BrickLink Discussion Forum

Are print templates created in Ntickstock supported in the new Brickstore?

Author:

calsbricks

Posted:

May 27, 2021 13:46

Subject:

Re: Lego Ownership of Bricklink

Viewed:

79 times

Topic:

Announce

In Announce, StickyBrickit writes:

So it's been quite a while now since the bolt out of the blue announcement
that Lego had acquired this site. I remember at first there was quite a lot of
concern that they would ruin the site, or at least have an overall negative impact.
However I haven't really noticed any difference so far (perhaps a bit more
downtime from the server?).

Just wondering what other people's thoughts are now that they've had
control of the site for a while. Better, worse, about the same?

Probably still too early to tell, Large corporations take a long time normally
to assimilate small acquisitions. Although the product is the same, that is where
the similarity ends. Different styles, thoughts and vision need to find common
ground to move forward and that may not be the case yet.BL is also a very mixed
and diverse community with small hobbyist sellers and much larger stores with
multiple employees. It still is the best place to find product but not the best
for certain types of stores who rely on information not the 'seat of their
trousers' to develop.

Having read the entire thread it is a good and very relevant question , but the
answers are not as easy as understanding the OP post.

Check back in a ouple years time

Author:

calsbricks

Posted:

May 16, 2021 13:20

Subject:

These don't normally get too far but ....

Viewed:

321 times

Topic:

Status:

Open

Vote:

[Yes|No]

Could the programmers take a half hour and add the following information to the
my inventory detail pages as appropriate. It would be a step that would help
in reconciling inventory quantities (It won't do it all but it will help)

The information has to be held somewhere in the system and it only, for the moment,
needs to populate when someone adds to a lot. It can help sellers to back track
to when they last added this item.

It is not a complex programming effort.

Author:

calsbricks

Posted:

Apr 22, 2021 10:40

Subject:

Brown (Old) 3957

Viewed:

75 times

Topic:

Catalog

Status:

Open

We have 2 of these in stock and were about to submit a photo (none in catalogue)
when we saw that whilst it is listed as a known colour it is not shown in any
sets. I thought that was not the policy - if not in set not a known colour???

Clarification, please.

Author:

calsbricks

Posted:

Apr 6, 2021 09:57

Subject:

Re: New Packing Dimensions Feature

Viewed:

63 times

Topic:

Catalog

In Catalog, jennnifer writes:

In Catalog, tec writes:

My friend here likes this post

That's a beauty! I definitely need one of those.

Jen

Or you might want one of these

Author:

calsbricks

Posted:

Mar 21, 2021 08:45

Subject:

Just a thought

Viewed:

146 times

Topic:

Status:

Open

Vote:

[Yes|No]

In 13 years on the site I do not believe much as been implemmented that has been
suggested but here is another one to ponder.

Several times a year there are problems on the site regarding e-mails being sent
out. That pertains to either notifies, order notifications, etc. Most recently
there is a problem again with notifies. With orders you can simply check your
order detail page and see if there is something new on there. But with notifies
if you do not receive an email you have nothing. No idea whether the messages
went out nor to how many buyers. And even more importantly you cannot re-do it.
Opportunity lost for both your store and of course, Bricklink. Quite a dilemma
really as apart from your store page (And that is more than limited for this
day and age)there is no other marketing tool available to sellers.

What if the following were implemented

Create a notify log similar to the part out log (which is pretty underwhelming,
but at least it is something).

The notifies log could be created using a query on the SQL transaction log and
it could look something like this in the first instance:

Date No Lots (uniques) No Notifies Status
20/03/2021 333 1257 Success
21/03/2021 158 754 Success

This might take a non-sql person an hour or so to write the code but it would
be worth its weight in gold to sellers. The no of notifies could be a link to
the calendar file which shows the uniques listed and the status, provided it
shows success at least lets you know they were sent out.

Any thoughts?

Author:

calsbricks

Posted:

Feb 22, 2021 06:15

Subject:

Re: Brexit

Viewed:

54 times

Topic:

In Suggestions, bje writes:

In Suggestions, calsbricks writes:

In Suggestions, patpendlego writes:

...

The OMP is liable. Not just for VAT, but also for the transaction to the buyer.
A BrickLink Order has become a transaction between 3 parties: the buyer, the
(overseas) seller, and BrickLink is now involed too.

All this because governments/countries want to VAT low valued transactions because
of the high volume and thus high 'income' there is to gain by taxing.

So, what does the seller's invoice look like?

