BrickLink Discussion Forum

Status:

Open

Vote:

[Yes|No]

Hello
Can you put somewhere quantity (Qty), shown on item search page, on catalog item
page?! See pictures.
That would be very useful!
Thank you.
Cheers,
Marko

Author:

Teup

Posted:

Jan 3, 2020 03:43

Subject:

Re: Policy change - Undetermined versus Unknown a

Viewed:

68 times

Topic:

In Suggestions, axaday writes:

When you just get
told that you have this long to fix it or your listing will just evaporate, I

Listings evaporating would be totally unacceptable though, and would finally
cause the people who are accusing BL of inventory gremlins to be right. If such
a system was implemented it would cause me to write software to evade it. Because
to me, if there is one thing that's unacceptable about selling, it's
parts physically taking up space in my home that are dead weight and I will never
discover it. It's a number that can only grow over time, unless I would count
all of my million parts which - call me lazy - I won't do

Much better to simply make (older) "undetermined" parts not appear in the list
when browsing a store's items. Or undetermined items forced into stockroom
(with clear notification). The seller's inventory management should always
be 100% accurate and not suffer from a pressure means to improve listings. That's
a very principal thing to me, and for some sellers there's even a tax report
aspect here.

But yes, I understand your sentiment, and it shouldn't be too difficult for
Bricklink to focus the incentive on "buyability" and not on messing up administration.

In Suggestions, Teup writes:

In Suggestions, axaday writes:

In Suggestions, Teup writes:

When a new variant is introduced after
something was listed, then logically the listing is the old variant and does
not need to be undetermined.

That's actually not logical. Sometimes it is a while before a variant is
recognized. It is not at all uncommon for it to go unnoticed for 6 months by
which time a lot of people have the new one for sale, listed as the old one.

I added

42876 Turkey Drumstick, 22mm with Oval Opening on Back
Parts: Food & Drink

to the catalog when someone on the forum reported that there
was a new variant. I happened to have it and got a quick picture. This happened
Sept 23, 2019. Last year's advent calenders brought the attention to it.
But it has now been found in 7 sets from 2018. You had over a year to part
out one of those sets and have a listing that claimed to be the old variant and
was actually the new variant.

Many more stark examples can be found among the Clikits. Little attention has
usually be given to them. [p=clikits004a] and [p=clikits004b] masqueraded as
the same part for ELEVEN YEARS before Woutr noticed they were distinct and there
are a dozen other Clikits pieces with the same situation. Now the listings are
littered with the undetermined piece and there is no way for the Bricklink computers
to determine which is which. It's pretty easy to do in person once you learn
what you are looking for, but you have to actually have the pieces in your hand.

True, and I wasn't saying that it could account for *all* listings. But it
would already help a great deal if the items that are certainly not of the newer
type, weren't turned into undetermined. Even in your 11 year example, they
could still leave listings that are older than 11 years (and not added to in
the meantime). Maybe not so many listings left that qualify in such an extreme
case, but still, all bits help.
I think for most items we have a pretty good grasp on what year they were released.
If I recall right, several lots in my inventory have turned "undetermined" that
hadn't been created or added to for quite some time, and there was no reason
to make them undetermined because of a much more recent type.

Anyway you're right it's not a *solution*... just something that'd
help. Along with clear communication about new types to sellers that have them
listed when a new one is discovered, and simple interface options to manage types.
I think type listing deserves some attention for improvement, as many problems
buyers run into with sellers have to do with type errors.

Author:

axaday

Posted:

Jan 2, 2020 20:53

Subject:

Re: Policy change - Undetermined versus Unknown a

Viewed:

44 times

Topic:

It would definitely be nice if the system automatically notified you. But in
trying to clean up the Clikits listings I have often directly asked people to
check their undetermined pieces so the undetermined listings can be deleted.
The result has now and then been that they do it. Mostly it is ignored. Some
people will actually have a back and forth a few messages and then not do it.
One person just told me that I am not an admin and I can't make them. It
is hard for me to understand. It's really easy to fix once someone has pointed
it out.

So I like what Russell said about a time limit and when it is backed by real
authority instead of someone just trying to work things out. When you just get
told that you have this long to fix it or your listing will just evaporate, I
think people will take the couple of minutes to fix it.

In Suggestions, Teup writes:

In Suggestions, axaday writes:

In Suggestions, Teup writes:

When a new variant is introduced after
something was listed, then logically the listing is the old variant and does
not need to be undetermined.

42876 Turkey Drumstick, 22mm with Oval Opening on Back
Parts: Food & Drink

Author:

62Bricks

Posted:

Jan 2, 2020 18:17

Subject:

Re: Part Variants

Viewed:

47 times

Topic:

In Suggestions, Admin_Russell writes:

In Suggestions, StormChaser writes:

In Suggestions, Admin_Russell writes:

listing strength

Could you explain this term in more detail? I'm genuinely not sure what
it means. I've gone back through and reread all the forum posts where it
is used and I'm still not sure of the definition.

If an entry with 400 lots is split into two entries, you may see 250 listings
go to one variant and 300 go to another. That would mean that effectively 150
of those lots were also split.

What this means for the buyer is that they now only have 250 or 300 lots to
choose from, not 400. This may not seem like a big deal, but when you narrow
their options down to domestic shipping, and add the complexity of finding a
few dozen other parts from their wanted list in the same store, it becomes a
significant issue, and it could cost them more in shipping charges and higher
part prices.

Looking at it another way, if you have 5000 parts listed in various lots under
an entry, and the entry is split, 2000 may go to one variant and 3000 would then
go to the other.

And in both these examples, if there is an undetermined entry that needs to be
retired, that splits things in three ways instead of two, at least for a year
or so.

Listing strength is one of the advantages that BrickLink has over its competition.
If you look at any given part, there is a greater quantity available from more
sources than on any other site.

Of course, listing strength isn't a big deal if you are only out to buy one
or two parts. But for most of our users, getting the most parts from the fewest
number of sources is likely one of the biggest challenges they face when dealing
with the constraints of thier building budget.

the fewest possible entries

eliminate some variants that don't really need to be distinguished by the majority
of buyers and sellers.

Fair enough. I always thought there must be some way to structure the catalog/site
so that all variants could be distinguished without affecting commercial interests.
I still feel like that would be the best possible outcome. It would allow the
site to serve all users equally.

But I understand that some variants really are unimportant and I see the chaos
that variants have on inventories. And I haven't heard anyone propose a
solution that would work well. I'm not sure that one exists.

But if we are going to make a distinction (and the site already does) between
important and unimportant variants, it would probably be helpful to clearly define
that distinction in writing so that everyone knows where the line is drawn.

Absolutely. Nothing like this will be done behind closed doors.

give a fixed, reasonable length of time for sellers to
deal with undetermined entries in their stores, instead of waiting until all
items have sold out.

Yeah, maintaining hundreds of Marked for Deletion items for years is not the
best policy.

Leniency on sellers in this respect was done to appease folks who thought the
catalog was going too far in the direction of the collectors and specialists.
But I really do believe if we can come to a compromise on this issue, sellers
will gladly relinquish their grip on those old entries.

For variants that share a part number and are distinguished by a suffix, it would
be possible to add a "pseudo" entry on the parts browsing page that would lead
to search results for all variants. For example, on this page:

https://www.bricklink.com/browseList.asp?itemType=P&catString=27

could be an entry for, say, "Plate, Modified 1 x 1 with Clip Vertical - All variants"

with a list of colors like the other entries. The links would lead to a wildcard
search for that part number in that color, as in:

https://www.bricklink.com/search.asp?viewFrom=sa&itemBrand=1000&colorID=9&q=4085%2A&searchSort=P&sz=25

Additionally, it would be a matter of a few minutes to add a checkbox to the
item search page at https://www.bricklink.com/searchAdvanced.asp?utm_content=subnav
that said "Show all variants" and that would append the * wildcard to the part
number entered.

These are things that could be done now, with no underlying changes to the catalog
or functionality. They would allow buyers to see all the variations in one set
of results.

Author:

Teup

Posted:

Jan 2, 2020 17:14

Subject:

Re: Policy change - Undetermined versus Unknown a

Viewed:

48 times

Topic: