Cashmoney-0 Posted August 20, 2014 Posted August 20, 2014 If I understand Ed's post correctly, it's not per month. It's $500 per order batch, which would be a huge order, unless you're buying sets or something. I think my biggest ever order on there was for about Quote
justafrog Posted August 20, 2014 Posted August 20, 2014 And no, they don't use the same IDs as BL which really doesn't help. I understand they want to distinguish themselves from BL, but a little co-ordination there would go a long way IMHO. They started with BL numbers, etc., including syncing inventory between BO and BL as a service to sellers, and all that got them was a cease and desist notice from BL's lawyers that they've chosen not to fight. So the coordination will not be originating from BO, they can't. However, a third party could do some coordination software between the two, similar to The Art of Books does for booksellers. That would be spiffy and I'm ready to hand money to such a venture. Quote
minicoopers11 Posted August 20, 2014 Posted August 20, 2014 On BL: Order = all of the batches Batch = all of the items ordered at once (add items to cart, then checkout...all of the items you checked out with at that time are one batch. If that is your first batch, that is your entire order until you do another batch). You can keep adding batches to your order until the seller ships. Each batch is automatically added to your original order. Quote
Cashmoney-0 Posted August 27, 2014 Posted August 27, 2014 I sell on eBay but can't stand the selling fees. I have heard that you still make more money on eBay although the selling fees are higher, but I don't know for sure. I'm thinking of opening an account on bricklink or brickowl, but obviously only want to pick one, I wouldn't have the time to open an account on both. Which one should I pick and for what reasons? Also, I would need not to open a bricklink or brickowl account till next year. All suggestions welcome and thanks! Quote
justafrog Posted August 27, 2014 Posted August 27, 2014 I'm confused. People have advised you that you'll generally get more on eBay for sets, but you choose to disregard that out of emotion ("who cares if I made an extra $20 bucks! eBay made more money than I think they should, so I'll go make less money somewhere else instead!") Now you're asking the lot of us to pull out our crystal balls and determine for you which venue will make more money for you when you might go sell there sometime next year. Will you then ignore that and go sell in a TRU parking lot? eBay has better traffic and faster sales. Bricklink and Brickowl have better communities and savvier buyers (especially Bricklink, because only the savvy put up with that interface). Who charges the most in fees is utterly irrelevant provided you are making as much or more net on the items in any given venue. At that point, it becomes a matter of personal preference in how you like to do business - some folks really appreciate the Bricklink community, some folks like to give the new kid some support on Brick Owl, some folks stick with eBay's annoying rules and go with the faster and generally better money there. TLDR Version: You can make your decisions for business reasons or emotional reasons, but mixing the two is a bad plan - you'll end up zigging when you should have zagged. I would read up some on making a business plan and do that and follow it - a much sounder method of determining venues to sell on than the coin toss you're trying to make. 1 Quote
Jeff Mack Posted August 27, 2014 Posted August 27, 2014 I sell on eBay but can't stand the selling fees. I have heard that you still make more money on eBay although the selling fees are higher, but I don't know for sure. I'm thinking of opening an account on bricklink or brickowl, but obviously only want to pick one, I wouldn't have the time to open an account on both. Which one should I pick and for what reasons? Also, I would need not to open a bricklink or brickowl account till next year. All suggestions welcome and thanks! This is where you need to do your own homework and make your own business decision. People have given you their time and their knowledge. What you do with it now is up to you. I don't think there really is a wrong decision, it's just what website do you feel most comfortable with. Quote
XCool Posted August 28, 2014 Posted August 28, 2014 BrickLink's interface definitely needs an overhaul. That being said, I don't find any problems with the current old school interface after being there for about 4 months now. Quote
r0by76 Posted September 9, 2014 Posted September 9, 2014 BrickLink's interface definitely needs an overhaul. That being said, I don't find any problems with the current old school interface after being there for about 4 months now. I agree. BL interface and mechanics are very challenging at the beginning. Now, after some months of hard work, I feel pretty comfortable there. My shop is not open yet, but I have succesfully catalogued some 11k pieces this summer. I know BO could be an alternative, but I will remain with BL. Quote
10230 Posted September 9, 2014 Posted September 9, 2014 I agree. BL interface and mechanics are very challenging at the beginning. Now, after some months of hard work, I feel pretty comfortable there. Same here. My only fear is that the new interface, while maybe looking better, only offers a fraction of the current functionality. I've seen that many times after user-interface overhauls. 1 Quote
minicoopers11 Posted September 9, 2014 Posted September 9, 2014 Has anyone tried buying or selling MOCs on BL? The new interface for buying/selling MOCs is supposed to be eventually rolled out for the entire site. Quote
Stragus Posted October 3, 2014 Posted October 3, 2014 (edited) However, a third party could do some coordination software between the two, similar to The Art of Books does for booksellers. That would be spiffy and I'm ready to hand money to such a venture. I have shared my synchronization software, meant to run on your own computer, if you want to have a look: http://www.brickowl.com/forum#/discussion/2627/bricksync-inventory-synchronization-software/p1 It's still in beta testing but it should be pretty reliable. The software is not open-source (yet) and will refuse to handle inventories above 250000 items (until I decide if I want to implement some kind of registration for big commercial sellers). Edited October 3, 2014 by Stragus Quote
justafrog Posted October 3, 2014 Posted October 3, 2014 I have shared my synchronization software, meant to run on your own computer, if you want to have a look: http://www.brickowl.com/forum#/discussion/2627/bricksync-inventory-synchronization-software/p1 It's still in beta testing but it should be pretty reliable. The software is not open-source (yet) and will refuse to handle inventories above 250000 items (until I decide if I want to implement some kind of registration for big commercial sellers). Thanks - a very exciting development! We will be over 250K in parts in the next two months, tho, so I'm afraid I'd be a bad test subject. I will be watching with interest, however, and I hope it goes really well! Quote
Stragus Posted October 3, 2014 Posted October 3, 2014 Thanks - a very exciting development! We will be over 250K in parts in the next two months, tho, so I'm afraid I'd be a bad test subject. I will be watching with interest, however, and I hope it goes really well! So you would still have two months to test. Ideally, I would prefer to go open-source and donation supported, that 250k parts limit is mostly a temporary measure until I figure out the way forward. There are a few users of the software in the 100k-200k parts range and it seems to be performing quite well. There have been bugs (as always!) since the first public release a week ago, but none of them lasted over 16 hours. Quote
10230 Posted October 3, 2014 Posted October 3, 2014 I have shared my synchronization software, meant to run on your own computer I was interested until I read "not open source (yet)" (but can understand your motivation, these things take a _lot_ of time). But my inventory is also so small that I can easily manage by hand. Quote
Stragus Posted October 3, 2014 Posted October 3, 2014 I was interested until I read "not open source (yet)" (but can understand your motivation, these things take a _lot_ of time). Yes, it's quite a bit of work, 20k lines of code plus some 10k imported from other projects (pure C99 with no dependencies). It will become open-source, that much is certain. The dilemma is between doing it right away and hoping for donations, or asking for registration from big sellers until some amount is reached before opening the software. Should I trust the innate altruism of human nature? Quote
Jeff Mack Posted October 3, 2014 Posted October 3, 2014 Yes, it's quite a bit of work, 20k lines of code plus some 10k imported from other projects (pure C99 with no dependencies). It will become open-source, that much is certain. The dilemma is between doing it right away and hoping for donations, or asking for registration from big sellers until some amount is reached before opening the software. Should I trust the innate altruism of human nature? My personal opinion, put a price tag on it. Human nature is that everyone wants it for free. Quote
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