The seller is not invoicing anymore. BrickLink is. The seller is merely a third-party
provider allowing BrickLink to sell their items. The customer buys from BrickLink.
E.g. like bol.com

If that becomes the case, and it has already been said by admin it won't
be (at least for the UK)

Hmm, no actually, irrespective of admin says, there is something called a law.

As long as BL is registered as a marketplace, then they have to collect the VAT,
invoice the customer and be responsible for the goods, as Arnoud said. Sellers
are only fulfillment partners, like on Amazon.

If they do not meet ALL of the requirements for an OMP, they should not have
registered as such. They can still change their registration to an ordinary vendor
and actually inform sellers what they are doing while waiting. This dense wall
of non-communication about what they are doing is what is causing the confusion,
not HMRC or tax experts or whatever.

If they jumped the gun and thought they are the same as an American marketplace
for sales tax purposes, then they should just say so and fix it. It does not
take months and years to fix either. Tax is after all a question of law and fact.
If you factually do not meet the requirements for a legal registration, then
you go change it until you meet what is required. This is not a tax issue, it
is not a tax expert issue, it is not an HMRC issue, it is not even a VAT issue.
It is a management issue which must be managed for the benefit for all stakeholders.

Here is what an online marketplace for UK VAT purposes is - note the requirements
must ALL be met, else the platform cannot collect VAT as a platform and can only
collect VAT on their own turnover.

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/vat-and-overseas-goods-sold-to-customers-in-the-uk-using-online-marketplaces
What is a marketplace?
"HMRC’s definition of an online marketplace is a business using a website
or mobile phone app (such as a marketplace, platform or portal) to handle the
sale of goods to customers which meets all of the following conditions:

in any way sets the terms and conditions on how goods are supplied to the
customer
is involved in any way in authorising or facilitating customers’ payments
is involved in the ordering or delivery of the goods

A business will not be classed as an online marketplace if it only provides one
of the following services:

processing of payments for the supply of the goods to the customer
listing or advertisement of goods
redirection or transferring of customers to other websites or mobile phone
apps where goods are offered for sale, without any further involvement in any
sale that might take place on that website or app"

then a lot of stores will disappear. They have said
repeatedly that they have no plans on charging vat on orders in the UK, other
than import/export situation.

It would be dependent on what the domestic situation is for fulfillment partners
in terms of the actual laws enacted. Here, the platform takes the sale, is responsible
and collects and pays VAT, irrespective if the local partner is registered or
not. The VAT status of the domestic partner is immaterial.

With all due respect, that is what XP will be anyway, and because they are dumping
all the V3 stuff to the classic site to amke XP work, it will have to go that
way. What is the use of saying you do not have to have onsite as a store, but
then buyers cannot checkout if you do not have onsite?

Mind you all of this is total speculation and that was mentioned by Russell in
this thread. They are lagging behind on getting this done, which is also increasingly
worrying. When it comes to making progrtammin chnages haste makes waste and they
are very much aware of that.

I don't think there is a development team. There is a maintenance team (probably
plumbers) who comes in once a month and sweeps the floor.

Hi Jean trust you are keeping safe and well

I pretty much agree with all you are saying but even that leaves all kinds of
questions. How have they registered as an OMP or not - they haven't said
directly. Russell has maintained in several threads and messages that the UK
will be treated differently to the EU. We will see about that.

As for collecting vat on orders he has denied that on several occasions. Hard
to go back on that now and it would be worse than spaghetti code trying to sort
that out. UK sellers prices are inclusive of VAT otherwise the seller is writing
off 20^ off the top and that is not healthy. So major changes would have to be
put in place to create fairness and transparency in pricing.

As for xp it has now been around for several years and to be honest we have nothing
- the claims that it will sit alongside classic are just to keep stores happy
as no one wants to maintain 2 separate systems. XP, in ours, and many others
opinions will not succeed for the majority of parts stores - it might work for
sets and one time buyers but the concept is wrong and unless they go back to
the drawing board (and they are not known for doing that) it will kill the site,
in our opinion or at least change the dimensions.

Having said all that the crystal ball is very murky over this entire thing. Lack
of detailed communication and much speculation just creates 'fake news'
really and we have had enough of that.

They definitely need to work more closely with the 'stakeholders' which
we thought would happen when TLG took over, but Bricklink are a small element
of a very large corporation so how much weight they carry remains to be seen.

