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| | | Author: | kurigan  | | Posted: | Jan 3, 2022 11:45 | | Subject: | What am I not getting? | | Viewed: | 939 times | | Topic: | Selling | |
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| I need out of this business so bad, but I need to sell out my inventory first.
As much of it as I can as I still owe money back, plus a promised return on investment,
but the orders I get take too much to fill and I can't keep up. One of everything;
a $3 order takes me on an hour long tour of my inventory. What can I do?
I can't sell things any cheaper and the changing nature of the business has
made it impossible for me to make a liveable income. (Almost) No one places expensive
enough orders that don't take up to large a chunk of my work hours to allow
enough of them through at a time. I take a few orders, calculate the hours it
will take to satisfy them and I have to close the store after only a day or
two, yet I've only sold $100-$200. I've tried adjusting settings like
lot ratios/restrictions, minimum buys, opting out of rebrickable, but to little
to no avail. The more I do to try and encourage simpler orders, bulk buys, etc.
the more inconvenient it becomes to shop my store.
If ya can't tell, I'm at my whit's end and I just need to put it
out there incase there is a life line or something I'm missing that I'd
never find if I kept it to myself. I've been hard at this since 2016, trying
to make this a serious business and every year it gets more difficult. I can't
be the only struggling but how are you all handling it? What am I not getting?
Dave
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| | | | | Author: | jennnifer | | Posted: | Jan 3, 2022 12:04 | | Subject: | Re: What am I not getting? | | Viewed: | 151 times | | Topic: | Selling | |
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| In Selling, kurigan writes:
| | I need out of this business so bad, but I need to sell out my inventory first.
As much of it as I can as I still owe money back, plus a promised return on investment,
but the orders I get take too much to fill and I can't keep up. One of everything;
a $3 order takes me on an hour long tour of my inventory. What can I do?
I can't sell things any cheaper and the changing nature of the business has
made it impossible for me to make a liveable income. (Almost) No one places expensive
enough orders that don't take up to large a chunk of my work hours to allow
enough of them through at a time. I take a few orders, calculate the hours it
will take to satisfy them and I have to close the store after only a day or
two, yet I've only sold $100-$200. I've tried adjusting settings like
lot ratios/restrictions, minimum buys, opting out of rebrickable, but to little
to no avail. The more I do to try and encourage simpler orders, bulk buys, etc.
the more inconvenient it becomes to shop my store.
If ya can't tell, I'm at my whit's end and I just need to put it
out there incase there is a life line or something I'm missing that I'd
never find if I kept it to myself. I've been hard at this since 2016, trying
to make this a serious business and every year it gets more difficult. I can't
be the only struggling but how are you all handling it? What am I not getting?
Dave
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I am sorry you have having such trouble!
But, I actually believe a small online LEGO store can never make a liveable income
- only a secondary income. A full-time store only works if the scale is large
enough to cover cheap labor, or you have unlimited time to commit from yourself.
(Or you have managed somehow to find stock well below retail value.)
If I had a day or two of orders that added up to a couple hundred dollars, I
would be pretty happy about it! I work at my store part-time and have rarely
needed to spend more than 3 hours pulling and packing orders. What is your average
time per lot?
Jen
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| | | | | | | Author: | kurigan | | Posted: | Jan 3, 2022 12:21 | | Subject: | Re: What am I not getting? | | Viewed: | 145 times | | Topic: | Selling | |
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| | | I am sorry you have having such trouble!
But, I actually believe a small online LEGO store can never make a liveable income
- only a secondary income. A full-time store only works if the scale is large
enough to cover cheap labor, or you have unlimited time to commit from yourself.
(Or you have managed somehow to find stock well below retail value.)
If I had a day or two of orders that added up to a couple hundred dollars, I
would be pretty happy about it! I work at my store part-time and have rarely
needed to spend more than 3 hours pulling and packing orders. What is your average
time per lot?
Jen
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On that, we are of one mind, but that's why I indebted for so much inventory,
but as my stock doubled so did my troubles.
Though it varies on several factors I've come to 50 lots taking about an
hour, so 1 or 2 minutes a lot, and I think that's pretty respectable.
and, ya gotta keep in mind, that's not $100 profit, that $100 sold. there's
a lot that has to come out of that before I call any of it profit.
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| | | | | | | | | Author: | tons_of_bricks | | Posted: | Jan 3, 2022 12:59 | | Subject: | Re: What am I not getting? | | Viewed: | 109 times | | Topic: | Selling | |
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| In Selling, kurigan writes:
| | | | I am sorry you have having such trouble!
But, I actually believe a small online LEGO store can never make a liveable income
- only a secondary income. A full-time store only works if the scale is large
enough to cover cheap labor, or you have unlimited time to commit from yourself.
(Or you have managed somehow to find stock well below retail value.)
If I had a day or two of orders that added up to a couple hundred dollars, I
would be pretty happy about it! I work at my store part-time and have rarely
needed to spend more than 3 hours pulling and packing orders. What is your average
time per lot?
Jen
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On that, we are of one mind, but that's why I indebted for so much inventory,
but as my stock doubled so did my troubles.
Though it varies on several factors I've come to 50 lots taking about an
hour, so 1 or 2 minutes a lot, and I think that's pretty respectable.
and, ya gotta keep in mind, that's not $100 profit, that $100 sold. there's
a lot that has to come out of that before I call any of it profit.
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Honestly, that seems a bit slow. If I don't have to count large quantities
(50+), I can usually do 75-100 lots an hour, and I'm currently in the process
of reorganizing to make our speed even faster.
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| | | | | | | | | | | Author: | kurigan | | Posted: | Jan 3, 2022 13:05 | | Subject: | Re: What am I not getting? | | Viewed: | 115 times | | Topic: | Selling | |
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| it's a very wide average. Easy to count things, or sold out lots only take
a few seconds. Breaking up larger lots, especially with odd amounts (I do subdivide
by 100 and 50packs) and the time shoots up.
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| | | | | Author: | yorbrick | | Posted: | Jan 3, 2022 12:28 | | Subject: | Re: What am I not getting? | | Viewed: | 139 times | | Topic: | Selling | |
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| In Selling, kurigan writes:
| | I need out of this business so bad, but I need to sell out my inventory first.
As much of it as I can as I still owe money back, plus a promised return on investment,
but the orders I get take too much to fill and I can't keep up. One of everything;
a $3 order takes me on an hour long tour of my inventory. What can I do?
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Out of interest, who promised the return on investment?
If a $3 order takes one hour, then you are allowing "bad" orders (high count,
low value), or your stock is many penny parts in not much depth and not many
parts of value. It might be what you invested in. A narrow range but many of
each part works well for (some) small stores when combined with minimum lot values
but I doubt you can make a living income doing it. Some parts are worth so little,
you have to make sure buyers are buying many of the same part or a valuable minifig
or similar to increase the order value.
You might be better off getting rid of the rest as a cheap bulk lot. Cut your
losses and don't waste more time.
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| | | | | | | Author: | cosmicray | | Posted: | Jan 3, 2022 18:58 | | Subject: | Re: What am I not getting? | | Viewed: | 106 times | | Topic: | Selling | |
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| In Selling, yorbrick writes:
| | In Selling, kurigan writes:
| | I need out of this business so bad, but I need to sell out my inventory first.
As much of it as I can as I still owe money back, plus a promised return on investment,
but the orders I get take too much to fill and I can't keep up. One of everything;
a $3 order takes me on an hour long tour of my inventory. What can I do?
|
Out of interest, who promised the return on investment?
If a $3 order takes one hour, then you are allowing "bad" orders (high count,
low value), or your stock is many penny parts in not much depth and not many
parts of value. It might be what you invested in. A narrow range but many of
each part works well for (some) small stores when combined with minimum lot values
but I doubt you can make a living income doing it. Some parts are worth so little,
you have to make sure buyers are buying many of the same part or a valuable minifig
or similar to increase the order value.
You might be better off getting rid of the rest as a cheap bulk lot. Cut your
losses and don't waste more time.
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+1
Nita Rae
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| | | | | Author: | Shiny_Stuff | | Posted: | Jan 3, 2022 12:53 | | Subject: | Re: What am I not getting? | | Viewed: | 133 times | | Topic: | Selling | |
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| In Selling, kurigan writes:
| | I need out of this business so bad, but I need to sell out my inventory first.
As much of it as I can as I still owe money back, plus a promised return on investment,
but the orders I get take too much to fill and I can't keep up. One of everything;
a $3 order takes me on an hour long tour of my inventory. What can I do?
I can't sell things any cheaper and the changing nature of the business has
made it impossible for me to make a liveable income. (Almost) No one places expensive
enough orders that don't take up to large a chunk of my work hours to allow
enough of them through at a time. I take a few orders, calculate the hours it
will take to satisfy them and I have to close the store after only a day or
two, yet I've only sold $100-$200. I've tried adjusting settings like
lot ratios/restrictions, minimum buys, opting out of rebrickable, but to little
to no avail. The more I do to try and encourage simpler orders, bulk buys, etc.
the more inconvenient it becomes to shop my store.
If ya can't tell, I'm at my whit's end and I just need to put it
out there incase there is a life line or something I'm missing that I'd
never find if I kept it to myself. I've been hard at this since 2016, trying
to make this a serious business and every year it gets more difficult. I can't
be the only struggling but how are you all handling it? What am I not getting?
Dave
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Sitting on tons of valuable inventory and yet having most of it go unsold is,
I think, a problem for most all brick sellers. When expenses mount, unsold inventory
does not pay the bills very well, as you seem to know well.
I don't like orders of onesies and twosies. Mostly because I am lazy. haha
To prevent those types of orders, I have pre-counted and pre-bagged most all
of my inventory into bags of 20 pieces. I also have set up bulk quantities for
most items so that buyers must buy parts in groups of 20. For items that are
higher priced, I have bulk quantities set lower, such as 2 or 4 pieces.
Since all my inventory is pre-counted, I can pick and pack orders very quickly
as I don't have to stop and count every piece -- just grab each bag of
20 in a few seconds. I can pack a 20-lot order in about 2 minutes, providing
I can find everything quickly.
I know one very long-time BL seller who also does the bags of 20 for all of their
inventory and it has worked for him for 20 years. He told me his goal is to
not open a drawer for less than one dollar. So, for example, he only sells Technic
Pins at a bulk quantity of 100 and for stuff priced at 25 cents, the minimum
quantity is 4 pieces.
As for pricing, I don't aim to be the cheapest. I study the price guide
for each item and I select a price based on the sell-thru rate of each item.
For example, if the average is 25 cents but I can see that lots of people have
been willing to pay 40 cents over the past few months, then I go with 40 cents
or even higher if I have a relatively large quantity of that item.
Higher quantities of parts may allow for higher pricing, too. I believe it is
better to part out 20 copies of the same set rather than 5 copies of 5 different
sets. That, of course, presents its own challenge of sourcing that many copies
of the same set -- something that gets harder all the time with Lego sets
being in such short supply pretty much everywhere and with quantity limits in
place by the LEGO company themselves.
I am sorry you are having these difficulties and I am sorry it is so hard to
find solutions. Hopefully, this new year will bring more prosperity your way.
Good Luck.
____
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| | | | | | | Author: | brickablocks | | Posted: | Jan 3, 2022 13:29 | | Subject: | Re: What am I not getting? | | Viewed: | 116 times | | Topic: | Selling | |
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| This is the way...
Download your inventory to xml, import to excel, divide $1 by item price, and
set bulk to that value. If you have less than that amount in stock, set bulk
to the entire quantity you have in stock.
Selling a 1 part lot is community service, not a good business practice.
In Selling, Shiny_Stuff writes:
| | He told me his goal is to
not open a drawer for less than one dollar.
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| | | | | | | | | Author: | hkl22 | | Posted: | Jan 5, 2022 23:13 | | Subject: | Re: What am I not getting? | | Viewed: | 95 times | | Topic: | Selling | |
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| In Selling, brickablocks writes:
| | This is the way...
Download your inventory to xml, import to excel, divide $1 by item price, and
set bulk to that value. If you have less than that amount in stock, set bulk
to the entire quantity you have in stock.
Selling a 1 part lot is community service, not a good business practice.
In Selling, Shiny_Stuff writes:
| | He told me his goal is to
not open a drawer for less than one dollar.
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That sounds like a great idea. I just downloaded my inventory into a spreadsheet
and did the calculation, but it seems like a pain to look up every item and switch
the bulk, because I can't figure out the order to which the downloaded inventory
is sorted to (if I could, I could switch the sorting on bricklink in my inv so
that I could just go down the line). Once you've done the calculation, what's
the best way to update each item? Also, I didn't see an option to pre-set
how the downloaded inventory would sort.
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| | | | | | | | | | | Author: | yorbrick | | Posted: | Jan 6, 2022 03:57 | | Subject: | Re: What am I not getting? | | Viewed: | 81 times | | Topic: | Selling | |
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| In Selling, hkl22 writes:
| | In Selling, brickablocks writes:
| | This is the way...
Download your inventory to xml, import to excel, divide $1 by item price, and
set bulk to that value. If you have less than that amount in stock, set bulk
to the entire quantity you have in stock.
Selling a 1 part lot is community service, not a good business practice.
In Selling, Shiny_Stuff writes:
| | He told me his goal is to
not open a drawer for less than one dollar.
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|
That sounds like a great idea. I just downloaded my inventory into a spreadsheet
and did the calculation, but it seems like a pain to look up every item and switch
the bulk, because I can't figure out the order to which the downloaded inventory
is sorted to (if I could, I could switch the sorting on bricklink in my inv so
that I could just go down the line). Once you've done the calculation, what's
the best way to update each item? Also, I didn't see an option to pre-set
how the downloaded inventory would sort.
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Just set a minimum lot average of $1 instead. It takes seconds, and will ensure
that if you need to pick a 23 lot order, it will be $23+ in value. It won't
mean every lot is $1+ but for every lot under $1, the difference is made up by
other lots.
You can also quickly reduce it if you need to if it adversely affects sales.
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| | | | | | | | | Author: | hkl22 | | Posted: | Jan 6, 2022 10:21 | | Subject: | Re: What am I not getting? | | Viewed: | 51 times | | Topic: | Selling | |
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| In Selling, brickablocks writes:
| | This is the way...
Download your inventory to xml, import to excel, divide $1 by item price, and
set bulk to that value. If you have less than that amount in stock, set bulk
to the entire quantity you have in stock.
Selling a 1 part lot is community service, not a good business practice.
In Selling, Shiny_Stuff writes:
| | He told me his goal is to
not open a drawer for less than one dollar.
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When I set bulk, for example, 2 for 5 items in stock, if someone buys 4, what
happens to the 1 lot left over? Its less than the 2 bulk in my store, so no one
can buy it?
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| | | | | | | | | | | Author: | peregrinator | | Posted: | Jan 6, 2022 10:47 | | Subject: | Re: What am I not getting? | | Viewed: | 53 times | | Topic: | Selling | |
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| In Selling, hkl22 writes:
| | When I set bulk, for example, 2 for 5 items in stock, if someone buys 4, what
happens to the 1 lot left over? Its less than the 2 bulk in my store, so no one
can buy it?
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I believe that the remaining quantity can always be bought.
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| | | | | Author: | kurigan | | Posted: | Jan 3, 2022 14:38 | | Subject: | Re: What am I not getting? | | Viewed: | 182 times | | Topic: | Selling | |
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| The question "what's my inventory system like?" Well, super basic. Boxes
with numbers on shelves, full of sandwich bags, also numbered, with little bags
of parts and a ticket with the part number and piece count on it. In remarks
go the location numbers such as B001B01 for bin one bag one. Like colors and
parts group together, so, B001 through B004 are all black, but you'll find
most plates in B002. It's cheap and efficient until orders turn in to 100
items out of 99 lots. Lots over 100 are grouped in 100 packs, sometimes 50. Special
consideration is given to parts and lots to big for the sandwich bag system.
Primarily Well Played is a used brick store, but new stuff, still in packaging,
has come our way and been entered into inventory accordingly.
Current break down is:
Total 221,394 items in 13,872 lots in 254 categories.
My inventory total value (Original Price): US $20,057.94
My inventory total value after sale (Category Average): US $20,057.94
Here pictures of the system in place, sorry for the mess. It's been a heck
of year and spiffing up the office for photos was pretty low on the priorities
list.
https://photobucket.com/u/Dave_Stasny/a/cd15e812-ab16-48e8-9103-78abcc152f4d
Dave
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| | | | | | | Author: | Brick_Qc | | Posted: | Jan 3, 2022 19:42 | | Subject: | Re: What am I not getting? | | Viewed: | 141 times | | Topic: | Selling | |
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| In Selling, kurigan writes:
| | The question "what's my inventory system like?" Well, super basic. Boxes
with numbers on shelves, full of sandwich bags, also numbered, with little bags
of parts and a ticket with the part number and piece count on it. In remarks
go the location numbers such as B001B01 for bin one bag one. Like colors and
parts group together, so, B001 through B004 are all black, but you'll find
most plates in B002. It's cheap and efficient until orders turn in to 100
items out of 99 lots. Lots over 100 are grouped in 100 packs, sometimes 50. Special
consideration is given to parts and lots to big for the sandwich bag system.
Primarily Well Played is a used brick store, but new stuff, still in packaging,
has come our way and been entered into inventory accordingly.
Current break down is:
Total 221,394 items in 13,872 lots in 254 categories.
My inventory total value (Original Price): US $20,057.94
My inventory total value after sale (Category Average): US $20,057.94
Here pictures of the system in place, sorry for the mess. It's been a heck
of year and spiffing up the office for photos was pretty low on the priorities
list.
https://photobucket.com/u/Dave_Stasny/a/cd15e812-ab16-48e8-9103-78abcc152f4d
Dave
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Hi Dave, that's a very time consuming setup you have there. Honnestly I wouldn't
want to have to do orders that way.
You need storage cabinets with hundreds of drawers and/or top open bins for large
quantities items.
I know it's a important investment, but it pays in the long run time wise.
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| | | | | | | | | Author: | Nubs_Select | | Posted: | Jan 3, 2022 20:14 | | Subject: | Re: What am I not getting? | | Viewed: | 115 times | | Topic: | Selling | |
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| | +1 |
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| | | | | | | | | Author: | Shiny_Stuff | | Posted: | Jan 3, 2022 23:37 | | Subject: | Re: What am I not getting? | | Viewed: | 78 times | | Topic: | Selling | |
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| In Selling, Brick_Qc writes:
| | In Selling, kurigan writes:
Hi Dave, that's a very time consuming setup you have there. Honnestly I wouldn't
want to have to do orders that way.
You need storage cabinets with hundreds of drawers and/or top open bins for large
quantities items.
I know it's a important investment, but it pays in the long run time wise.
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I do not agree.
I think that set-up is perfectly adequate and well organized.
The numbering system seems over-the-top and likely takes a serious time investment
to maintain and keep correct. A lot of time is probably spend putting parts
into storage, but I bet it works fine for picking orders.
Expensive storage containers or drawer set-ups are NOT necessary to run a good
operation. Having vertical storage of some kind is important, but spending a
lot of money on what goes onto that vertical storage is not necessary.
____
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| | | | | | | | | Author: | Andrsv | | Posted: | Jan 4, 2022 03:54 | | Subject: | Re: What am I not getting? | | Viewed: | 64 times | | Topic: | Selling | |
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| | | Hi Dave, that's a very time consuming setup you have there. Honnestly I wouldn't
want to have to do orders that way.
You need storage cabinets with hundreds of drawers and/or top open bins for large
quantities items.
I know it's a important investment, but it pays in the long run time wise.
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+1
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| | | | | | | | | Author: | yorbrick | | Posted: | Jan 4, 2022 04:21 | | Subject: | Re: What am I not getting? | | Viewed: | 63 times | | Topic: | Selling | |
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| | | Hi Dave, that's a very time consuming setup you have there. Honnestly I wouldn't
want to have to do orders that way.
You need storage cabinets with hundreds of drawers and/or top open bins for large
quantities items.
I know it's a important investment, but it pays in the long run time wise.
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The first line of the opening post is "I need out of this business". Investing
in a new storage system is probably not the best way to go.
To get out, there are probably two extreme routes: sell the lot in one go at
a substantial discount or set a minimum lot average or similar (such as batching
items in $1 bags) and fulfill infrequent orders as they come in, which shouldn't
take too long if the orders are no longer one of this and one of that. Both ways
free up time for a new job or venture. Batching them doesn't even need to
be physically batching them, just set the minimum purchase amount for each and
every part. Although even that is time consuming doing them one by one, and setting
a minimum average lot value is much faster as it affects all items using just
one setting.
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| | | | | | | | | Author: | tons_of_bricks | | Posted: | Jan 4, 2022 06:15 | | Subject: | Re: What am I not getting? | | Viewed: | 82 times | | Topic: | Selling | |
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| In Selling, Brick_Qc writes:
| | In Selling, kurigan writes:
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| |
Hi Dave, that's a very time consuming setup you have there. Honnestly I wouldn't
want to have to do orders that way.
You need storage cabinets with hundreds of drawers and/or top open bins for large
quantities items.
I know it's a important investment, but it pays in the long run time wise.
|
Totally disagree. Looks extremely organized. Shouldn't be too hard to find
anything; its actually very similar to how we do things.
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| | | | | | | | | | | Author: | starbeanie | | Posted: | Jan 4, 2022 14:18 | | Subject: | Re: What am I not getting? | | Viewed: | 99 times | | Topic: | Selling | |
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| I would raise some of your prices. For example, all of your instructions. Raising
the prices from .05 to .25 would not keep me from buying them. But it certainly
makes it more worth your time to pull them. Also your gear and books.
In Selling, firestar246 writes:
| | In Selling, Brick_Qc writes:
| | In Selling, kurigan writes:
|
| |
Hi Dave, that's a very time consuming setup you have there. Honnestly I wouldn't
want to have to do orders that way.
You need storage cabinets with hundreds of drawers and/or top open bins for large
quantities items.
I know it's a important investment, but it pays in the long run time wise.
|
Totally disagree. Looks extremely organized. Shouldn't be too hard to find
anything; its actually very similar to how we do things.
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| | | | | | | Author: | C0lsanders_ | | Posted: | Jan 3, 2022 20:00 | | Subject: | Re: What am I not getting? | | Viewed: | 104 times | | Topic: | Selling | |
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| I have a similar system. What I do though is turn on temporary checkboxes on
the order, then I pull all pieces in the order out of a given box. Pull all of
that general part type (technic parts, for example), then move on to the next
part type. That way, I limit the times I need to get up and get new bits. Works
pretty well for me.
Miles (C0lsanders_)
In Selling, kurigan writes:
| | The question "what's my inventory system like?" Well, super basic. Boxes
with numbers on shelves, full of sandwich bags, also numbered, with little bags
of parts and a ticket with the part number and piece count on it. In remarks
go the location numbers such as B001B01 for bin one bag one. Like colors and
parts group together, so, B001 through B004 are all black, but you'll find
most plates in B002. It's cheap and efficient until orders turn in to 100
items out of 99 lots. Lots over 100 are grouped in 100 packs, sometimes 50. Special
consideration is given to parts and lots to big for the sandwich bag system.
Primarily Well Played is a used brick store, but new stuff, still in packaging,
has come our way and been entered into inventory accordingly.
Current break down is:
Total 221,394 items in 13,872 lots in 254 categories.
My inventory total value (Original Price): US $20,057.94
My inventory total value after sale (Category Average): US $20,057.94
Here pictures of the system in place, sorry for the mess. It's been a heck
of year and spiffing up the office for photos was pretty low on the priorities
list.
https://photobucket.com/u/Dave_Stasny/a/cd15e812-ab16-48e8-9103-78abcc152f4d
Dave
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| | | | | | | Author: | NelisSolis | | Posted: | Jan 4, 2022 07:06 | | Subject: | Re: What am I not getting? | | Viewed: | 89 times | | Topic: | Selling | |
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| In Selling, kurigan writes:
| | The question "what's my inventory system like?" Well, super basic. Boxes
with numbers on shelves, full of sandwich bags, also numbered, with little bags
of parts and a ticket with the part number and piece count on it. In remarks
go the location numbers such as B001B01 for bin one bag one. Like colors and
parts group together, so, B001 through B004 are all black, but you'll find
most plates in B002. It's cheap and efficient until orders turn in to 100
items out of 99 lots. Lots over 100 are grouped in 100 packs, sometimes 50. Special
consideration is given to parts and lots to big for the sandwich bag system.
Primarily Well Played is a used brick store, but new stuff, still in packaging,
has come our way and been entered into inventory accordingly.
Current break down is:
Total 221,394 items in 13,872 lots in 254 categories.
My inventory total value (Original Price): US $20,057.94
My inventory total value after sale (Category Average): US $20,057.94
Here pictures of the system in place, sorry for the mess. It's been a heck
of year and spiffing up the office for photos was pretty low on the priorities
list.
https://photobucket.com/u/Dave_Stasny/a/cd15e812-ab16-48e8-9103-78abcc152f4d
Dave
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Hi Dave,
on the assumption that the numbering on the boxes is some coding for the storage
location in the "remarks" of the items, you could probably inprove some by rearranging
the boxes.
In the ideal situation, you only want to walk each aisle once and the whole storage
area in a continues route. As I notice in your photo's, your system forces
you to walk up and down the aisle.
For example the B001 - B042 aisle. If an order has items in every box, you will
walk the aisle 3 times up and 2 (or 3) times down:
1. Pulling parts from B001 to B016
2. Walk back
3. Pulling parts from B017 to B032
4. Walk back
5. Pulling items from B033 to B044
6. Walk back or forward to the next aisle with storage location B045 (or any
location after B044)
If you rearrange the boxes like this, you only walk the aisle once.
B001 - B007 - B013 - B019 - B025 - B031 - B037 - B041
B002 - B008 - B014 - B020 - B026 - B032 - B038 - B042
B003 - B009 - B015 - B021 - B027 - B033 - B039 - B043
B004 - B010 - B016 - B022 - B028 - B034 - B040 - B044
B005 - B011 - B017 - B023 - B029 - B035 - HERE THE LARGE
B006 - B012 - B018 - B024 - B030 - B036 - BROWN CARDBOARD BOX
Ideally, the storage rack with the S001-S027 should contain a sequential code
to the B044 box. And so on.
If you have storage on both sides of the aisle, you can even consider to have
to codes sequential on the left and right, so your routine is: Walk a step -
pick left - pick right - walk a step - pick left - pick right, until the end
of the aisle.
Niels
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| | | | | | | Author: | zorbanj | | Posted: | Jan 4, 2022 09:47 | | Subject: | Re: What am I not getting? | | Viewed: | 77 times | | Topic: | Selling | |
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| Not sure if you had some of the lights turned off or if it's the angle
of the photos, but some of your storage bins looks like they are in the dark
(pics 3+4).
Good lighting is inexpensive and noticeably helped me.
In Selling, kurigan writes:
| | The question "what's my inventory system like?" Well, super basic. Boxes
with numbers on shelves, full of sandwich bags, also numbered, with little bags
of parts and a ticket with the part number and piece count on it. In remarks
go the location numbers such as B001B01 for bin one bag one. Like colors and
parts group together, so, B001 through B004 are all black, but you'll find
most plates in B002. It's cheap and efficient until orders turn in to 100
items out of 99 lots. Lots over 100 are grouped in 100 packs, sometimes 50. Special
consideration is given to parts and lots to big for the sandwich bag system.
Primarily Well Played is a used brick store, but new stuff, still in packaging,
has come our way and been entered into inventory accordingly.
Current break down is:
Total 221,394 items in 13,872 lots in 254 categories.
My inventory total value (Original Price): US $20,057.94
My inventory total value after sale (Category Average): US $20,057.94
Here pictures of the system in place, sorry for the mess. It's been a heck
of year and spiffing up the office for photos was pretty low on the priorities
list.
https://photobucket.com/u/Dave_Stasny/a/cd15e812-ab16-48e8-9103-78abcc152f4d
Dave
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| | | | | | | Author: | Ziegelmeister | | Posted: | Jan 6, 2022 13:50 | | Subject: | Re: What am I not getting? | | Viewed: | 63 times | | Topic: | Selling | |
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| In Selling, kurigan writes:
| | Current break down is:
Total 221,394 items in 13,872 lots in 254 categories.
My inventory total value (Original Price): US $20,057.94
My inventory total value after sale (Category Average): US $20,057.94
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This leapt off the screen at me.
Here's my snap shot:
Total 119,584 items in 3,358 lots in 124 categories.
My inventory total value (Original Price): US $25,197.93
My inventory total value after sale (Category Average): US $25,197.93
I have 54% of inventory you do (by pieces), but only 24% of the total lots, yet
my inventory values are 25% higher.
I could run some simulations to figure out how many one off pieces you have but
I can tell just by looking that it has to be a staggering amount. This means
a few things; people are overlooking your store because you don't have enough
of a certain part and the ones that do buy are taking up a ton of your time because
they may be buying several single pieces.
You're inventory is similar yet completely different than mine. I use the
same bins but mine are labeled B12, P12, T12 (f for Brick 1x2, Plate 1x2 and
Tile. Bricks are on the left third of one wall, plates in the middle third and
tiles on the final. Inside the bins they're stored by color. The 1x1 tile
box has large bags that contain colors, and inside that bag is the plain 1x1
square, the 1x1 slope, 1x1 half round, etc.. This has been particularly effective
since several of the MOC orders i've fulfilled might ask for a dozen or so
of each of these pieces and I can pull them all at the same time instead of going
to find the 1x1 slope bin and such. A side benefit to this naming system is
if I find a loose bag of dark brown 2x10 plates I don't have to cross reference
a database, I can just look up at the wall for the P210 box and toss them in.
As an aside;
I think you mentioned you do mostly used bricks(?), I saw that phrase used somewhere
in the thread. If not, and you're parting out new, do your research before
buying anything. It's not uncommon to see me standing in the toy section
at a retail store typing in set numbers in to bricklink looking for high ROI
sets. Some stores are good about running 20% off sales from time to time, so
I only search the part out value of those. They also move things to clearance
when sets are retired so you can get some sets for over 50% off.
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| | | | | Author: | crazylegoman | | Posted: | Jan 3, 2022 21:54 | | Subject: | Re: What am I not getting? | | Viewed: | 117 times | | Topic: | Selling | |
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| Selling new sets instead of parts can alleviate a lot of the headaches you mentioned.
You wouldn't get as many orders, but the ones you do get are generally higher
dollar ones, plus sets are so much easier to pull for an order than parts.
David
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| | | | | Author: | bricksonmove | | Posted: | Jan 3, 2022 23:29 | | Subject: | (Cancelled) | | Viewed: | 60 times | | Topic: | Selling | |
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| | (Cancelled) |
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| | | | | Author: | bricksonmove | | Posted: | Jan 3, 2022 23:33 | | Subject: | Re: What am I not getting? | | Viewed: | 99 times | | Topic: | Selling | |
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| In Selling, kurigan writes:
| | I need out of this business so bad, but I need to sell out my inventory first.
As much of it as I can as I still owe money back, plus a promised return on investment,
but the orders I get take too much to fill and I can't keep up. One of everything;
a $3 order takes me on an hour long tour of my inventory. What can I do?
I can't sell things any cheaper and the changing nature of the business has
made it impossible for me to make a liveable income. (Almost) No one places expensive
enough orders that don't take up to large a chunk of my work hours to allow
enough of them through at a time. I take a few orders, calculate the hours it
will take to satisfy them and I have to close the store after only a day or
two, yet I've only sold $100-$200. I've tried adjusting settings like
lot ratios/restrictions, minimum buys, opting out of rebrickable, but to little
to no avail. The more I do to try and encourage simpler orders, bulk buys, etc.
the more inconvenient it becomes to shop my store.
If ya can't tell, I'm at my whit's end and I just need to put it
out there incase there is a life line or something I'm missing that I'd
never find if I kept it to myself. I've been hard at this since 2016, trying
to make this a serious business and every year it gets more difficult. I can't
be the only struggling but how are you all handling it? What am I not getting?
Dave
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Hi Dave
Too chip in here the tubs and bag method works well for smaller sellers with
not many parts/lots but when you get bigger you need to go drawers as the other
poster's mention. Yes it can be a bit costly to set up. But the time you
save is massive which then slove's your 1st problem which allows you to open
more days as rather than spending 2-4 mins searching for a part in a tub and
counting etc. It will take ya less than a min to locate and count the qty etc.
Also if you are not using one already I would HIGHLY suggest using a multi order
picking program of some sort. what this does is groups all your orders together
to be picked at the same time so you only need to do 1 pass of your whole set
up. Rather than do 1 order at a time and multiple passes of your setup. Again
a massive time saver. If you are not doing this one already I would suggest
you look AT this ASAP as it will save you a ton of time and it very cheap and
quick to set up TODAY where the other suggestion will take you more time.
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| | | | | | | Author: | bricksonmove | | Posted: | Jan 3, 2022 23:40 | | Subject: | Re: What am I not getting? | | Viewed: | 107 times | | Topic: | Selling | |
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| In Selling, bricksonmove writes:
| | In Selling, kurigan writes:
| | I need out of this business so bad, but I need to sell out my inventory first.
As much of it as I can as I still owe money back, plus a promised return on investment,
but the orders I get take too much to fill and I can't keep up. One of everything;
a $3 order takes me on an hour long tour of my inventory. What can I do?
I can't sell things any cheaper and the changing nature of the business has
made it impossible for me to make a liveable income. (Almost) No one places expensive
enough orders that don't take up to large a chunk of my work hours to allow
enough of them through at a time. I take a few orders, calculate the hours it
will take to satisfy them and I have to close the store after only a day or
two, yet I've only sold $100-$200. I've tried adjusting settings like
lot ratios/restrictions, minimum buys, opting out of rebrickable, but to little
to no avail. The more I do to try and encourage simpler orders, bulk buys, etc.
the more inconvenient it becomes to shop my store.
If ya can't tell, I'm at my whit's end and I just need to put it
out there incase there is a life line or something I'm missing that I'd
never find if I kept it to myself. I've been hard at this since 2016, trying
to make this a serious business and every year it gets more difficult. I can't
be the only struggling but how are you all handling it? What am I not getting?
Dave
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Hi Dave
Too chip in here the tubs and bag method works well for smaller sellers with
not many parts/lots but when you get bigger you need to go drawers as the other
poster's mention. Yes it can be a bit costly to set up. But the time you
save is massive which then slove's your 1st problem which allows you to open
more days as rather than spending 2-4 mins searching for a part in a tub and
counting etc. It will take ya less than a min to locate and count the qty etc.
Also if you are not using one already I would HIGHLY suggest using a multi order
picking program of some sort. what this does is groups all your orders together
to be picked at the same time so you only need to do 1 pass of your whole set
up. Rather than do 1 order at a time and multiple passes of your setup. Again
a massive time saver. If you are not doing this one already I would suggest
you look AT this ASAP as it will save you a ton of time and it very cheap and
quick to set up TODAY where the other suggestion will take you more time.
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Just further to this your problem is not a bad thing too have that only opening
to 2 days is seeing you get more orders than you can handle. Most sellers would
kill to be in the same position. A few changes eg the multi order picker if
you are not using one already will solve a few of your issues pretty quick
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| | | | | | | Author: | Ziegelmeister | | Posted: | Jan 6, 2022 13:59 | | Subject: | Re: What am I not getting? | | Viewed: | 65 times | | Topic: | Selling | |
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| In Selling, bricksonmove writes:
| | Also if you are not using one already I would HIGHLY suggest using a multi order
picking program of some sort. what this does is groups all your orders together
to be picked at the same time so you only need to do 1 pass of your whole set
up. Rather than do 1 order at a time and multiple passes of your setup. Again
a massive time saver. If you are not doing this one already I would suggest
you look AT this ASAP as it will save you a ton of time and it very cheap and
quick to set up TODAY where the other suggestion will take you more time.
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Three part question;
1: Is there a way to sort an order by brick type instead of by color how it currently
works? Most of my large orders might have several different colors for 1x1 plates
and it's cumbersome to flip through the order while I've got the bin
open.
2: Do these picking programs do this for you?
3: If yes, can you point me in the right direction of one?
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| | | | | | | | | Author: | Shiny_Stuff | | Posted: | Jan 6, 2022 14:02 | | Subject: | Re: What am I not getting? | | Viewed: | 66 times | | Topic: | Selling | |
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| In Selling, Yellow.Brick writes:
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Three part question;
1: Is there a way to sort an order by brick type instead of by color how it currently
works? Most of my large orders might have several different colors for 1x1 plates
and it's cumbersome to flip through the order while I've got the bin
open.
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https://www.bricklink.com/orderSettings.asp
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| | | | | | | | | Author: | peregrinator | | Posted: | Jan 6, 2022 14:19 | | Subject: | Re: What am I not getting? | | Viewed: | 95 times | | Topic: | Selling | |
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| In Selling, Yellow.Brick writes:
| | 1: Is there a way to sort an order by brick type instead of by color how it currently
works? Most of my large orders might have several different colors for 1x1 plates
and it's cumbersome to flip through the order while I've got the bin
open.
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You can change the sorting of the orders you receive here:
https://www.bricklink.com/orderSettings.asp?viewFrom=P
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| | | | | | | | | | | Author: | Ziegelmeister | | Posted: | Jan 6, 2022 15:52 | | Subject: | Re: What am I not getting? | | Viewed: | 50 times | | Topic: | Selling | |
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| In Selling, peregrinator writes:
| | In Selling, Yellow.Brick writes:
| | 1: Is there a way to sort an order by brick type instead of by color how it currently
works? Most of my large orders might have several different colors for 1x1 plates
and it's cumbersome to flip through the order while I've got the bin
open.
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You can change the sorting of the orders you receive here:
https://www.bricklink.com/orderSettings.asp?viewFrom=P
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Thanks Shiny_Stuff and peregrinator. I'm too myopic sometimes and I was
only sniffing around the settings and order page, not the My BL page.
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| | | | | | | | | | | | | Author: | Shiny_Stuff | | Posted: | Jan 6, 2022 16:06 | | Subject: | Re: What am I not getting? | | Viewed: | 59 times | | Topic: | Selling | |
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| In Selling, Yellow.Brick writes:
| | In Selling, peregrinator writes:
| | In Selling, Yellow.Brick writes:
| | 1: Is there a way to sort an order by brick type instead of by color how it currently
works? Most of my large orders might have several different colors for 1x1 plates
and it's cumbersome to flip through the order while I've got the bin
open.
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You can change the sorting of the orders you receive here:
https://www.bricklink.com/orderSettings.asp?viewFrom=P
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Thanks Shiny_Stuff and peregrinator. I'm too myopic sometimes and I was
only sniffing around the settings and order page, not the My BL page.
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It's not just you. There are about 418 different places to make changes
to settings on BrickLink. haha
The one setting I have spent a lot of time searching for from time to time is
the one for a seller's Inventory detail page that will either give you a
price guide pop-up or a full re-direct to the catalog page. It would probably
take me 6 or 7 minutes to find that setting right now.
____
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| | | | | Author: | BrickenbergNC | | Posted: | Jan 4, 2022 02:17 | | Subject: | Re: What am I not getting? | | Viewed: | 113 times | | Topic: | Selling | |
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| In Selling, kurigan writes:
| | I need out of this business so bad, but I need to sell out my inventory first.
As much of it as I can as I still owe money back, plus a promised return on investment,
but the orders I get take too much to fill and I can't keep up. One of everything;
a $3 order takes me on an hour long tour of my inventory. What can I do?
I can't sell things any cheaper and the changing nature of the business has
made it impossible for me to make a liveable income. (Almost) No one places expensive
enough orders that don't take up to large a chunk of my work hours to allow
enough of them through at a time. I take a few orders, calculate the hours it
will take to satisfy them and I have to close the store after only a day or
two, yet I've only sold $100-$200. I've tried adjusting settings like
lot ratios/restrictions, minimum buys, opting out of rebrickable, but to little
to no avail. The more I do to try and encourage simpler orders, bulk buys, etc.
the more inconvenient it becomes to shop my store.
If ya can't tell, I'm at my whit's end and I just need to put it
out there incase there is a life line or something I'm missing that I'd
never find if I kept it to myself. I've been hard at this since 2016, trying
to make this a serious business and every year it gets more difficult. I can't
be the only struggling but how are you all handling it? What am I not getting?
Dave
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Get rid of invoice only shipping. I know that I am not alone in avoiding most
stores that don't have instant checkout. Set up instant checkout with a minimum
of $5 or so for shipping and maybe include a free shipping offer for orders over
25-30 to encourage larger orders until you can get the store more profitable.
Your terms could also be better organized and condensed. A good many people won't
read them anyway, and those that do will appreciate a more straightforward approach
to spelling them out.
Build depth on most sold/most wanted parts (view here: https://www.bricklink.com/catalogStats.asp).
Some parts, especially with your lot count, can be listed for much higher than
6ma or going rate. Basic parts like bricks, tiles, and plates all do well in
lbg, dbg, black, white, etc.
For the majority of 2021 I had about 1/7 of the number of lots that you have
yet was able to have an average order of nearly $40 for the year with the lot
count on each order averaging just under 6. With a mostly used inventory, it
could be hard to replicate that, but it isn't impossible.
Be picky in what you purchase to sell. Just because it's cheap doesn't
mean you should buy it.
I'm not quite at the point of making a living selling LEGO. But spending
maybe 15-20 hours a week (and that's probably on the high end) I was able
to profit well above $20k last year. I do sell on more than just Bricklink but
the same principles work across all platforms. Figure out what people want to
buy, find a way to source it and still make money, make it easy for people to
buy with good terms and instant checkout, and be well organized so you can spend
as little time as possible fulfilling orders.
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| | | | | Author: | Teup | | Posted: | Jan 6, 2022 10:58 | | Subject: | Re: What am I not getting? | | Viewed: | 82 times | | Topic: | Selling | |
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| In Selling, kurigan writes:
| | I need out of this business so bad, but I need to sell out my inventory first.
As much of it as I can as I still owe money back, plus a promised return on investment,
but the orders I get take too much to fill and I can't keep up. One of everything;
a $3 order takes me on an hour long tour of my inventory. What can I do?
I can't sell things any cheaper and the changing nature of the business has
made it impossible for me to make a liveable income. (Almost) No one places expensive
enough orders that don't take up to large a chunk of my work hours to allow
enough of them through at a time. I take a few orders, calculate the hours it
will take to satisfy them and I have to close the store after only a day or
two, yet I've only sold $100-$200. I've tried adjusting settings like
lot ratios/restrictions, minimum buys, opting out of rebrickable, but to little
to no avail. The more I do to try and encourage simpler orders, bulk buys, etc.
the more inconvenient it becomes to shop my store.
If ya can't tell, I'm at my whit's end and I just need to put it
out there incase there is a life line or something I'm missing that I'd
never find if I kept it to myself. I've been hard at this since 2016, trying
to make this a serious business and every year it gets more difficult. I can't
be the only struggling but how are you all handling it? What am I not getting?
Dave
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I don't have time to join in on the discussions on inventory sorting methods
(I strongly prefer catalog based sorting over remark based sorting btw), but
just a remark on another aspect of your issue:
The parts vs lots factor determines to a large extend how labour intensive your
orders are going to be. I have the same number of lots as you do or less, but
5x the stock. The result is that I get bigger orders with fewer lots. So, if,
besides inventory storage, you want to improve the efficiency on the orders side
of things, it's better to buy more of the same stock so you can sell larger
lots.
Warning: That means having fewer lots (unless you just grow!), and that means
fewer buyers, since lot count is very important for drawing buyers. But sometimes
life is better getting less businesss, if it means you make more money per hour
on the orders that you do get.
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| | | | | Author: | kurigan | | Posted: | Jan 8, 2022 03:27 | | Subject: | Re: What am I not getting? | | Viewed: | 34 times | | Topic: | Selling | |
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| some good advice here and I've take bits of it away to consider and try out
on my own. thanks for that. a lot of it, though, seems to be geared towards propping-up
or stabilizing my business for future sales, like revamping my inventory system
with new equipment or buying new/different inventory, but that's just not
happening. I opened by saying "I need out" and I wasn't kidding. the determination
to leave this endeavor behind is based on a number of carefully considered factors,
but profitability should be considered chief amongst them as it is quantifiable
and essential. I'm almost convinced that something like bulk lots, could
simplify the orders I get, but am concerned that it may slow down traffic and
draw out the (near) total sell-out I'm attempting. I'll try it out and
see how it goes, but that's what I mean by "out" and "life line". How can
I reach my goal, of being done and my debt paid off, sooner? There doesn't
'have' to be an answer. If no one knows, that's OK. No one should
feel obligated to solve my problem.
a few things:
when I say I've sold $200 in a couple of days, that's not $200 profit
in two days, that would be pretty great. that's just the invoice total. A
lot has already gone in to those bricks, before they sell which that money needs
to cover first.
I did. I promised a return on investment and it would have been paid back a while
ago, had I not needed to use store profits to pay for other expenses.
My other reasons for wanting to leave the business are nothing I want to go into.
it will suffice to say, that; on one hand I had a very different idea of how
things would play out when I started and, that, coupled with a changing market,
have caused me no end of frustration and difficulty. A lot of you have your stores
down to a science and it works for you. My model is broken, though, and it's
time to move on anyway.
All that being said; if you truly have brilliant inspiration from on high as
to how I can bring this all to a good end, more quickly, by all means, please
enlighten me. otherwise, don't feel that anyone has to solve my problem.
I just figured, i wouldn't hurt to ask.
Thanks, again, all!
Dave
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USA, New Jersey
United Kingdom, England
Canada, Quebec
Norway, Rogaland
Netherlands, Zuid-Holland
Australia, Victoria
