a new feature or me that clicking listings the VIEW-button doesn't
open a new Tab. (in Chrome).

I've never had a new tab open when just clicking any link on BL, whether
using Explorer or Safari. I suspect this is something that may be specific to
Chrome, or maybe even a setting within your copy. I know Explorer and Safari
both have a setting that opens any clicked link in a new window/tab, but I've
never turned that option on. I know that if I really want it in a new tab, I
can force it to open a new tab. The only sites that do it automatically for
me are Hotmail (all links in e-mail, including BL want list notifications, always
open in a new tab) and Brickforge (clicking "Shop" from their home page always
forces a new tab, which is why I finally revised my bookmark to skip the homepage
and go straight to the store).

Author:

PurpleDave

Posted:

Jul 9, 2015 16:59

Subject:

Re: Wanted List Suggestion

Viewed:

21 times

Topic:

In Suggestions, par016 writes:

Please please please

Allow wanted lists to have more than one of the same item on them. This would
make working with Wanted Lists so much easier. I want to be able to have the
same piece in the same color on the same wanted list. I often use different
remarks for these items and combining the remarks and changing the quantities
manually can be terribly tedious, time consuming, and is an absolute pain in
the neck.

Also if a feature could be added so that if I try to add a part to a wanted list
with the same part already on it, it asks me if I want to combine the lots together
and if so if I want to merge the remarks.

I tried it and ended up turning it off, but there is a setting that allows you
to get a set of checkboxes for each Wanted List when using that feature within
a store. Check as many as you like, and it gives you results for everything
you selected at the same time. The trick is, it only shows up as two lines of
notes below any shared part, so you do have to pay attention more.

The other workaround is that in the past, it you added 10 of Part X to your cart,
adding 5 of Part X overrode the previous quantity and ended up giving you only
5. This has been changed so adding 5 of Part X actually adds five to the current
total, meaning you can sit there and build up one list at a time and the inputs
will combine for larger totals.

Author:

PurpleDave

Posted:

Jul 6, 2015 19:25

Subject:

Re: search including parts in a part or in a set

Viewed:

22 times

Topic:

In Suggestions, TomHop writes:

After a brief search I could not find anything on the following, so there goes
my first post.

Sometimes I have parts like a hinge plate 1 x 2 with 1 finger (the old hinges)
on my wanted list.
This can be found
- as such , just this part
- in a parts assembly (together with the 2 finger hinge plate)
- in a set

If I search for any directly I can find them, no problem.
Nevertheless an option like "include part assembly in search" and/or "include
sets in search" would save me doing 3 different searches, besides possibly adding
all possible combinations to my wanted lists (risking missing out on a good purchase
or duplicating parts).

A year ago at the Brickworld roundtable I actually requested this. If I'm
searching for green minifig hands, give me results for any minifig with green
hands. And especially give me those results when I run a Query, since that may
mean the difference between a few large orders and a dozen small ones. I don't
know how interested I am in getting "all sets with" automatically, but being
able to toggle that on when I'm desperate and keep it off otherwise would
work for me.

The other big game-changer I asked for was the ability to select between specific
variants for parts like 1x1 plate w/ clip. I usually won't mind Type C vs
Type D, so long as I can guarantee I'm not going to get Type A or Type B
by accident (this would, of course, work best if all variants had mandatory "undetermined"
listings available for those seller who can't bother to check, and if _I_
can choose to exclude Type U parts altogether).

Author:

PurpleDave

Posted:

Jun 9, 2015 15:07

Subject:

Re: Inventories changed, sellers not informed

Viewed:

24 times

Topic:

In Suggestions, therobo writes:

The type 2 cowl figs could have been aproved 2 years earlier *if* we would have
had images before.

Could have been even earlier, but for a while one or both of them was still theoretical.
I know the black I/II Batman got approved very quickly because the Type II was
the only version found in the jet ski set. I know the hard wing version of that
outfit only got one listing because it only came in Arkham Asylum, which came
out after the jet ski. I know I posed the other two as potential Type I/II candidates,
but that all my copies of those sets were obtained right after release, meaning
I had no proof that they were legitimate minifigs. And I know at least one person
claimed to have found a Type II cowl in a set that was released with a Type I
cowl. But I don't remember which of the three affected minifigs it was,
and I know it would be irresponsible to submit the minifigs on a guess. But
maybe that's what the eventual submitter did, and maybe he didn't have
the minifigs to back it up.

Author:

PurpleDave

Posted:

Jun 9, 2015 14:47

Subject:

Re: Inventories changed, sellers not informed

Viewed:

28 times

Topic:

In Suggestions, par016 writes:

And the submissions were rejected. You will have to ask the catalog admins why.
I tried.

Minifigs aren't allowed to have alternate inventories. Why that is might
be the better question to ask.

Author:

PurpleDave

Posted:

Jun 9, 2015 13:35

Subject:

Re: Inventories changed, sellers not informed

Viewed:

28 times

Topic:

In Suggestions, RobErNat writes:

I like the idea as well, the site might stick to minifigs, but it also happens
with other items (I remember a gray train door appearing in a set because the
inventorier made a typo on the partnumber, and several sellers ended up with
that unexisting door in ninventory), so parts should somehow be included as well...
hoewever, if *all* inventory changes are going to be send out then one would
be facing major amounts of mails comming in (just look at the many changes per
year), not even sure it would be pratical to manage such(for sellers), so this
should be elaborated, and maybe it might be good to have the IA's decide
'which' changes are going to be send out to all people...

Buyers already might get tons of e-mails due to want list notifications. Not
every inventory change is going to be sent to every seller (just the ones that
matter), so every Inventory Update Notification you receive should be something
that you'll know you need to act on (where I get WLNs for parts and minifigs
that are tied up in massive Superlots, hidden behind bank-breaking Minimum Purchases,
or are listed in huge bulk lots when I only need one). And dealing with it up
front seems a lot simpler than having a peeved customer halfway around the world
claiming you sent the wrong item.

+ It also doesn't solve the problem *if* someone buys such items and puts
them on resale, as that person wouldn't get a notification, as there wouldn't
be a partout log on his 'account'.
So allthough it seems easy to generate warnings, the reality is that it is much
more complicated and goes far beyond a 'log' of someone having done a
PO...

It's very simple, actually. If you parted out a set but sold the affected
item(s) already, you clearly have no need to be notified. You don't have
either version. If you got it loose and listed it that way, you do need to be
notified. Notify anyone selling affected items, regardless of how the listing
was generated. That's how it would be done for Marked For Deletion, is it
not? Why should it be different for Intentory Changed?

Author:

PurpleDave

Posted:

Jun 9, 2015 12:53

Subject:

Re: Inventories changed, sellers not informed

Viewed:

24 times

Topic:

In Suggestions, renhoffman writes:

I will note that this change was made in February of this year, and that I believe
the "(Type 1 Cowl)" part of the item name was added then. This is my issue, I
did not know that this change was made, to an item I had in stock at the time.
I did not even know there where two types of cowls, so seeing the item come up
in an order, it did not even occur to me that the item was different than when
I had originally listed it.

This was a change that was a long time in happening. DC Superheroes launched
in early 2012, at which time everything still used the Type I cowl (which was
still just "the cowl"). Late 2012, that changed with the release of this set:

30160-1 (Inv) Batman: Jet Surfer polybag
35 Parts, 1 Minifigure, 2012
Sets: Super Heroes: Batman II

This was the first set to include a Type II cowl from the start. Electrosuit
Batman came with a Type II and was the first minifig to not have a Type I cowl
at all, but for the rest of the 2012 Batmen, it became a bit of a problem. Early
on, only the black/yellow Batman had Type I/II variants listed because each version
came in different sets, but by the end of the year some of the first wave of
DCS sets were starting to show up with Type II cowls replacing the Type I cowls
that they originally shipped with. At that time, I compiled a list of which
Batmen could have TypeI/II variants (2011 SDCC Batman and all the original Batman
theme minifigs only shipped with Type I, while anything newly released in 2013
or later plus Electrosuit Batman only came with Type II). The problem was, nothing
could be added to the catalog until it could be verified, and some ended up delayed
for a very long time due to lack of catalog photos. Early this year, the last
of the Type I/II Batmen was finally approved, and the Type III cowl has not been
used interchangeably with the Type II due to the need for a cowl-colored head.
All told, only three minifigs were affected, with the two already mentioned
and this one:

