Bricklink Store Sizes

[Ed Mack]

Jeff and I want to pick the brain of all of you Bricklink store owners.  What would consider the piece counts for store sizes.  For example...How many pieces does a large Bricklink store carry?  A medium store?  A small store?  An X-Large store?  Thanks.

[Alcarin]

I do not know or have an idea of the X size or large size stores, but I am quite sure that anyone who has less than 2000 pieces can easily beconsidered small store....

 

From my experience shopping there in the last 2 years.

[Alpinemaps]

I consider myself a pretty small store. I've only got 3100 pieces (500 lots) in stock right now. One of the stores I order from, that I consider to be a "big store" has over 11,000 lots.

[Taco Tuesday]

I've got just over 40k pieces in my store, with more to part out, and I get maybe 2-3 orders/week. If you go to the search tab and then the find stores tab under that you can see a list of all the stores and you can sort them by part count or lot count.

[Guest betsy805]

I consider myself medium-ish with 18k items (3565 lots).  I do a fair bit of orders probably because my store focuses on figures and accessories more than individual pieces.

Edited September 7, 2014 by betsy805

[DadsAFOL]

This is harder to classify than you might expect.  The first reason is regional access.  In Germany, BL stores have access to one or more gray sources (or at least sources they play close to the vest), and you have multiple stores competing with 1+ million parts.  ChromeBricks has about 5.8m parts right now.  Outside of Germany, there is no parts source available to sellers, so a large store is probably 500k+.  The critical mass to sustain regular orders seems to be about 50-60k, so I'd say that 50k-500k are "medium" sized stores.  5k-50k are "small, but serious stores".  Less than 5k are usually hobby sellers trying to unload excess parts from their collections or make a quick buck.

 

The second issue is lot quality and lot diversity.  Because there is no easy source (excluding Germany), medium and large stores build their inventories up in different ways.  Some stores are aggressive parters, buying 20+ copies of a set at a time and parting them in.  The best example of this is PBD  which was "going out of business" for a year and liquidating but changed their mind recently.  The challenge with this model is that the demand for specific parts such as basic 1x4 bricks does not match the distribution of those parts in sets.  So your store ends up holding 20x lime wedges for years while the 20x blue 1x4's will sell within a week.  Over time, this leads to huge inventories (PBD is 2.3m) but little of it is liquid.  Other stores have old recycler stock that is lingering.  An example of this is Lonely Brick which has 1.1m parts, but 20% of that number is in 4 lots.  Anyone need 70,000 reddish brown 1x1 cones?  Another band of sellers are PaB wall miners.  The majority of their store inventory comes from buying PaB cases from LBR stores (although Lego is really trying to weed this out with changes to the policy this year).  This allows them to build up decent inventory quantities, but the variety of lots available is the same across many stores, so the price competition on those lots can be fierce (read: no margin).  Every store finds their niche, which makes it such a fascinating marketplace.  We try to use a balance of methods that keeps our inventory diversified and attractive to buyers.  We've found that its really hard for us to keep more than 1m parts in inventory because they turn over faster than we can restock.

 

An alternate way of looking at BL store sizes is to analyze selling feedback volumes for the past month.  You can see the sellers ranked by feedback here.  "Large" stores are getting 200+ feedback per month, which equates to roughly about 300 orders per month.  "Medium" would be 100-200.  "Small" would be 20-100.  "Hobby" would be less than 20.  When you put the inventory number side by side with the order volume number, it sheds more light.  For example, Sir Troy has 1m parts but only 50 feedbacks posted in the last month, meaning that his store is not very active despite the parts count.

 

If you end up publishing data on this, I'd be very interested in reading the findings.  -Jason

[Jeff Mack]

This is harder to classify than you might expect.  The first reason is regional access.  In Germany, BL stores have access to one or more gray sources (or at least sources they play close to the vest), and you have multiple stores competing with 1+ million parts.  ChromeBricks has about 5.8m parts right now.  Outside of Germany, there is no parts source available to sellers, so a large store is probably 500k+.  The critical mass to sustain regular orders seems to be about 50-60k, so I'd say that 50k-500k are "medium" sized stores.  5k-50k are "small, but serious stores".  Less than 5k are usually hobby sellers trying to unload excess parts from their collections or make a quick buck.

 

The second issue is lot quality and lot diversity.  Because there is no easy source (excluding Germany), medium and large stores build their inventories up in different ways.  Some stores are aggressive parters, buying 20+ copies of a set at a time and parting them in.  The best example of this is PBD  which was "going out of business" for a year and liquidating but changed their mind recently.  The challenge with this model is that the demand for specific parts such as basic 1x4 bricks does not match the distribution of those parts in sets.  So your store ends up holding 20x lime wedges for years while the 20x blue 1x4's will sell within a week.  Over time, this leads to huge inventories (PBD is 2.3m) but little of it is liquid.  Other stores have old recycler stock that is lingering.  An example of this is Lonely Brick which has 1.1m parts, but 20% of that number is in 4 lots.  Anyone need 70,000 reddish brown 1x1 cones?  Another band of sellers are PaB wall miners.  The majority of their store inventory comes from buying PaB cases from LBR stores (although Lego is really trying to weed this out with changes to the policy this year).  This allows them to build up decent inventory quantities, but the variety of lots available is the same across many stores, so the price competition on those lots can be fierce (read: no margin).  Every store finds their niche, which makes it such a fascinating marketplace.  We try to use a balance of methods that keeps our inventory diversified and attractive to buyers.  We've found that its really hard for us to keep more than 1m parts in inventory because they turn over faster than we can restock.

 

An alternate way of looking at BL store sizes is to analyze selling feedback volumes for the past month.  You can see the sellers ranked by feedback here.  "Large" stores are getting 200+ feedback per month, which equates to roughly about 300 orders per month.  "Medium" would be 100-200.  "Small" would be 20-100.  "Hobby" would be less than 20.  When you put the inventory number side by side with the order volume number, it sheds more light.  For example, Sir Troy has 1m parts but only 50 feedbacks posted in the last month, meaning that his store is not very active despite the parts count.

 

If you end up publishing data on this, I'd be very interested in reading the findings.  -Jason

 

Great post.  Thank you for your information.

[Brickshopper]

I would like to ad dadsafol is one of the best stores we have ordered from thanks for sharing the info and for the great service on BL.

[Ed Mack]

I would like to ad dadsafol is one of the best stores we have ordered from thanks for sharing the info and for the great service on BL.

Yes, I appreciate the reponse

 

This is harder to classify than you might expect.  The first reason is regional access.  In Germany, BL stores have access to one or more gray sources (or at least sources they play close to the vest), and you have multiple stores competing with 1+ million parts.  ChromeBricks has about 5.8m parts right now.  Outside of Germany, there is no parts source available to sellers, so a large store is probably 500k+.  The critical mass to sustain regular orders seems to be about 50-60k, so I'd say that 50k-500k are "medium" sized stores.  5k-50k are "small, but serious stores".  Less than 5k are usually hobby sellers trying to unload excess parts from their collections or make a quick buck.

 

The second issue is lot quality and lot diversity.  Because there is no easy source (excluding Germany), medium and large stores build their inventories up in different ways.  Some stores are aggressive parters, buying 20+ copies of a set at a time and parting them in.  The best example of this is PBD  which was "going out of business" for a year and liquidating but changed their mind recently.  The challenge with this model is that the demand for specific parts such as basic 1x4 bricks does not match the distribution of those parts in sets.  So your store ends up holding 20x lime wedges for years while the 20x blue 1x4's will sell within a week.  Over time, this leads to huge inventories (PBD is 2.3m) but little of it is liquid.  Other stores have old recycler stock that is lingering.  An example of this is Lonely Brick which has 1.1m parts, but 20% of that number is in 4 lots.  Anyone need 70,000 reddish brown 1x1 cones?  Another band of sellers are PaB wall miners.  The majority of their store inventory comes from buying PaB cases from LBR stores (although Lego is really trying to weed this out with changes to the policy this year).  This allows them to build up decent inventory quantities, but the variety of lots available is the same across many stores, so the price competition on those lots can be fierce (read: no margin).  Every store finds their niche, which makes it such a fascinating marketplace.  We try to use a balance of methods that keeps our inventory diversified and attractive to buyers.  We've found that its really hard for us to keep more than 1m parts in inventory because they turn over faster than we can restock.

 

An alternate way of looking at BL store sizes is to analyze selling feedback volumes for the past month.  You can see the sellers ranked by feedback here.  "Large" stores are getting 200+ feedback per month, which equates to roughly about 300 orders per month.  "Medium" would be 100-200.  "Small" would be 20-100.  "Hobby" would be less than 20.  When you put the inventory number side by side with the order volume number, it sheds more light.  For example, Sir Troy has 1m parts but only 50 feedbacks posted in the last month, meaning that his store is not very active despite the parts count.

 

If you end up publishing data on this, I'd be very interested in reading the findings.  -Jason

Thanks for the informative post.  It's more than that.  We are researching how to best compete with Bricklink and give sellers a sweet deal.  We are opening a discussion on the topic here.  Feel free to join us.

[Migration]

 We are researching how to best compete with Bricklink and give sellers a sweet deal.  We are opening a discussion on the topic here.  Feel free to join us.

By updating the user interface and making the site more user friendly you will go a long way towards that goal. Using Bricklink is like a trip back in time as far as web sites go.

[Ed Mack]

By updating the user interface and making the site more user friendly you will go a long way towards that goal. Using Bricklink is like a trip back in time as far as web sites go.

That is a given.  It's hard to knock the basic mechanics of Bricklink.  What we are looking for is how to compete on a money basis.  Do we charge a percentage or have a subscription type of service?

[Fcbarcelona101]

That is a given. It's hard to knock the basic mechanics of Bricklink. What we are looking for is how to compete on a money basis. Do we charge a percentage or have a subscription type of service?

Would it be favorable to do a subscription fee based on the number of lots and the number of individual pieces? It could be worth it for those larger stores to only pay once and forget about it till they grow a little more.

[chinothegeeko]

It's hard to beat 3% fees when items sell and then fees aren't due until fees are over $5. However I have total faith in the Mack Attack.

I love competition. It's better for everybody

[RyanGazelle]

My store has around 6000 pieces at the minute. 

When I had around 10000 I used to get 1 order per week roughly (keenly priced).

The biggest store in the UK has around 1 million bricks.

I guess it would be a full time job at around 500 000 bricks.

[@rtisan]

I`d classify them probably as follows:

Small - Under 30k parts

Medium - Under 30-100k parts

Large - 100-400k

X-Large - North of 400k. That`s a lot of pieces no matter how you look at it, then you have stores with 1million +. ChromeBricks has 4million ish if I remember correctly, that`s insane. A couple million $`s worth of merchandise, because they sell tons of sets as well. 

Edited September 7, 2014 by @rtisan

[DoNotInsertIntoMouth]

I believe Justafrog said they were shooting for 1M pieces in their store to get really in the game. But I didn't think too many had more than that.

[justafrog]

I believe Justafrog said they were shooting for 1M pieces in their store to get really in the game. But I didn't think too many had more than that.

 

To get in the game and make enough money to support us, Bricklink only, we'll need about 400,000 parts based on current projections. I'd like a million plus because I'd like to be one of the top 10 or 20 stores in the US (we just cracked the top 100, in parts volume in the US, with 158K parts), but after 400K we're going to have to take a hard look at the cost versus benefit of employees, subcontractors, etc.

 

To compete with Bricklink, in my opinion you need to create or find a third party to create a program to keep inventory synced as things sell. It will be very, very hard to convince most Bricklink sellers to make the leap from the tried and true of Bricklink to the unknown, especially if they're serious sellers making all or part of their living that way.

 

Bonanza offers this service for your eBay inventory - when I list on Bonanaza, they keep my inventory there completely synced with my eBay inventory, removing items from Bonanza as I get eBay sales. I have to manually remove Bonanza sales from eBay, but they're a minor venue, no big deal.

 

The Art of Books does one better - http://www.theartofbooks.com/

They are a service for booksellers and they will keep your identical inventory correct and adjusted across multiple venues, for a fee. If you guys were able to program something like this for LEGO parts sellers, you would not only have more parts sellers coming here to sell, you'd also pick up the market between Bricklink and Brick Owl sellers.

 

I have NO idea how any of this is done, but I know it can be done based on these services.

