We recently received our 5000th feedback and upgraded to the orange brick! We've
been at this purposely since 2019 and have shipped out 8754 orders. We have no
social media presence, no advertising etc. and have pretty much lived in the
shadows but I'd like to introduce myself and my store and get to know everyone
a little better and become a bigger part of this amazing community.
My name is Mike, I am located in southwest Missouri, and my full-time gig is
a high school teacher. My wife handles most all of the picking and shipping and
a lot of the listing of new inventory. This store allows her to be a stay at
home mom, put in a couple of hours of work each day and then attend to the rest
of her obligations. I have three young children who also help out with picking
orders and things like minifigure identification.
My store's name is 0 to 60 #fastestshipping, and obviously that fastest shipping
claim is self-appointed. There may be stores that get packages out faster than
we do but there can't be many. We ship everything same day or next day for
orders that come in overnight. USPS does a good job from my location and a majority
of packages will reach their destination within 48 hours of ordering (I haven't
done a study with USPS Ground Advantage to see if that has slowed down from First-Class).
I am really proud of my storage system and the speed of which it allows us to
pull pieces. I store my inventory in 440 wooden drawers 24"x24"x2.5"
which I made out of recycled pallet and shipping box lumber (see picture).
My prices are quite high. This is a second job for me and a part-time job for
my wife, so we try to keep things manageable. We average around 6 orders a day
/ around 270 pieces a day / around 70 lots per day. With our current structure
my wife can spend a couple of hours per day getting the orders out and adding
200/300 pieces to our inventory so our store can maintain its current size. If
our prices were lower I'm afraid we'd have a hard time keeping up. Finding
that correct balance has been the most interesting part of this whole journey.
I'm sure this is more than you cared to know about us but thanks to this
community for everything and nice to meet you all!
It's always good to read a bit about other sellers. I also started around
2019 and do this very much part time. I've got about 2700 orders and averaging
2-3 per day with about 30 items and 20 lots per day so I spend significantly
less time packing orders (usually 30 minutes or less). I also try to get
out by the next day via USPS. I'm usually hovering between 8,000 and 10,000
parts so my prices tend to be on the lower side to maintain the quantity of orders
and profit margin that I'm comfortable with.
Cheers!
-Blockbusting Bricks
In Off Topic, mike1burns writes:
We recently received our 5000th feedback and upgraded to the orange brick! We've
been at this purposely since 2019 and have shipped out 8754 orders. We have no
social media presence, no advertising etc. and have pretty much lived in the
shadows but I'd like to introduce myself and my store and get to know everyone
a little better and become a bigger part of this amazing community.
My name is Mike, I am located in southwest Missouri, and my full-time gig is
a high school teacher. My wife handles most all of the picking and shipping and
a lot of the listing of new inventory. This store allows her to be a stay at
home mom, put in a couple of hours of work each day and then attend to the rest
of her obligations. I have three young children who also help out with picking
orders and things like minifigure identification.
My store's name is 0 to 60 #fastestshipping, and obviously that fastest shipping
claim is self-appointed. There may be stores that get packages out faster than
we do but there can't be many. We ship everything same day or next day for
orders that come in overnight. USPS does a good job from my location and a majority
of packages will reach their destination within 48 hours of ordering (I haven't
done a study with USPS Ground Advantage to see if that has slowed down from First-Class).
I am really proud of my storage system and the speed of which it allows us to
pull pieces. I store my inventory in 440 wooden drawers 24"x24"x2.5"
which I made out of recycled pallet and shipping box lumber (see picture).
My prices are quite high. This is a second job for me and a part-time job for
my wife, so we try to keep things manageable. We average around 6 orders a day
/ around 270 pieces a day / around 70 lots per day. With our current structure
my wife can spend a couple of hours per day getting the orders out and adding
200/300 pieces to our inventory so our store can maintain its current size. If
our prices were lower I'm afraid we'd have a hard time keeping up. Finding
that correct balance has been the most interesting part of this whole journey.
I'm sure this is more than you cared to know about us but thanks to this
community for everything and nice to meet you all!
We recently received our 5000th feedback and upgraded to the orange brick! We've
been at this purposely since 2019 and have shipped out 8754 orders. We have no
social media presence, no advertising etc. and have pretty much lived in the
shadows but I'd like to introduce myself and my store and get to know everyone
a little better and become a bigger part of this amazing community.
My name is Mike, I am located in southwest Missouri, and my full-time gig is
a high school teacher. My wife handles most all of the picking and shipping and
a lot of the listing of new inventory. This store allows her to be a stay at
home mom, put in a couple of hours of work each day and then attend to the rest
of her obligations. I have three young children who also help out with picking
orders and things like minifigure identification.
My store's name is 0 to 60 #fastestshipping, and obviously that fastest shipping
claim is self-appointed. There may be stores that get packages out faster than
we do but there can't be many. We ship everything same day or next day for
orders that come in overnight. USPS does a good job from my location and a majority
of packages will reach their destination within 48 hours of ordering (I haven't
done a study with USPS Ground Advantage to see if that has slowed down from First-Class).
I am really proud of my storage system and the speed of which it allows us to
pull pieces. I store my inventory in 440 wooden drawers 24"x24"x2.5"
which I made out of recycled pallet and shipping box lumber (see picture).
My prices are quite high. This is a second job for me and a part-time job for
my wife, so we try to keep things manageable. We average around 6 orders a day
/ around 270 pieces a day / around 70 lots per day. With our current structure
my wife can spend a couple of hours per day getting the orders out and adding
200/300 pieces to our inventory so our store can maintain its current size. If
our prices were lower I'm afraid we'd have a hard time keeping up. Finding
that correct balance has been the most interesting part of this whole journey.
I'm sure this is more than you cared to know about us but thanks to this
community for everything and nice to meet you all!
Great to meet you. Also looks like you have a good selection of new and used
parts. What does it look like inside the wooden drawers?
Some of the drawers are filled with just one lot, some have multiple lots in
zipper bags.
In Off Topic, wahiggin writes:
In Off Topic, mike1burns writes:
We recently received our 5000th feedback and upgraded to the orange brick! We've
been at this purposely since 2019 and have shipped out 8754 orders. We have no
social media presence, no advertising etc. and have pretty much lived in the
shadows but I'd like to introduce myself and my store and get to know everyone
a little better and become a bigger part of this amazing community.
My name is Mike, I am located in southwest Missouri, and my full-time gig is
a high school teacher. My wife handles most all of the picking and shipping and
a lot of the listing of new inventory. This store allows her to be a stay at
home mom, put in a couple of hours of work each day and then attend to the rest
of her obligations. I have three young children who also help out with picking
orders and things like minifigure identification.
My store's name is 0 to 60 #fastestshipping, and obviously that fastest shipping
claim is self-appointed. There may be stores that get packages out faster than
we do but there can't be many. We ship everything same day or next day for
orders that come in overnight. USPS does a good job from my location and a majority
of packages will reach their destination within 48 hours of ordering (I haven't
done a study with USPS Ground Advantage to see if that has slowed down from First-Class).
I am really proud of my storage system and the speed of which it allows us to
pull pieces. I store my inventory in 440 wooden drawers 24"x24"x2.5"
which I made out of recycled pallet and shipping box lumber (see picture).
My prices are quite high. This is a second job for me and a part-time job for
my wife, so we try to keep things manageable. We average around 6 orders a day
/ around 270 pieces a day / around 70 lots per day. With our current structure
my wife can spend a couple of hours per day getting the orders out and adding
200/300 pieces to our inventory so our store can maintain its current size. If
our prices were lower I'm afraid we'd have a hard time keeping up. Finding
that correct balance has been the most interesting part of this whole journey.
I'm sure this is more than you cared to know about us but thanks to this
community for everything and nice to meet you all!
Great to meet you. Also looks like you have a good selection of new and used
parts. What does it look like inside the wooden drawers?
I appreciate the photo of the drawers, a lot of people are doing the Akro-Mils
small plastic storage bins, so I haven't seen anyone share the larger drawer
approach for the whole inventory.
I feel like the larger drawer setup is the way I want to go eventually. I plan
on designing and building my setup too, but was thinking more like 5-inch high
drawers for more vertical space and increased lots per drawer. I started looking
into drawer slides that enable telescoping the whole drawer out to see everything
at once, but they aren't cheap. I only recently opened my store so I have
some time to research, design, and estimate the cost.
How do you like your drawers, how far can you pull them out and still be supported
on their own? Is there anything you would change if you had to do it all over
again?
I think 5" is to deep, some stuff will get buried. I put a false back in
the drawers about 3" from the actual back. I can pull the drawers out to
the false back without worry. Behind the false back I store things like decorated
pieces, light gray, brown, etc. - stuff I want to keep seperated. My drawers
actually slide on the drawer bottoms so I didn't have to buy any drawer slides.
A little wax and they slide really well.
In Off Topic, BrickingYard writes:
Hi Mike, thanks for sharing.
I appreciate the photo of the drawers, a lot of people are doing the Akro-Mils
small plastic storage bins, so I haven't seen anyone share the larger drawer
approach for the whole inventory.
I feel like the larger drawer setup is the way I want to go eventually. I plan
on designing and building my setup too, but was thinking more like 5-inch high
drawers for more vertical space and increased lots per drawer. I started looking
into drawer slides that enable telescoping the whole drawer out to see everything
at once, but they aren't cheap. I only recently opened my store so I have
some time to research, design, and estimate the cost.
How do you like your drawers, how far can you pull them out and still be supported
on their own? Is there anything you would change if you had to do it all over
again?
With the deeper height, I would have removable containers and some color separation
to make everything easier to find, but again like with the sliders it would make
it more expensive to build. You have a really smart design for cost savings.
I appreciate the wax tip and the pictures you posted.
With the deeper height, I would have removable containers and some color separation
to make everything easier to find, but again like with the sliders it would make
it more expensive to build. You have a really smart design for cost savings.
I appreciate the wax tip and the pictures you posted.
Don’t use separations, use (open) boxes, made from anything (plastic, cardboard,
or even paper; recycled boxes, cut bottles, paper cups…).
That way:
— you aren’t stuck with a given configuration,
— you don’t have to make the separations mobile / to prepare multiple positions
for them,
— you can take the containers out:
— to pick or count or fill,
— to re-organize quickly (no need to scoop parts, just move the containers).
USA, Missouri
Canada, Ontario
)
)
)
)
)
France, Nouvelle-Aquitaine