Minifig No: sh106 Name: Captain America - Blue Suit, Red Hands, Mask

sh106 (Inv) Captain America - Blue Suit, Red Hands, Mask
Minifigures: Super Heroes: Avengers Assemble

Minifig No: sh016a Name: Batman - Black Suit with Yellow Belt and Crest (Type 2 Cowl)

sh016a (Inv) Batman - Black Suit with Yellow Belt and Crest (Type 2 Cowl)
Minifigures: Super Heroes: Batman II

And with that, there should be no more alternate minifig entries for Batman...unless
someone wants to start tracking down when the Type 2.5 cowl first appeared (where
the Type II sits right on the shoulders, 2.5 sits about 1/16" higher so as to
line up better with the white eyeband). I know it came out before 2014 SDCC
Batman, but beyond that I have way too many Batmen and have swapped parts around
way too much to clearly nail down when it first appeared.

Author:

PurpleDave

Posted:

Jun 9, 2015 11:52

Subject:

Re: Inventories changed, sellers not informed

Viewed:

34 times

Topic:

In Suggestions, viejos writes:

However, in this particular case, sh019 and sh025 are (strictly speaking) undetermined
entries that can stand for either type.

No, the catalog descriptions for both of these minifigs state quite definitively
that they both have Type I cowls, because that's the only cowl that was available
when they were inventoried. Furthermore, Bricklink does not support alternate
inventories for minifigs, so it is currently impossible to have a minifig with
Undetermined Cowl as an official catalog listing.

For loose parts that may have been the case at one point, but even now Bricklink
has shown an inclination to move away from Undetermined entries in favor of strict
distinction between acknowledged variants.

Author:

PurpleDave

Posted:

Jun 4, 2015 19:30

Subject:

Re: Issue, I didn't bring up at the RoundTable

Viewed:

61 times

Topic:

In Suggestions, FigBits writes:

Hmm. Do you have a reference for that?

$0.50 means 50¢, of course.

Specifically? No. But "¢" is sometimes used interchangeably with "$", in relation
to USD. When it's written to the right of the number, it means cents. To
the left, and it's basically shorthand for writing "$", meaning dollars.

Author:

PurpleDave

Posted:

Jun 4, 2015 14:52

Subject:

Re: Issue, I didn't bring up at the RoundTable

Viewed:

70 times

Topic:

In Suggestions, BrickItYourself writes:

I still see people write .50¢ for 50 cents, and they don't realize they just
wrote half a cent.

And even less well known is that ¢0.50 is equal to 50¢. I don't know why
it was decided that left or right placement changes the meaning, but I know that
it does.

Author:

PurpleDave

Posted:

Apr 15, 2015 14:50

Subject:

Re: Ban sellers asking for Friends PayPal payment

Viewed:

37 times

Topic:

In Suggestions, RobErNat writes:

He is a buyer only... He means he doesn't use them when he gets them
from sellers, as by using 2 PC's he would need to handcopy them letter by
letter...

That's exactly right. And the reason I do that is so any random virus or
malware that I run into while just surfing the internet can't keylog me when
I'm logging into a site that has access to my financials or where I'm
typing in a CC number.

Author:

PurpleDave

Posted:

Apr 14, 2015 07:06

Subject:

Re: Ban sellers asking for Friends PayPal payment

Viewed:

67 times

Topic:

In Suggestions, PurpleDave writes:

In Suggestions, mabccc writes:

Yes, it is correct. It makes no difference to a seller whether they get a balance
payment or credit card funded payment, if it was a business transaction. They
wouldn't even know. So what reason do they have to ask for balance payments
only?

If they mention nothing about Goods vs Friends, it could just be that it's
left in their TOS from the days when the seller got hit with any CC fees, so
Balance-Funded payments actually were cheaper for business transactions. Remember,
Paypal gets charged to process card payments, and there is no way they're
going to take that hit when they only collect 3% of the total payment in the
first place. A few years ago, federal legislation made it legal to pass that
fee on to the cardholder, but before that the only option was to add it to the
regular Paypal fees.