Edited September 7, 2014 by justafrog

[BrickGirl]

Ed:

 

Bricklink has shown itself to be a good model of what to do. If the hacking would have never happened I am sure less people would have been complaining over there. There is no need to go too crazy with a new site. I see some stores on Brickowl, but it hasn't exactly taken off, I myself do not care for it.

 

To answer your thoughts above (the quote function doesn't seem to work for me) you can still stick with the 3% fee. A subscription sounds complicated and how would you enforce it? Would different stores pay different fees? People are used to the 3% now and it has not scared anyone away from Bricklink yet. Also, Bricklink's moc shop has a 5% fee and many believe that despite admins posts, that they will be raising fees to this 5%. So your 3% will end up being less then Bricklink's in the long term.  

[DoNotInsertIntoMouth]

I honestly kind of like the subscription - but maybe it just has limits and you can push it up. Reason is it is easier to calculate, no giving back people fees if the sale doesn't go through, etc.

 

I hate that stuff with Ebay and BL. Buyer doesn't pay, but they charge you for fees.

 

Plus its easier for you when you do tax stuff.

[azalon]

How many pieces does a large Bricklink store carry?  A medium store?  A small store?  An X-Large store?

 

I would say a tiny store is less than 20K pieces(with majority probably less than 5K). A small store is less than 50K pieces. A medium store is in the 200-400K range. Large is in the 500k-750K range and extra large would be 1 mil+. Super large store is anything over 2 mil parts.

 

I know there's gaps in the numbers, but I just feel that if you have, say, 80K pieces, you're just in between two categories. You could drop back to a small store if you don't keep listing, or you are on your way to the next level if you're regularly breaking sets down.

 

My store is in the low 300K range and I still feel like it's a small store. But I know the time it takes to run it as well as the space needed.

 

As far as a subscription based system, I would disagree that it would be the wisest. My reasoning is that many people(sellers) start out slow and small. This would likely be the case here too. I'm sure you would have the sub be tiered, but still, I think many sellers would fizzle out when they're making just a few sales a month while it's costing them almost all their profit. They would get frustrated and leave.

 

I think it would be far better to have a longer vision and goal, realizing that 3% of sales could eventually be a tremendous profit. All you have to do is offer a better product--simpler for a new user to easily search for what they're looking for . . . more options for sellers to research or accumulate data on their sales(and for longer than 6 months!) . . . a better looking site with a modern message board system(I hate BLs MB) . . . and a few other little tweaks and there you go.

[Ed Mack]

How many pieces does a large Bricklink store carry?  A medium store?  A small store?  An X-Large store?

 

I would say a tiny store is less than 20K pieces(with majority probably less than 5K). A small store is less than 50K pieces. A medium store is in the 200-400K range. Large is in the 500k-750K range and extra large would be 1 mil+. Super large store is anything over 2 mil parts.

 

I know there's gaps in the numbers, but I just feel that if you have, say, 80K pieces, you're just in between two categories. You could drop back to a small store if you don't keep listing, or you are on your way to the next level if you're regularly breaking sets down.

 

My store is in the low 300K range and I still feel like it's a small store. But I know the time it takes to run it as well as the space needed.

 

As far as a subscription based system, I would disagree that it would be the wisest. My reasoning is that many people(sellers) start out slow and small. This would likely be the case here too. I'm sure you would have the sub be tiered, but still, I think many sellers would fizzle out when they're making just a few sales a month while it's costing them almost all their profit. They would get frustrated and leave.

 

I think it would be far better to have a longer vision and goal, realizing that 3% of sales could eventually be a tremendous profit. All you have to do is offer a better product--simpler for a new user to easily search for what they're looking for . . . more options for sellers to research or accumulate data on their sales(and for longer than 6 months!) . . . a better looking site with a modern message board system(I hate BLs MB) . . . and a few other little tweaks and there you go.

I think Jeff and I were just tossing around the idea of subscription based commissions.  I get the sense most people like to be charged when they sell an item, even if the subscription service could save them money in the long run.  The question about store sizes has been answered.  I am going to lock this thread.  Thanks for the answers.  If any experienced Bricklinkers want to get involved with the private Brick Classifieds forum, let Jeff or I know.  We will unlock the forum for you.