Any Brickfolio update?

[skinsfan0521]

On 8/9/2021 at 6:19 PM, Jeff Mack said:

The honest truth is that the brickfolio is not my top priority at the moment.  I have been working on a completely different LEGO product that in my opinion will have much more value to all of you than the brickfolio.  While I know everyone wants a service that will track their investment, looking up the value of a LEGO set is very easy today.  I am still getting the listing feeds and have all the data,  so I will still have the option to work on this when I am done with the new service.   I sat many times at my desk to look at what Brickpicker 2.0 will be and what new value can I bring to you.  The sad part is that I don't feel it's enough to justify charging anyone and the affiliate revenue is pretty much worthless at this point.  I don't want to flood the site with any more ads and would rather remove them.   The LEGO reseller market is so much different today than it was 12 years ago when Brickpicker launched.  I have come up with some pretty incredible data sets for this new venture, one that will help LEGO resellers quite a bit.  I know this is not good news to all, but for me it is where I feel my limited time can produce the best product and bring something new to the LEGO community.  I am taking a gamble with this.  Some of you will not find value in it, others will understand it and know how to use it.  We will find out soon if the gamble pays off.

I have no dog in the Brickfolio fight (I never used it and don't care if it ever returns), but doesn't it seem like the next step should be you asking people if they would like this new idea that you have or to have their Brickfolio data restored? So far, there is PLENTY of evidence that people want their Brickfolio data, but zero evidence that this new secret idea is going to be of any value to anyone. Not working on something that people are clamoring for to instead work on something that nobody is asking for seems a bit backwards, no? Listen to your customer. No, they haven't paid anything, but they're still your customers.

I mean, at this point, can't you just provide everyone a CSV of their data and not keep the hope alive that the Brickfolio will ever be coming back? I get it, it's a free site, and a free service that was offered. But, at the same time, they just want to access their data that you already have. According to your past posts on the topic, you've stated repeatedly that all of the data is safe. So, just make it available to everyone and move on from this project that you clearly have no interest in completing.

[stackables]

8 hours ago, skinsfan0521 said:

I have no dog in the Brickfolio fight (I never used it and don't care if it ever returns), but doesn't it seem like the next step should be you asking people if they would like this new idea that you have or to have their Brickfolio data restored? So far, there is PLENTY of evidence that people want their Brickfolio data, but zero evidence that this new secret idea is going to be of any value to anyone. Not working on something that people are clamoring for to instead work on something that nobody is asking for seems a bit backwards, no? Listen to your customer. No, they haven't paid anything, but they're still your customers.

I mean, at this point, can't you just provide everyone a CSV of their data and not keep the hope alive that the Brickfolio will ever be coming back? I get it, it's a free site, and a free service that was offered. But, at the same time, they just want to access their data that you already have. According to your past posts on the topic, you've stated repeatedly that all of the data is safe. So, just make it available to everyone and move on from this project that you clearly have no interest in completing.

Exactly!

I just want a csv copy.  I would have made a backup if I would have known the feature was not going to be available/taken down for a long time.  If you don't want to bring back the brickfolio, that is perfectly fine.  Just give us our csv copies and most will be happy. 

[Gonkalin]

At this point everyone’s excell files are outdated anyway. Simply take a day … or three… and do inventory. Make a new excell doc for tracking. That’s what I did over a year ago. I know it’s not easy and takes time. I have 2400 sets so don’t go telling me that it’s easy for me because I only have 100 sets or something. It’s actually fun to do and to dig through boxes you might not have opened in years might find some surprises. Once I made my new excell tracker I got on a adamant schedule to keep it current. I have a photos folder on my phone and any time I buy sets I take a photo of my screen or screen capture of my phone. I copy photo of transaction to my LEGO purchase photos folder that I keep on my phone. Then every 2-3 months I go through the photos folder and copy the purchase data to My excell tracker. Then any time I sell I make a physical printout of sale (while I’m making shipping label) and I store those printouts in a physical LEGO sales folder in my desk. At end of year I use these printouts for tax calculations. At the same time I also delete the sold sets from my excell set tracker. This system seems to work pretty well for me. 

Edited August 20, 2021 by Gonkalin

[jrjohn77]

9 hours ago, skinsfan0521 said:

I have no dog in the Brickfolio fight (I never used it and don't care if it ever returns), but doesn't it seem like the next step should be you asking people if they would like this new idea that you have or to have their Brickfolio data restored? So far, there is PLENTY of evidence that people want their Brickfolio data, but zero evidence that this new secret idea is going to be of any value to anyone. Not working on something that people are clamoring for to instead work on something that nobody is asking for seems a bit backwards, no? Listen to your customer. No, they haven't paid anything, but they're still your customers.

I mean, at this point, can't you just provide everyone a CSV of their data and not keep the hope alive that the Brickfolio will ever be coming back? I get it, it's a free site, and a free service that was offered. But, at the same time, they just want to access their data that you already have. According to your past posts on the topic, you've stated repeatedly that all of the data is safe. So, just make it available to everyone and move on from this project that you clearly have no interest in completing.

...or simply don't take down the old platform until the new one is completed.

[CrabslayerT]

On 8/20/2021 at 2:06 AM, Gonkalin said:

At this point everyone’s excell files are outdated anyway. Simply take a day … or three… and do inventory. Make a new excell doc for tracking. That’s what I did over a year ago. I know it’s not easy and takes time. I have 2400 sets so don’t go telling me that it’s easy for me because I only have 100 sets or something. It’s actually fun to do and to dig through boxes you might not have opened in years might find some surprises. Once I made my new excell tracker I got on a adamant schedule to keep it current. I have a photos folder on my phone and any time I buy sets I take a photo of my screen or screen capture of my phone. I copy photo of transaction to my LEGO purchase photos folder that I keep on my phone. Then every 2-3 months I go through the photos folder and copy the purchase data to My excell tracker. Then any time I sell I make a physical printout of sale (while I’m making shipping label) and I store those printouts in a physical LEGO sales folder in my desk. At end of year I use these printouts for tax calculations. At the same time I also delete the sold sets from my excell set tracker. This system seems to work pretty well for me. 

Easier said than done when buy in figures were stored here. I know what sets I have, a rough sale value but bugger all from purchasing. 

[junkrigger]

At this point everyone’s excell files are outdated anyway. Simply take a day … or three… and do inventory. Make a new excell doc for tracking. That’s what I did over a year ago. I know it’s not easy and takes time. I have 2400 sets so don’t go telling me that it’s easy for me because I only have 100 sets or something. It’s actually fun to do and to dig through boxes you might not have opened in years might find some surprises. Once I made my new excell tracker I got on a adamant schedule to keep it current. I have a photos folder on my phone and any time I buy sets I take a photo of my screen or screen capture of my phone. I copy photo of transaction to my LEGO purchase photos folder that I keep on my phone. Then every 2-3 months I go through the photos folder and copy the purchase data to My excell tracker. Then any time I sell I make a physical printout of sale (while I’m making shipping label) and I store those printouts in a physical LEGO sales folder in my desk. At end of year I use these printouts for tax calculations. At the same time I also delete the sold sets from my excell set tracker. This system seems to work pretty well for me. 

Absolutely this and yes I agree it was a pain in the ass but it was on some level fun and a treasure hunt. I was stoked to find I had a few extra of things like Darth Revan polys and super excited to see I had not bought quite as many goblin kings as the rest of LOTR/Hobbit proving I’m not a total brickpicking rube. I also learned something about packaging from LEGO Shop at Home. I know people have been loving the new paper packing instead of air pillows but based on my sets old vs recent shipments I don’t experience the same joy likely due to the greater shipping distance I have that Midwest and east coast folks. Yes air pillows directly transfer forces to the inside set increasing the chance of minor damage but they also add rigidity to the outer shipping box which paper does not thus decreasing the likelihood of catastrophic shipping box failure and total set damage. All my SSD and sandcrawlers etc are in better shape than any rollercoasters, this seems to carry through to town halls vs assembly square and pretty much on down the line to medium sized sets. Perhaps just my experience but something.


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[Gonkalin]

5 hours ago, CrabslayerT said:

Easier said than done when buy in figures were stored here. I know what sets I have, a rough sale value but bugger all from purchasing. 

Valid point. And I did forget about that. I did have to reset my buy in costs because of this lost data. So any sets I had that I did not have actual purchase price for I simply listed as full retail. But going forward I am putting in accurate buy in sale prices. I understand this is not fully accurate to the older sets that had lost purchase price data but I also do t want to be assume I bought on sale when sometimes I do buy at full retail.  
 

certainly, it’s not a perfect solution. Just a possible suggestion for others moving forward. 
 

i also opened up a ************** account and now have all my data stored there as well.  So apparently I’m not allowed to mention any competition for Brickpicker. They auto block it. I guess you can do some googling for yourself to find it. But it works pretty well for online personal set tracking and cost projections. 
 

I find it odd that Brickpicker is blocking talking about a company that offers a service that Brickpicker doesn’t even offer anymore. 

Edited August 21, 2021 by Gonkalin

[JoshB]

1 hour ago, Gonkalin said:

So apparently I’m not allowed to mention any competition for Brickpicker. They auto block it. I guess you can do some googling for yourself to find it. But it works pretty well for online personal set tracking and cost projections. 
 

I find it odd that Brickpicker is blocking talking about a company that offers a service that Brickpicker doesn’t even offer anymore. 

The funny thing is that when a site tries to autoblock any competition it just makes the user want to know more about the competition. When I see a site block any mention of their competition it makes me think that the competition has something superior to the site blocking it and they don't want their users to know that. Personally, I would never have my site block any mention of my competition. In the long run I see blocking as more harmful than helpful.

[Ed Mack]

I wish we never had the major server issue over a year ago that forced us to make some difficult choices about removing features. Many things have changed for us over the past decade (plus) and the ways we made money to support the site have all but evaporated, so certain costly features had to be sacrificed. Throw in the fact we are in the middle of a pandemic and that there were two major family health issues that sucked Jeff's spare time this past year, many plans and fixes were not implemented.

Is this an excuse?  No, just the truth.  Jeff is working on a slimmed down and more current version of Brickpicker, but the Brickfolio might not be in the final version. On a personal note, most member's LEGO inventories are probably so different at this point, what use will the data be? Most major resellers I know had their own spreadsheets to track their data. What I would suggest is that if the data is so important to you, message Jeff and ask him for it.  I make no promises, but I think you will catch more flies with honey than vinegar.

Stay safe...Ed Mack

[ravenb99]

19 minutes ago, Ed Mack said:

I wish we never had the major server issue over a year ago that forced us to make some difficult choices about removing features. Many things have changed for us over the past decade (plus) and the ways we made money to support the site have all but evaporated, so certain costly features had to be sacrificed. Throw in the fact we are in the middle of a pandemic and that there were two major family health issues that sucked Jeff's spare time this past year, many plans and fixes were not implemented.

Is this an excuse?  No, just the truth.  Jeff is working on a slimmed down and more current version of Brickpicker, but the Brickfolio might not be in the final version. On a personal note, most member's LEGO inventories are probably so different at this point, what use will the data be? Most major resellers I know had their own spreadsheets to track their data. What I would suggest is that if the data is so important to you, message Jeff and ask him for it.  I make no promises, but I think you will catch more flies with honey than vinegar.

Stay safe...Ed Mack

hmm have had a damn fly invade my warehouse for the last few weeks and neither honey nor vinegar worked.  Must be doing it wrong...

[Ed Mack]

1 hour ago, ravenb99 said:

hmm have had a damn fly invade my warehouse for the last few weeks and neither honey nor vinegar worked.  Must be doing it wrong...

Well here in NJ we have friggin' Lantern flies and I don't need honey or vinegar. I spend all day at work chasing after them like an idiot. 

[CrabslayerT]

13 hours ago, Ed Mack said:

On a personal note, most member's LEGO inventories are probably so different at this point, what use will the data be? Most major resellers I know had their own spreadsheets to track their data.

I had already stopped buying stock a year or two before the pandemic. I changed jobs and no longer have the same time to focus on reselling, so had just been selling during my shore leave. I still have a lot of the inventory and, although it may not be as large as most here, it's data that still relevant to myself 

[cardensb]

I can appreciate the advice if I was a large scale reseller but I am a collector of SW sets.  I have bought in the past from FB marketplace, eBay, etc... some sets had boxes, others did not.  My entries into this sites database included details like that.  Now some are suggesting I start opening the boxes of boxes and sorting through to see if I have a box for a set from 20 years ago when my DB entries had it.  I have no desire to re-inventory a collection when I was almost religious with updating the online inventory site within a day or two of a set's acquisition.

This does just reinforce my desire to no longer rely upon 3rd party tools for collection inventories.  I have used three different sites over the years and two of the three have now stopped access or stopped updating the items released each year creating a stale inventory.

I will offer to the site developers that I did use your set value/price analysis when deciding how much to bid on given used set and also when I decided to reduce my collection for space, lack of interest in a set, etc... as I decided to sell.

[iahawks550]

4 minutes ago, cardensb said:

This does just reinforce my desire to no longer rely upon 3rd party tools for collection inventories. 

Every site I've seen has the ability to export an Excel spreadsheet of your data. If you aren't/weren't doing that on a regular basis, that's a pretty large oversight.

[cardensb]

1 minute ago, iahawks550 said:

Every site I've seen has the ability to export an Excel spreadsheet of your data. If you aren't/weren't doing that on a regular basis, that's a pretty large oversight.

well its a hobby - i did not think I would grow to rely on the site to track stuff as much as I did when it suddenly disappeared.  I also never bother to document the research I did here on sets from the late 70's I had as a kid and had found in attic boxes at my mother's. But thanks for the criticism.

[Ed Mack]

It is an unfortunate situation and while I do not speak for him and don't want to make extra work for him, if the data is that important to you, contact Jeff personally and he can probably send you the information in an Excel file. 

[cardensb]

Ed - thanks, I messaged Jeff earlier based on your last post suggesting it.  I'm really just tired of the few "I told you so" contributors to the conversation. I have worked in IT for 20+ years, I don't need someone suggesting I should perform regular back-ups over and over. I relied on a free service and it changed; I assumed it never would completely cease without warning unless it suffered catastrophic failure.

I'm more disappointed in another site that I paid a decent subscription for use and it stopped updating new products in order to update imagery to a rotating image for products going back to the 80's while continuing to charge me and then started spamming me with third party ads even though the subscription included "ad-free" features.

I come here for the SW forum now - it's about the only place on the net to see what others are thinking about.

[stackables]

On 8/23/2021 at 9:28 AM, Ed Mack said:

It is an unfortunate situation and while I do not speak for him and don't want to make extra work for him, if the data is that important to you, contact Jeff personally and he can probably send you the information in an Excel file. 

I tried contacting him...no luck  Perhaps just put the old one up for a week.  Let members know and say they have until some date to backup/copy their brickfolio. Then take it down for good. 

[cardensb]

I sent a private message also.  I assume real life is holding up the process and the inability to help us out.

 

[Ed Mack]

47 minutes ago, cardensb said:

I sent a private message also.  I assume real life is holding up the process and the inability to help us out.

 

You assumed correct.  Thanks for your understanding.

[Mjtruncale]

So I know we are about to break into 2023, but was just inquiring, is Brickfolio ever coming back? The only thing I can imagine as to why it hasn’t come back is some lawsuit is preventing it from doing so… I have to imagine there are too many people that loved Brickfolio that would have paid money or donated their time and expertise to make it come back. I understand you are thinking that there is not enough value in bringing it back or want to create something greater but everyone really would love Brickfolio to return… Happy New Years!