Uploading BL Inventory

rebrude

hi there!

every time I want to upload/update my BL inventory the numbers don't match.. but when I delete my BO inventory first and then upload it works and I have the same counts on both sites..

question is, do I really need to delete my BO inventory first every time in want to update? or is there a setting I missed to turn on/off??

hope you can help me out!

-rebecca

Brikomania

BrickPacker.com

DagsBricks

Deleting your inventory kills open carts in your store. Use BrickStore to manage your inventory. Then you go to http://brickowl.com/mystore/inventory/import and do a .bsx Import/Update.

Note that BrickPacker charges a 2% fee after the first month. I don't know if that's clear on their website.

rebrude

every time I try to use brick packer the site does not load right..

and the first time I registered another Bricklink user was logged in with my data.. he wrote me a message to let me know. so I don't know if it's really that good to use that program?

Loremonger

@rebrude I believe that was me, but it was the Seller Tools site offered by Constructibles (who has since fixed the issue).

As far as Brickpacker goes, it very much feels like a beta site at the moment, but it's pretty much the only option for automation unless you're a programmer.

BinOfBlocks

I dont feel that Brick packer is going to be a very reliable solution... or one that makes much sense. They charge for there service and to be honest, now one here is just making millions. You already have Bricklink fees, Brickowl fees, and Paypal fees, and eBay fees if your using them.

I really am close to closing up shop on BL and just selling here. Few things have changed here though that remind me to much of BL so im kinda hesitating. If i got to put up with crap... I might as well just stay at BL and close up here. I wanted this site to be different and more open that BL but it seems to be starting to follow the same ruleset and behavior.

Brikomania

Deleting your inventory kills open carts in your store. Use BrickStore to manage your inventory. Then you go to http://brickowl.com/mystore/inventory/import and do a .bsx Import/Update.

Thanks for letting me know bout the carts. Unfortunately, there is a problem with the import/update. If you delete a lot on BL, like, not put it to stockroom, but delete it, it won't delete it here.

rebrude

I did delete my BO inventory today to upload a new file and the carts were still there. I didn't delete them..

I think that I won't use Brickpacker, I rather have empty carts then getting charged another fee.

Lawrence

Deleting your store inventory would delete all the items people have in carts, so if done on a regular basis would result in a reduction of sales. Since BLs legal threats selling on both sites isn't easy.

rebrude

that's strange. how come my carts weren't deleted earlier today?

right now I only open my store on weekends since the new baby and my 2 year old keeping me busy all day :-) so empty carts aren't really bothering me but if I open my shop again on a every day basis it's going to make a difference in sales..

is there maybe a chance that this can be changed somehow that the carts are not going to be deleted, and just getting updated or something like that?

Lawrence

I'm not sure why they wouldn't be emptied, is it possible different people made new carts in between? The carts are linked to items in your store inventory via the lot ID, when you delete lots, the items in the cart would no longer be referencing anything. The new items you upload will be given new lot IDs. Like @DagsBricks mentioned above, it is possible to do this without deleting things, but it requires a lot of manual work to keep things up to date.

rebrude

no,
it took me maybe a minute to upload and there were about 15 or 16 carts.
I use brickstore to upload inventory, but everytime i use the upload/update bxl format there is a big difference of about 200 items... but if I delete everything first and then upload it works and the number of items is right also...

I don't know why maybe you can explain to me?

budgetkids

I ran into this when I first started. Make sure you retain all of your inventory. Also, if you delete an item in brickstore/BL then you must manually delete it in BO too.

Lawrence

I can't explain why it would reduce the carts, I just tested it, I did notice a bug, it wasn't counting carts that only had one item, I've adjusted that. If I add an item to my cart, it shows on the active carts, if I then delete that for my inventory, it goes away from the active carts. All I can think is that you didn't actually delete the inventory, I'm not really sure what happened.

rebrude

I don't know why this happened either but I know that I had deleted my inventory

thanks budgetkids, I just set my bl inventory to retain items..

Brikomania

I had 50 carts open, deleted inv yesterday, and now have 10, so it is indeed that.

iluvmyelement

Do carts automatically empty if they don't purchase after so many days? If not - it might be nice to think about (e.g. 14 day rule - if a buyer doesn't buy in two weeks then they probably won't)

johnsma2000

The carts stay for 60 or 90 days from the last addition. Which is good since it takes me quite awhile to make sure I'm not forgetting anything. I'm usually working on multiple things and so are my boys. I have had issues with other sites where the cart empties too soon. After shopping for so long it is really frustrating to have to start over because your cart emptied. I never remember to add everything back when this happens.
Melissa