Bricklink/BrickOwl - Discussion, questions, & answers

[2x4]

I always appreciate you weighing in justafrog, because your situation is closest to what I hope to achieve for my own family!

[maryjmeg]

I'm not a full-timer yet, though I hope to get there eventually. I have just under 70k pieces, and during the slow summer season I got maybe 20-30 orders a week between my Bricklink and BrickOwl stores. I'm home with my 4 kids, so I haven't been able to devote as much time this summer to growing my store, but now that 3 of the 4 are going back to school, I hope to continue the climb to 100k, hopefully by Christmas. I spend pretty much every free moment I have on the store - a lot of that time is spent sorting through used bulk and piecing together sets (something I LOVE to do and would do even if there was no potential to make money), though my free moments are limited in the summer - maybe 35-40 hours per week, mostly in the evenings when the kids are asleep, and I work at it 7 days a week. So far all the money I've earned goes straight back into buying more LEGO - I'm lucky that mine is just supplementary income for the household for now. I hope in a year or so, once all 4 kids are in school full-time, my business will be a legitimate income-earner - 4 kids are expensive!

[Guest betsy805]

I'm not a full-timer yet, though I hope to get there eventually. I have just under 70k pieces, and during the slow summer season I got maybe 20-30 orders a week between my Bricklink and BrickOwl stores. I'm home with my 4 kids, so I haven't been able to devote as much time this summer to growing my store, but now that 3 of the 4 are going back to school, I hope to continue the climb to 100k, hopefully by Christmas. I spend pretty much every free moment I have on the store - a lot of that time is spent sorting through used bulk and piecing together sets (something I LOVE to do and would do even if there was no potential to make money), though my free moments are limited in the summer - maybe 35-40 hours per week, mostly in the evenings when the kids are asleep, and I work at it 7 days a week. So far all the money I've earned goes straight back into buying more LEGO - I'm lucky that mine is just supplementary income for the household for now. I hope in a year or so, once all 4 kids are in school full-time, my business will be a legitimate income-earner - 4 kids are expensive!

I think you and I are living the same life....but I got the easier end of the bargain with 2 kids instead of 4   Two more days till school is in session (this is the first year they're BOTH in school all day) and then it's time to buckle down on the biz.  

[thoroakenfelder]

I don't know what happened this weekend, but I got 7 orders. That's like 2 weeks worth of orders. Maybe it's the handful of minifigures I added, or the Prince of Persia set that I parted out on Friday. The only problem is, I have like 80 lbs worth of bulk to finish filtering, cleaning and sorting, and my time is not my own most days.The kids want to help sort, but that just winds up meaning I have to redo everything that they did.

What's the best way to clean bulk? I made a mistake with the soap I used last time, and there's residue all over the minifigures.

[marcandre]

 

What's the best way to clean bulk? I made a mistake with the soap I used last time, and there's residue all over the minifigures.

My last bulk buy was pretty sticky so I ran it thru the washing machine in a bag like this http://www.amazon.com/Ikea-Pressa-Washing-Bag-Set/dp/B00O7YRI7S Worked great. 

[Thumper]

I don't want to ask any of the full-time bricklinkers how much they make a year, but out of curiosity, how many hours a week and what are the yearly earnings of the average full-time bricklinker? I know answers can vary, but just wanted to have an idea. 

I was never quite full-time but My little shop, Canadian based, as I ran it myself (and mostly as a hobby) I tried to limit to 8-10 orders per day & would close up whenever I had close to 25 outstanding orders in the bin (or a couple substantial 50+ lot orders due to the time involved in those).   I work a fulltime job (9-5, ok ok it's a gubberment job so it's more like 10-4),  I basically devoted the hours between 8pm through to the day change at midnight on the shop & all day Saturday, Sunday & holidays.  I kept a relatively moderate inventory of a half million parts & 2000-2500 sets. Income was on average just 3K a month (40/60 split between taxable Canadian orders and US orders) my biggest month of the year without fail was always January (I always closed up for November-December due to the barrage of nagging "where's my package" emails. (being open an average of 3 days a week is very limiting but to maintain 2-day turnaround quite necessity)

Since getting married a year ago I've not had the time to operate & have been closed up while consolidating houses (everything is in storage still).  My shop occupied nearly half an 18oo sqft two-story house, the master bedroom was the main new parts inventory & packing table, second bedroom was used parts, the dining room was capitol storage, basement was entirely sets & 30-40 roughnecks of unsorted & yet2b parted stuffs... 

The new spouse isn't quite so interested is living in a store so the new shop will be much smaller (at least until I retire in a few years!) 

One of the significant advantages of running the BL store (with a legitimate business registration #) not to be overlooked is all the taxtime deductions & the ability to seriously bring down your taxable real-life career income. you just have to make sure you don't cross the 30k barrier for HST remittance. 

Bricklink was allot of fun in it's heyday but over the past couple of years it's become increasingly a more sketchy place to play, you need to develop a much tougher skin now to be able to put up with all the peripheral non-sense & emotional drains (don't read the forums! or you get nothing but depressed and needlessly afraid of your own buyers.)

 

...

What's the best way to clean bulk? I made a mistake with the soap I used last time, and there's residue all over the minifigures.

The secret is adding a little dispersant to the final rinse water like "Jet-Dry" - this will prevent any spotting from the water left behind as it air-dries, also the more standing water you can knock off the bricks the better & toss em around a few times as they dry.

[DadsAFOL]

do you have a warehouse?

Yes, 1800 sq ft in a business park. I used to run out of my house, but it was a little awkward that 2 people would come to my house every day to work. I also had a limitation that I couldn't fit more than two people in the room to work. I LOVE having a workshop.

So what I'd love to know is A: where do you find all those bricks? And B: how much time is spent parting sets? I find I'm still spending most of my time parting sets. At just over 20,000 pieces, I find I'm still mostly getting "weekend only" orders which are easily and quickly filled.

You have to get creative to find that many bricks. BrickPicker has really helped me focus on deals. The rest is the secret sauce that you have to figure out.

Parting labor is the most expensive cost of the business. Use kids, teenagers, or whatever low cost option you can find. Also sorting while watching TV can help - for US football fans, you can get a lot of sorting done on Sundays.

[Thumper]

... Also sorting while watching TV can help - for US football fans, you can get a lot of sorting done on Sundays.

 

This indeed is the trick, not so much the footy for me but popping in a movie or digitally stitched complete series of Firefly or something that you've seen a bazillion times but still enjoy makes for great mindless background noise to split your subconscious from your hand-eye attentions. :-)

... & of course break down no less than 5 of the same set at a time.

[2x4]

Interesting responses, fair enough on your secret sauce requirement.

I've found when parting really large sets, it's helpful to me to break down all the parts by color first, then I can organize them and load them up pretty fast. I actually like sorting the bricks, it's posting them up and putting them away in little drawers and bins that I find frustrating.

[Cashmoney-0]

So you don't want to ask but then you asked?  I'm up to about 3.5 full time employees to support about 800-900 orders a month.  It's a LOT of labor to keep a high volume store running.  

I should of been more clear. I did not want to make it seem that I was asking individual bricklink members their yearly earnings, just wanted an idea as a whole.   

[DadsAFOL]

I should of been more clear. I did not want to make it seem that I was asking individual bricklink members their yearly earnings, just wanted an idea as a whole.   

As a whole there are VERY few people that have Bricklink as their sole income. I can only think of one, that lives in a rural low cost area. I can think of one other that probably has disability income or something similar but BL is their only "job". in short, it's not a viable single income source for 99% of people.

[Cashmoney-0]

Thanks for all your responses. 

[2x4]

So I think it's some combo of the holiday coming up and my inventory finally passing that 20,000 mark, but I've had small orders pretty much each day this week. (I'm holding off on a minimum for now, I'd like to be able to not impose one)

As for making bricklink my job, I'm actually hoping to develop it to a point where my wife can maybe leave her day job and we'll be ok between my regular income and her taking over more of the LEGO work. (Fingers crossed)

[Pedilego]

I made a dozen orders to part together a UCS Imperial Shuttle on August 2nd. It was my first time using BrickLink and most of my orders went really smoothly. But I still haven't received my pieces from one of the sellers. 

His store does have a disclaimer about taking 7-12 business days for orders due to his son's health issues. I've tried to be sensitive towards this but at the same time, I'd think it's time to shut the store down if a $10 order can't be taken care of within a month. There were no issues receiving an invoice, after all.

I really just want the parts (I've basically been able to build everything but the core body) and at the price I paid. After my first message, the seller didn't respond but did mark my item as "Packed" on 8/19. I've since sent two more messages but they haven't even been read and it's still in "Packed" status.

Recommendations?

 

[DadsAFOL]

I made a dozen orders to part together a UCS Imperial Shuttle on August 2nd. It was my first time using BrickLink and most of my orders went really smoothly. But I still haven't received my pieces from one of the sellers. 

His store does have a disclaimer about taking 7-12 business days for orders due to his son's health issues. I've tried to be sensitive towards this but at the same time, I'd think it's time to shut the store down if a $10 order can't be taken care of within a month. There were no issues receiving an invoice, after all.

I really just want the parts (I've basically been able to build everything but the core body) and at the price I paid. After my first message, the seller didn't respond but did mark my item as "Packed" on 8/19. I've since sent two more messages but they haven't even been read and it's still in "Packed" status.

Recommendations?

 

Go to Problem -> Order -> and file a Non-Shipping Seller action. Likely that will get you a response quickly.

[2x4]

Hi folks-

Technically a brick owl problem, but I issued a coupon to a customer, and they placed an order, but now they are sending me a message that when they placed their order, they did not see a coupon to redeem...

[DadsAFOL]

Hi folks-

Technically a brick owl problem, but I issued a coupon to a customer, and they placed an order, but now they are sending me a message that when they placed their order, they did not see a coupon to redeem...

There is no way to manually adjust the price. The easiest solution is just to refund them the value of the coupon.

[2x4]

That is kind of what I figured. Thank you DadsAFOL!

I did want to make sure I wasn't making an error, so I used a test account, issued it a coupon, picked something from my store, and had no problem applying the coupon (user specific) at checkout.

[Pedilego]

Go to Problem -> Order -> and file a Non-Shipping Seller action. Likely that will get you a response quickly.

Was shipped like a day later lol Received the parts earlier this week. Set looks great. Thanks! 

[Alpinemaps]

Okay, I think I'm going nuts, but I have to ask - didn't we have a "What set are you Bricklinking" or "What are you Bricklinking" thread going somewhere?  This is as good a place as any to ask.  

[gregpj]

Okay, I think I'm going nuts, but I have to ask - didn't we have a "What set are you Bricklinking" or "What are you Bricklinking" thread going somewhere?  This is as good a place as any to ask.  

How's this?

http://community.brickpicker.com/topic/13714-bricklinking-for-the-thrill-of-the-build-and-the-lowest-price

Guess who the last poster was?

[Alpinemaps]

How's this?

http://community.brickpicker.com/topic/13714-bricklinking-for-the-thrill-of-the-build-and-the-lowest-price

Guess who the last poster was?

hahahaha

Maybe that's the thread.  Or maybe I'm thinking of a thread over on another forum.  I could have sworn it was titled differently, but I think I'm going to just use it anyway.  Thanks.

[gregpj]

hahahaha

Maybe that's the thread.  Or maybe I'm thinking of a thread over on another forum.  I could have sworn it was titled differently, but I think I'm going to just use it anyway.  Thanks.

How about this one?

http://community.brickpicker.com/topic/13207-bricklinking-expensive-large-rare-retired-etc-sets/

The new forum's search feature isn't very friendly when it comes to trying find specific threads. I wish it had a "search on the titles" feature!

[maryjmeg]

This one?

[maryjmeg]

Oops - how do I post a link? It's not showing up. The thread was called 'What sets are you piecing together from bulk'