Anyway take care of yourself and family - get your jab when you can and in the
meantime keep safe

Author:

calsbricks

Posted:

Feb 22, 2021 03:56

Subject:

Re: Brexit

Viewed:

64 times

Topic:

In Suggestions, patpendlego writes:

In Suggestions, Teup writes:

In Suggestions, patpendlego writes:

In Suggestions, Teup writes:
[snip]

Everything is just so backwards, I am not a tax expert by a long shot but let's
just look at this from a logic perspective:

If it was legally valid to write "Bricklink order" on your invoice, then the
EU and the UK would have had an emergency meeting by now because they realised
that almost all of the international trade is being labelled "Bricklink order"

It can't work like that. So yeah, EITHER Bricklink is the seller and WE sell
to Bricklink - thus a US export, export to US rules apply - OR we sell to the
customer in their country AND that country's rules apply.

From the persective of the seller, these are simply the only two ways. As a seller
you need to have invoices that mention the country, and then apply the rules
for THAT country. There is only "United States" or "United Kingdom". There's
simply no such thing as "United Kingdom-but-it's-a-Bricklink-order-and-Bricklink-said-it's-fine"

Or am I too pessimstic about the amount of patience tax agencies have when doing
audits and people come up with stories about platform selling (without hard evidence)?

Read the link below, this is not something new. The UK already started in 2016
with quote: "special provisions for online marketplaces".

http://kluwertaxblog.com/2020/02/26/online-marketplaces-and-eu-vat-global-reach-but-compliance-still-local/

These changes to come have been known for 4 years up until Jan 1, 2021.

The OMP is liable. Not just for VAT, but also for the transaction to the buyer.
A BrickLink Order has become a transaction between 3 parties: the buyer, the
(overseas) seller, and BrickLink is now involed too.

All this because governments/countries want to VAT low valued transactions because
of the high volume and thus high 'income' there is to gain by taxing.

So, what does the seller's invoice look like?

The seller is not invoicing anymore. BrickLink is. The seller is merely a third-party
provider allowing BrickLink to sell their items. The customer buys from BrickLink.
E.g. like bol.com

If that becomes the case, and it has already been said by admin it won't
be (at least for the UK) then a lot of stores will disappear. They have said
repeatedly that they have no plans on charging vat on orders in the UK, other
than import/export situation.

Mind you all of this is total speculation and that was mentioned by Russell in
this thread. They are lagging behind on getting this done, which is also increasingly
worrying. When it comes to making progrtammin chnages haste makes waste and they
are very much aware of that.

Author:

calsbricks

Posted:

Feb 21, 2021 09:02

Subject:

Re: Brexit

Viewed:

88 times

Topic:

In Suggestions, patpendlego writes:

In Suggestions, calsbricks writes:

In Suggestions, patpendlego writes:

In Suggestions, bje writes:

In Suggestions, patpendlego writes:

In Suggestions, Teup writes:

In Suggestions, yorbrick writes:

In Suggestions, mvfisker writes:

Just wondering.
Chose "European Union" as seller - and Great Britain sellers still came up. Shouldn't
that be changed now after Brexit?
Cheers, Morten

Bricklink time is currently somewhere in about 2004.

I think they already had websites with timezones in 2004..

TLG had big plans with BrickLink but is choking now..

BrickLink is busy with USA sales taxes, we really should not expect multitasking
in their attempts to break things. They did say they will address the Brexit
issues before 5 February (they did not say which aeon though).

No, we should expect. After all we pay fees for this site. It was long time known
Brexit was coming, they should have been ready for it.

As almost everyone on this forum knows I am not Bricklink's biggest fan as
far as developmenet work goes however I think in this case it is fair to say
that the UK hasn't yet got it right and neither does the rest of the EU -
Just look at the below from a site we use regularly. (Don't forget we still
have VAT to look forward to

Yes, true. UK hasn't got it on the track. EU does however. On the short term
EU draws the longest straw, more and more companies are moving away from UK in
favor of EU or elsewhere. That is a loss for the UK regrettably, but needles
to say UK wanted the Brexit no the EU. On the long run it is inconclusive if
this development is a good thing. Cooperation is imo the better road how complicated
it might be.

So maybe it is the best of worst to exclude UK for now. Until they got their
things together. But I give you this, it is very complicated.

We will bide our time before we make up our mind on the way forward - a lot depends
o how BL deal with it and that, according to them, is still pretty much unknown.

We have turned away a few orders since Jan 1 from different areas in the EU -
ione we processed and a simple cn22 - posted it and the buyer got it in good
time and here were no snags (Switzerland - which isn't really part of the
EU but all went okay).

Author:

calsbricks

Posted:

Feb 21, 2021 05:18

Subject:

Re: Brexit

Viewed:

78 times

Topic: