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| | | Author: | DaddyAndKnox  | | Posted: | May 8, 2023 12:43 | | Subject: | Easy Buy Question & Buying Parts Question | | Viewed: | 83 times | | Topic: | Help | |
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| I am needing some help please!
When I click Easy Buy on a parts list I need, a lot of times it will show me
a store that is not based in the United States. How do I change this?
Also, and this is the most important part. When clicking Easy Buy, or clicking
“buy all” on a parts list, I want to view the CHEAPEST WAY to complete my order,
even if that’s from 4 different vendors. Surely there’s a way to do this? For
example, I have a MOC I am trying to buy parts for my son, when I go to my list
and select that list and hit buy all, the results it returns show me the store
that had every part I need in stock. This doesn’t really do me any good. The
last time I did this, it brought back a store that had every part but it was
going to cost me $200 to get it from them. I then manually started clicking stores,
and looking at the prices, and eventually got it down to about $40 bucks from
3 different stores, with each charging about $5 in shipping. So by manually clicking
around for 30 minutes, I was able to get the order for a total of $55 from 3
different stores. Is there no way that the website will show me the cheapest
way to complete my order, no matter if it’s from 1 vendor or 5? The current way
(or at least what I know) there’s no way for me to know if I am actually getting
the parts I need for the best price. The manual way I described above is better
than the default, but it’s still not really scientific, and would take days to
click through every vendor, and actually get the best price.
Example 1: I am buying 155 parts total. I click buy all, and there’s only 1 store
that has all 155, but the price is $200.
Example 2 (done manually). I am buying 155 parts. I see that there’s a vendor
that has 140 of them for $30 bucks. I then still need 15 parts. I find a store
that has all 15 remaining that I need for $10 bucks. So now I have got the same
parts for $40 (plus shipping which is usually $5 per order, so my total price
out the door is $50. It’s possible I could have done this for cheaper, but that
means clicking through hundreds of stores (or maybe thousand) and I would have
to do that virtually for every result.
Sorry for the long post, but I am new to collecting Legos. I tried to find these
answers by myself, and even went through my settings.
I am sure there’s a way to do this, but I can’t figure it out!
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| | | | | Author: | peregrinator | | Posted: | May 8, 2023 13:05 | | Subject: | Re: Easy Buy Question & Buying Parts Question | | Viewed: | 32 times | | Topic: | Help | |
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| My advice would be to use the "Buy All" button from your Wanted list,
and Auto-select the stores. You can filter stores based on location.
In Help, DaddyAndKnox writes:
| | I am needing some help please!
When I click Easy Buy on a parts list I need, a lot of times it will show me
a store that is not based in the United States. How do I change this?
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| | | | | Author: | wildchicken13 | | Posted: | May 8, 2023 13:08 | | Subject: | Re: Easy Buy Question & Buying Parts Question | | Viewed: | 33 times | | Topic: | Help | |
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| In Help, DaddyAndKnox writes:
| | When I click Easy Buy on a parts list I need, a lot of times it will show me
a store that is not based in the United States. How do I change this?
|
Use the "Buy All" feature rather than "Easy Buy" (see image below
or go directly to https://www.bricklink.com/v2/wanted/buy.page ).
Then, filter by store location to only see stores in the United States.
| | The manual way I described above is better
than the default, but it’s still not really scientific, and would take days to
click through every vendor, and actually get the best price.
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Exactly. There are countless ways to fill an order, even for a small wanted list.
In order to save time, the algorithm doesn't compare every possible option,
so the result is not necessarily the cheapest or even the fewest stores.
In short, you can either let the algorithm do the work for you, but the result
won't necessarily be optimal, or you can search for parts manually and get
a better (though still not necessarily optimal) price.
Hope that helps.
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| | | | | Author: | SylvainLS | | Posted: | May 8, 2023 13:08 | | Subject: | Re: Easy Buy Question & Buying Parts Question | | Viewed: | 43 times | | Topic: | Help | |
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| Hi,
In Help, DaddyAndKnox writes:
| | I am needing some help please!
When I click Easy Buy on a parts list I need, a lot of times it will show me
a store that is not based in the United States. How do I change this?
|
Easy Buy has no filter (“easy” = dumb).
Use the Buy page and Auto-select instead.
Either:
— open the Wanted List, click the green Buy All button,
— or go directly to it (Want menu, Buy): https://www.bricklink.com/v2/wanted/buy.page
See the help page: https://www.bricklink.com/help.asp?helpID=2445
| | Also, and this is the most important part. When clicking Easy Buy, or clicking
“buy all” on a parts list, I want to view the CHEAPEST WAY to complete my order,
[…]
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Easy Buy and Auto-select try to find the “best” solution.
Three things to take into account:
0. As said above, Easy Buy has no filter, use Auto-select.
You may also least-favorite stores you don’t want to buy from but that keep
coming in results, at least temporarilly.
1. “Best” is subjective. Prices are of course a parameter but the algorithms
also take into account feedback (don’t ask me how) and an evaluation of shipping
costs (shipping costs are not known to the algorithms, even for stores with Auto-invoice,
so, according to what admins told us, they take an average of costs of shipping
between the two addresses).
2. It’s an optimisation problem and the search space is too big to get the exact
best solution, so corners are cut and you get an approximation.
Sometimes, including/excluding one lot can change the whole results. Sometimes
not.
So, use the algorithm as an help, especially for expensive & rare parts, and
then complete your needs once you’ve found a few stores.
Another thing, it seems the parts in colour “Not-Applicable” (which means “Any”
for Wanted List searches) are not well fulfilled by the algorithms (they don’t
pick the cheapest solution). Better not include these parts in the searches
first.
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| | | | | | | Author: | ghyde | | Posted: | May 8, 2023 15:58 | | Subject: | Re: Easy Buy Question & Buying Parts Question | | Viewed: | 30 times | | Topic: | Help | |
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| In Help, SylvainLS writes:
| | Hi,
In Help, DaddyAndKnox writes:
| | I am needing some help please!
When I click Easy Buy on a parts list I need, a lot of times it will show me
a store that is not based in the United States. How do I change this?
|
Easy Buy has no filter (“easy” = dumb).
Use the Buy page and Auto-select instead.
Either:
— open the Wanted List, click the green Buy All button,
— or go directly to it (Want menu, Buy): https://www.bricklink.com/v2/wanted/buy.page
See the help page: https://www.bricklink.com/help.asp?helpID=2445
| | Also, and this is the most important part. When clicking Easy Buy, or clicking
“buy all” on a parts list, I want to view the CHEAPEST WAY to complete my order,
[…]
|
Easy Buy and Auto-select try to find the “best” solution.
Three things to take into account:
0. As said above, Easy Buy has no filter, use Auto-select.
You may also least-favorite stores you don’t want to buy from but that keep
coming in results, at least temporarilly.
1. “Best” is subjective. Prices are of course a parameter but the algorithms
also take into account feedback (don’t ask me how) and an evaluation of shipping
costs (shipping costs are not known to the algorithms, even for stores with Auto-invoice,
so, according to what admins told us, they take an average of costs of shipping
between the two addresses).
2. It’s an optimisation problem and the search space is too big to get the exact
best solution, so corners are cut and you get an approximation.
Sometimes, including/excluding one lot can change the whole results. Sometimes
not.
So, use the algorithm as an help, especially for expensive & rare parts, and
then complete your needs once you’ve found a few stores.
Another thing, it seems the parts in colour “Not-Applicable” (which means “Any”
for Wanted List searches) are not well fulfilled by the algorithms (they don’t
pick the cheapest solution). Better not include these parts in the searches
first.
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Searching for the lowest priced option sounds like something a computer would
do, doesn't it? It's not that easy when the computer has to potentially
process hundreds or thousands of requests on a site.
The only way I know of to narrow down the options would be to limit the number
of parts in a Wanted list to a number achievable in terms of computations needed
to process it.
One can always break the Wanted list into smaller individual Wanted lists. I
try not to put too many items into one Wanted list. Doing more than a few can
skew the results you will get.
Hope that helps DaddyAndKnox understand the situation a bit better!
Cheers ...
ghyde
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| | | | | | | | | Author: | SylvainLS | | Posted: | May 8, 2023 16:32 | | Subject: | Re: Easy Buy Question & Buying Parts Question | | Viewed: | 25 times | | Topic: | Help | |
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| In Help, ghyde writes:
| | […]
One can always break the Wanted list into smaller individual Wanted lists. I
try not to put too many items into one Wanted list. Doing more than a few can
skew the results you will get.
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No need to create lots of Wanted Lists.
You can (de)select items from a Wanted List (or pick items from multiple WLs)
on the Buy page, using the Wanted Items tab on the left.
There, you can also “lock” items (the icon is a lock…) to be “required” to better
filter the stores before using Auto-select.
Play with it, it’s the best way to learn.
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USA, Texas
France, Nouvelle-Aquitaine
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