Ooh, or they could be registered outside of the US, in which case different TOS
apply, and maybe Paypal _can't_ hit the buyer with the CC fees, so the seller
does still have legitimate reason to ask for balance-funded transactions. If
they're in Europe, they also have the TOS-supported right to throw both the
standard Paypal fees and any incurred CC fees back at the buyer, and letting
the buyer know that up front might be completely legitimate with no intention
of hinting at preferring a Friends payment.

Author:

PurpleDave

Posted:

Apr 14, 2015 06:13

Subject:

Re: Ban sellers asking for Friends PayPal payment

Viewed:

84 times

Topic:

In Suggestions, mabccc writes:

Author:

PurpleDave

Posted:

Apr 13, 2015 20:34

Subject:

Re: Ban sellers asking for Friends PayPal payment

Viewed:

59 times

Topic:

In Suggestions, fosterbengoshi writes:

I don't know if it still exists, but it used to be slightly cheaper for sellers
to receive balance transfer payments than payments that were funded from the
buyer's credit or bank card.

I think it used to be, but now I believe the buyer gets socked with extra fees
for submitting a card-funded transaction. Because Paypal can legally charge
that fee back to them, where a few years ago they could not.

Author:

PurpleDave

Posted:

Apr 13, 2015 20:31

Subject:

Re: Ban sellers asking for Friends PayPal payment

Viewed:

42 times

Topic:

In Suggestions, legoman77 writes:

But that is the official rate that Bricklink allows. At one time the seller
could use any exchange rate they want to. Now they cannot. So bricklink does
set something and can be involved in something that has nothing to do with bricklink.

Setting the exchange rate and dictating _who_ can set the exchange rate are so
very not the same thing. If BL set the exchange rates, they would likely not
change more than once per day, if not longer. And sellers or buyers who felt
they were getting the short end of the stick would be very vocal about it. It
also eliminates the possibility of a seller allowing buyers to shop in their
store seeing prices in Guilders, when they only accept payment in Florins, and
they use purposefully misleading exchange rates to make the price of their wares
seem extremely low to buyers in a Guilder-based economy.

Author:

PurpleDave

Posted:

Apr 13, 2015 20:20

Subject:

Re: Ban sellers asking for Friends PayPal payment

Viewed:

43 times

Topic:

In Suggestions, mabccc writes:

To get no fees, you have to pay with balance, and use the Friends and Family
option. "Balance Payment" is code for Friends and Family, without stating it
explicitly.

So if the store terms state that a "Balance Payment" will get no added fees,
and that's all it says, and someone pays as "goods" with "balance payment",
that would satisfy the store terms and make adding that fee a violation of BL
TOS, correct?

Author:

PurpleDave

Posted:

Apr 13, 2015 20:11

Subject:

Re: Ban sellers asking for Friends PayPal payment

Viewed:

41 times

Topic:

In Suggestions, Brettj666 writes:

I've seen one US store that takes no electronic payments, because he doesn't
trust the government.

I guess he hasn't heard that the USPS saves data on all 1st class mail that
it has delivered. Sure, they don't know the contents, but they know where
it came from and where it went.

Author:

PurpleDave

Posted:

Apr 13, 2015 20:06

Subject:

Re: Ban sellers asking for Friends PayPal payment

Viewed:

34 times

Topic:

In Suggestions, legoman77 writes:

Does not BrickLink set exchange rates? They did at one time.

No. They pull exchange rate data from XE.com on an hourly basis.

Author:

PurpleDave

Posted:

Apr 13, 2015 20:02

Subject:

Re: Ban sellers asking for Friends PayPal payment

Viewed:

45 times

Topic:

In Suggestions, Asterios writes:

Actually that also violates PayPals ToC by charging more, no matter what they
call it to pay thru other then personal, also think it violates certain retail
laws too concerning the adding of charges to use a credit card or not.

It depends on where the account is registered. US accounts can't tack Paypal
fees on when you pay by Paypal, per Paypal TOS. European accounts are fully
allowed to do so because they have different TOS.

Author:

PurpleDave

Posted:

Apr 13, 2015 13:03

Subject:

Re: Ban sellers asking for Friends PayPal payment

Viewed:

55 times

Topic: