Update: Trades, Want Ads, Manual Orders and Currency

[Jeff Mack]

Today a big update was pushed on Brick Classifieds. One major change was the way that the site handles currency.  Before it was doing a bunch of conversions to try and handle the currency conversions. It worked, but was not ideal.  A lot of pages have been reworked and it is the way it should have been done from the start.  Make sure your store currency is set properly and whatever you enter as a value it will hold.  No more conversions unless you are need to see it in different currency and at checkout.

NOTE: If you are selling on Brick Classifieds and your store currency is not USD, please take a few minutes to visit your shop and make sure all your products are set at the price you want them to be at.

WANT ADS

We also added a few new features to help build business conversations with potential buyers. The first is Want Ads. This is a pretty straight forward feature for buyers and sellers. All registered users can post a Want Ad. You will fill out a title, description of what you are looking for, price range, quantity, condition as well as location that the item you would like it to come from.

After you fill out your post, you will see listings like this:

At this point, vendors will be allowed to come to your post and create a bid for your business.  Vendors will need to have this item in their store inventory.  They will then select it from their inventory and put a price.  If it works for you, you can accept their offer.  When the offer is accepted, the vendor can then go into the shop admin area and build an invoice in the new Manual Order feature.  It is pretty simple to use.  Once the invoice is created, the vendor can search for the interested user and they will be emailed the invoice.  If the buyer clicks the button to confirm the order, they will be taken directly to the shopping cart on the site, all the items in the invoice will already be waiting in the cart and they will just need to checkout with the agreed upon price and shipping.

TRADES

Another feature we added was the ability to do trades with other vendors (Note: All trades must be done vendor to vendor and again, the items of trade must be in your shop inventory).  Like the Want Ads, vendors can ad items to their listing from their inventory.  They can add a title and description about what they are interested in trading for.

Once the trade is posted, other vendors can come in and offer items from their inventory and submit to the original poster. You can go back and forth negotiating until you both agree on the items being offered.  You will click a link to approve each offer which will then lock in the trade.  The entire transaction including any cash offerings are done however you wish outside of Brick Classifieds. Once everyone receives their items, you will be able to click a button that says that you are received what you were promised and then provide feedback on the trade.

Users will now be able to get feedback on regular shop purchases, want ad and trade transactions. Give it all a try, feel free to PM with feedback.  I wanted to get the features out there and of course they can be improved. We need to start somewhere though.  

 

[LEGO HULK]

I will definitely check out the want ad feature.  I think it is a good idea for vendors to find out what people are looking for and if it fits within their sales plan, then its good for both sides

[Jeff Mack]

ALSO WANTED TO MENTION IN MY ORIGINAL POST THAT AS OF JUNE 1, 2015, THE BETA WILL BE END AND BRICK CLASSIFIEDS WILL THEN SWITCH OVER TO A 2% COMMISSION FEE ON TRANSACTIONS. TRADES WILL STILL REMAIN FREE!

[marcandre]

Keeps getting better. I do really miss the trade feature here on brickpicker though. 

[Jeff Mack]

Keeps getting better. I do really miss the trade feature here on brickpicker though. 

​The trade feature won't be back here, really doesn't make sense to. Brick Classifieds is where the business should be.  This is just phase 1 for the features, phase 2 will be released in the next week or two.  The more time people invest in getting their shops there, the more people will continue to visit. The past couple of days on the site have been fantastic.  

[Huskers1236]

The want ad feature is awesome.  Definitely going to hit some guys up on some key sets I want to pick up for our collection.

[Jeff Mack]

Ok nice, we have our first trade posted.  I will be creating widgets to showcase these listings on Brickpicker for more exposure.   Here you can see what another vendor will see.  Now they can pick items from their inventory to offer as a trade.  The posted will be notified that someone has submitted a trade offer.  This poster did a great job by picking at least one item to trade for now.  They will be able to change that later.  They mentioned what they would be willing to offer and will need to select the right set later in order to make the deal be approved by both parties.  Remember that both parties inventories will subtract the sets and quantities that are offered once the deal goes through.

Edited May 9, 2015 by Jeff Mack

[comicblast]

How would it work if it was an exchange of sets and money to even out the trade values? Is there an option, or can trades only include sets?

[Jeff Mack]

How would it work if it was an exchange of sets and money to even out the trade values? Is there an option, or can trades only include sets?

​If you look in the screenshot right above yours, I added an option for money.  So people can add 1 or 50 sets as well as money.  The money part will be handled outside of Brick Classifieds.

[comicblast]

​If you look in the screenshot right above yours, I added an option for money.  So people can add 1 or 50 sets as well as money.  The money part will be handled outside of Brick Classifieds.

​Thanks for the clarification, Jeff.

[stackables]

Fantastic! Much appreciated features

[baldilocks]

Awesome, Thank you.

Is there anyway to add our previous trades ratings so that people know who is reliable?

I will be posting my first trade very soon.

I have been missing this.

Thanks again.

[Jeff Mack]

Awesome, Thank you.

Is there anyway to add our previous trades ratings so that people know who is reliable?

I will be posting my first trade very soon.

I have been missing this.

Thanks again.

I have everything backed up from the other system, just give me time to get the numbers from it

[baldilocks]

I am trying to post a trade, but it is asking me to choose a product.

The product I am trying to trade is not a product that I am selling, so it is not in my choices of products to choose from.

I am not sure what to do from here.

Also, can I use Html so that it is not one long run on sentence?

[Pseudoty]

I think Jeff said the item you want to trade has to be in your for sale inventory. 

[baldilocks]

Thank you pseudoty, I must have missed that. Thank you

[dcdfan]

 

Also, can I use Html so that it is not one long run on sentence?

​

​This was set up for emazers...

[diablo2112]

2% commission is a nice gesture for everyone here and most appreciated.  Will make this my preferred site and means to sell.  Let's hope the buyer/seller base continues to grow; would love to have another viable alternative.   Thanks to Ed and Jeff for all the work in getting this up and running.

[baldilocks]

Jeff, not to be a pain, just letting you know, the trade section of the brickclassifieds is not accepting any edits.

If I make an edit, it does not save.

[Alcarin]

Just 1 idea, when you can select location it would be nice if there would be some easier way aka. more option like European Union (for no tax paying on import) etc..... so I would not need to click 28 countries

[Jeff Mack]

Just 1 idea, when you can select location it would be nice if there would be some easier way aka. more option like European Union (for no tax paying on import) etc..... so I would not need to click 28 countries

​Did you try to see if it was there?  It is already there.  I remember adding it back in the beginning when this came up for shipping entry.

[Jeff Mack]

Jeff, not to be a pain, just letting you know, the trade section of the brickclassifieds is not accepting any edits.

If I make an edit, it does not save.

​Looking into it.

 

Also, before it is brought up, I am working on a few design updates to the site to make sure that these listings are more visible in more places including the home page.

[baldilocks]

Thanks Jeff.

We all appreciate your hard work.

Also, it would be nice if we could put paragraph breaks, so that it is easier to read.

Thanks again, the trade section is a great part of the site.

[Jeff Mack]

Ok i will look to add the editor in there, i wasn't really thinking that people would want to add a wall of text.  My initial thought that it would be more of a general snippet of information that would lead people to post items and open discussion. But no problem, this can be changed.

[baldilocks]

Thanks again Jeff.

Your the best