Bricklink/BrickOwl - Discussion, questions, & answers

[Randyipp]

Just now, LegoLegend420 said:

I have no clue dork.  thats why i was asking. jesus

I had no idea "Yes" would be offensive to anyone.  You may want to relax a touch.

[Phil B]

 

4 minutes ago, LegoLegend420 said:

I have no clue dork.  thats why i was asking jesus

1 minute ago, Randyipp said:

I had no idea "Yes" would be offensive to anyone.  You may want to relax a touch.

He didn't expect you to answer ... he was asking JC.

[LegoMan1212]

BL XP, the only site I've ever heard of in existence where it exists but it really doesn't. oh and is created by the cyberpunk family

[Randyipp]

50 minutes ago, LegoMan1212 said:

BL XP, the only site I've ever heard of in existence where it exists but it really doesn't. oh and is created by the cyberpunk family

So you haven't seen this from back in May?  Sure it has been slow, I think the addition of US sales tax really pushed this back.

https://www.bricklink.com/r3/main.page

There is a whole article about it here: https://www.bricklink.com/v2/community/newsview.page?newsid=52

It will exist along side BL how it is now for more advanced users and for people who are super cranky and hate change.

[LegoMan1212]

38 minutes ago, Randyipp said:

So you haven't seen this from back in May?  Sure it has been slow, I think the addition of US sales tax really pushed this back.

https://www.bricklink.com/r3/main.page

There is a whole article about it here: https://www.bricklink.com/v2/community/newsview.page?newsid=52

It will exist along side BL how it is now for more advanced users and for people who are super cranky and hate change.

I have and actually changed up my store to work better for it. Then nothing happened.

I guess I'll just have to keep watching and waiting for the day when BL becomes more well known and penetrate outside the actual Lego community. 

I mean would it hurt to run a Facebook, twitter, reddit, etc... advertisement?  I don't think so.  

In the end, I still stand by my feelings that they royally missed the boat for this year in terms of expanding exposure.

[raindog]

2 hours ago, Phil B said:

He didn't expect you to answer ... he was asking JC.

Don't F with the Jesus!

 

[legorunner]

I'm trying to print a label for a BL order through PayPal and am getting an error message that the recipient's name is invalid. Any tips? I've tried manually typing in the name to remove any formatting issues.  

The address is for a hotel room, so it could be an issue with the overall address. I've never shipped to a hotel room and can't find good instructions online. Here is how they have the address in Bricklink

Recipient Name

Name of Hotel + Room Number

Street Address

City, State, Zip. 

Does any of the middle info belong on a different line? 

[Huskers1236]

19 minutes ago, legorunner said:

I'm trying to print a label for a BL order through PayPal and am getting an error message that the recipient's name is invalid. Any tips? I've tried manually typing in the name to remove any formatting issues.  

The address is for a hotel room, so it could be an issue with the overall address. I've never shipped to a hotel room and can't find good instructions online. Here is how they have the address in Bricklink

Recipient Name

Name of Hotel + Room Number

Street Address

City, State, Zip. 

Does any of the middle info belong on a different line? 

Paypal is very picky about addresses, especially international ones.  Have you tried putting the room number on a separate line from the Hotel name?  Like an apartment number?

[Goofball814]

I just seen that Bricklink is now charging sales tax.
For those of us that do this as a business (I have an LLC, file all state / Federal returns, etc) is there somewhere we can file our state resale certificate with Bricklink to remove the tax?

Thanks in Advance.

[Randyipp]

2 minutes ago, Goofball814 said:

I just seen that Bricklink is now charging sales tax.
For those of us that do this as a business (I have an LLC, file all state / Federal returns, etc) is there somewhere we can file our state resale certificate with Bricklink to remove the tax?

Thanks in Advance.

Not that I know of yet.  I am pretty sure there are quite a few people really mad about it too.

Though to be honest I wouldn't look too hard personally as I'm in one of the 5 states without a sales tax.

[Huskers1236]

I noticed on customs forms they have added a "Merchandise" option for contents.  Does this change anything for myself or the buyer on taxes/customs/VAT?  I've always chosen "Other" since the other options didn't really fit.  Merchandise would seem to be the appropriate option now but want to be sure I don't need to update something on my Terms page. 

[FM]

On 1/13/2021 at 1:46 PM, Randyipp said:

Not that I know of yet.  I am pretty sure there are quite a few people really mad about it too.

Though to be honest I wouldn't look too hard personally as I'm in one of the 5 states without a sales tax.

I'm getting messages from potential buyers that they can't buy from me becasue they're in certain states (MI & *** so far).  I assume that it's because some states are now charging sales tax and BL is trying to collect sales tax.  Has anyone been able to 'enable' this in BL?  All I get from BL is cut & paste garbage responses that have nothing to do with my question. THX

[Randyipp]

6 minutes ago, FM said:

I'm getting messages from potential buyers that they can't buy from me becasue they're in certain states (MI & *** so far).  I assume that it's because some states are now charging sales tax and BL is trying to collect sales tax.  Has anyone been able to 'enable' this in BL?  All I get from BL is cut & paste garbage responses that have nothing to do with my question. THX

Yep, just add an onsite payment method.  It would be too difficult for the error message to say this, it just says you don't ship to those states!

[BrickSamurai]

Maybe this has been answered already, apologies if it has. ROI minus all fees on the different sites.

Ebay does have a much larger base to sell to but the overall fees seem like alot more than the other sites like brickline/brickowl.

So has anyone figured out which site Bricklink or Brickowl has the better ROI minus all the fees and how do these compare to ebay?

Again apologies if this is a question that's been answered - thanks

[Blueshift]

On 2/24/2021 at 6:03 AM, BrickSamurai said:

Maybe this has been answered already, apologies if it has. ROI minus all fees on the different sites.

Ebay does have a much larger base to sell to but the overall fees seem like alot more than the other sites like brickline/brickowl.

So has anyone figured out which site Bricklink or Brickowl has the better ROI minus all the fees and how do these compare to ebay?

Again apologies if this is a question that's been answered - thanks

This is not what you have asked for, but what you're asking for doesn't make a lot of sense to me (if you are not taking fees into account, you don't really have your RoI yet do you?)
 
I calculate sell prices based on buy in price and a given desired RoI.
 
I only do this for Ebay myself, but BrickLink's fee structure looked interesting so I threw something together for that too. It is not complete though! The BrickLink formula I have here takes BrickLink's fees into account and nothing else. In reality you will need to take payment somehow and that will most likely involve further fees, so it would need to be adjusted to give you accurate sell prices for a desired RoI.

There can be many variations of course, especially on Ebay, the below formulas are for non-store sellers.

Never looked at BrickOwl, sorry.

Also, in all cases below, postage/handling costs are not factored in.
 
Buy in Price is in column F
Desired RoI is in Row 2 (as a simple decimal, so 0.25 for 25%, 0.5 for 50%, etc)

EBay & PayPal - No Store:
[Copied from Cell M4 - RoI = 25%]
=($F4*(1+M$2)+0.3)/(1 - 0.138)
 
EBay & Managed Payments - No Store:
[Copied from Cell P4 - RoI = 25%]
=($F4*(1+P$2)+0.3)/(1 - 0.134)
 
BL - sans payment processor fees:
[Copied from Cell S4 - RoI = 25%]
=IF(($F4*(1+S$2))/0.97 <= 500, ($F4*(1+S$2))/0.97, IF(($F4*(1+S$2)-500)/0.98+515 <= 1000, ($F4*(1+S$2)-500)/0.98+515, ($F4*(1+S$2)-1000)/0.99+1025))
 
This is what I end up seeing in my investment-portfolio spreadsheet:

Can't upload image, hopefully there is enough there for anyone interested to figure it all out if they wish to do similar and haven't already.

The 'in a nutshell' takeaway: To get the same RoI you can sell much cheaper on BrickLink (bearing in mind payment processor fees are not included), or if selling at the same price you will make much more on BrickLink over Ebay (but as you said yourself, the difference in the size of buyer base is significant).

 

[scatttcat]

Random question, anyone know what this icon is on BrickLink checkout page under "Condition" for the Iron Venom figure... looks like a "no flash photography" symbol lol. I've never seen it before.

[bhambricks]

This is the symbol indicating that express checkout isn’t available on this item.  Most likely because the weight of the item isn’t loaded by BrickLink.  You’ll have to request an invoice.

[scatttcat]

This is the symbol indicating that express checkout isn’t available on this item.  Most likely because the weight of the item isn’t loaded by BrickLink.  You’ll have to request an invoice.

Ah, gotcha. Thank you! Haha

[TomOOO]

On 2/23/2021 at 7:03 PM, BrickSamurai said:

Maybe this has been answered already, apologies if it has. ROI minus all fees on the different sites.

Ebay does have a much larger base to sell to but the overall fees seem like alot more than the other sites like brickline/brickowl.

So has anyone figured out which site Bricklink or Brickowl has the better ROI minus all the fees and how do these compare to ebay?

Again apologies if this is a question that's been answered - thanks

A minor addition to Ebay vs Bricklink/Brickowl.

When I buy from bricklink - the set is always as stated, always complete (if stated), washed if used and well packaged.

When I buy from Ebay (used only) - the set is never complete (when stated complete), usually dirty, and not so well packaged (or worse)and usually comes as a broken up set they had on the shelf.

I therefore as a buyer on both sites I would only buy from ebay when it is auction selling at a stupid time and therefore goes cheap, and the seller has good reviews and I know it does not have special pieces that would cost a fortune to replace.  On Bricklink, I buy whatever I want from whatever buyer at a good price.

Bricklink and Brickowl has a buyers premium, especially when buying from small collectors who really care about what they sell; and for me I would buy from ebay if it half the typical bricklink price.

Edited March 9, 2021 by TomOOO

[redghostx]

I'm asking if someone here has a brickink store (could be brickowl but I've never used that) with late 80s/early 90s pieces in good condition.

I want to try to get era specific pieces in addition to a normal order.

Please let me know

[BrickSamurai]

On 2/27/2021 at 1:57 AM, Blueshift said:

This is not what you have asked for, but what you're asking for doesn't make a lot of sense to me (if you are not taking fees into account, you don't really have your RoI yet do you?)
 
I calculate sell prices based on buy in price and a given desired RoI.
 
I only do this for Ebay myself, but BrickLink's fee structure looked interesting so I threw something together for that too. It is not complete though! The BrickLink formula I have here takes BrickLink's fees into account and nothing else. In reality you will need to take payment somehow and that will most likely involve further fees, so it would need to be adjusted to give you accurate sell prices for a desired RoI.

There can be many variations of course, especially on Ebay, the below formulas are for non-store sellers.

Never looked at BrickOwl, sorry.

Also, in all cases below, postage/handling costs are not factored in.
 
Buy in Price is in column F
Desired RoI is in Row 2 (as a simple decimal, so 0.25 for 25%, 0.5 for 50%, etc)

EBay & PayPal - No Store:
[Copied from Cell M4 - RoI = 25%]
=($F4*(1+M$2)+0.3)/(1 - 0.138)
 
EBay & Managed Payments - No Store:
[Copied from Cell P4 - RoI = 25%]
=($F4*(1+P$2)+0.3)/(1 - 0.134)
 
BL - sans payment processor fees:
[Copied from Cell S4 - RoI = 25%]
=IF(($F4*(1+S$2))/0.97 <= 500, ($F4*(1+S$2))/0.97, IF(($F4*(1+S$2)-500)/0.98+515 <= 1000, ($F4*(1+S$2)-500)/0.98+515, ($F4*(1+S$2)-1000)/0.99+1025))
 
This is what I end up seeing in my investment-portfolio spreadsheet:

Can't upload image, hopefully there is enough there for anyone interested to figure it all out if they wish to do similar and haven't already.

The 'in a nutshell' takeaway: To get the same RoI you can sell much cheaper on BrickLink (bearing in mind payment processor fees are not included), or if selling at the same price you will make much more on BrickLink over Ebay (but as you said yourself, the difference in the size of buyer base is significant).

 

@BlueshiftThank you for the insight and it is what I was asking about. Sorry for the delay in reply and not clearly posting my question.

From your reply its what I basically wanted to see if anyone had an insight into their current selling on the 2 sites and which one was a better ROI on either their Bricklink store (Lego) and or Brickowl store.

Thanks

On 3/9/2021 at 9:12 AM, TomOOO said:

A minor addition to Ebay vs Bricklink/Brickowl.

When I buy from bricklink - the set is always as stated, always complete (if stated), washed if used and well packaged.

When I buy from Ebay (used only) - the set is never complete (when stated complete), usually dirty, and not so well packaged (or worse)and usually comes as a broken up set they had on the shelf.

I therefore as a buyer on both sites I would only buy from ebay when it is auction selling at a stupid time and therefore goes cheap, and the seller has good reviews and I know it does not have special pieces that would cost a fortune to replace.  On Bricklink, I buy whatever I want from whatever buyer at a good price.

Bricklink and Brickowl has a buyers premium, especially when buying from small collectors who really care about what they sell; and for me I would buy from ebay if it half the typical bricklink price.

@TomOOO Thanks for the reply.

Thanks

[4cs]

Cost basis question for parts side of the business:

I'm curious how everyone establishes their cost basis for the parts in their inventory. For example, do you just take the cost of the set divided by the number of parts? Do you establish higher values for minifigures or motors?

How do you track the rolling inventory value?

We run a fair-size BrickLink/BrickOwl parts business and this discussion comes up each tax season. I'd like to settle on a more efficient and final solution and stick to it moving forward.

If anyone has any suggestions, I'd love to learn what you do and what you consider the pros & cons of your accounting system for parts.

Thanks!

[Phil B]

I record the cost of buying the full set at time of purchase as cost for tax purchases, and record the sales revenue as income in the year the sale happens. My CPA approved this, so that's what I've been doing since I started in 2015.

I have the data and an alpha version of software to calculate cost per piece based on weight of the set, but have not used it as the above is much simpler. I do <$50k per year in revenue though.

PS: Tapatalk for Android cuts of messages when it encounters a "<"

Edited May 18, 2021 by Phil B

[Randyipp]

34 minutes ago, Phil B said:

I record the cost of buying the full set at time of purchase as cost for tax purchases, and record the sales revenue as income in the year the sale happens. My CPA approved this, so that's what I've been doing since I started in 2015.

I have the data and an alpha version of software to calculate cost per piece based on weight of the set, but have not used it as the above is much simpler. I do <$50k per year in revenue though.

PS: Tapatalk for Android cuts of messages when it encounters a "<"

So cash method? Revenue - (Cost of goods + Expenses) = Profit

This is the method I am using as well, I keep going over this section and wondering if at some point I will need to switch to accrual, or at the very least a hybrid.  https://www.irs.gov/publications/p334#en_US_2020_publink1000313270

[redcell]

Why would you need to switch to accrual?