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New means NEW
A few days ago I received an order from a regular customer.
With a strange note. Asking that I make sure I only send NEW pieces.
I only sell new parts there are no used parts anywhere near my store. This being the first such message, I assumed something must have been wrong with their last order.
So I followed up with an assurance that all parts I sell are brand new. I received a response in return. Nothing wrong with an order from me... but apparently one or more stores have sent used parts as new.
That is unacceptable, to whomever is responsible, likely a newer member, please realize 99% of customers are knowledgable regarding LEGO product and they as well as those who have been in the business a while can easily identify used from new.
This doesn't just impact the offending store(s), it reflects on the venue too. It shouldn't be necessary for someone to ask that, nor anyone taking time to follow up.
NEW parts are brand new, minimally handled, and NEVER "clicked"
and "not sure" - even if it looks new to you = USED - always
With a strange note. Asking that I make sure I only send NEW pieces.
I only sell new parts there are no used parts anywhere near my store. This being the first such message, I assumed something must have been wrong with their last order.
So I followed up with an assurance that all parts I sell are brand new. I received a response in return. Nothing wrong with an order from me... but apparently one or more stores have sent used parts as new.
That is unacceptable, to whomever is responsible, likely a newer member, please realize 99% of customers are knowledgable regarding LEGO product and they as well as those who have been in the business a while can easily identify used from new.
This doesn't just impact the offending store(s), it reflects on the venue too. It shouldn't be necessary for someone to ask that, nor anyone taking time to follow up.
NEW parts are brand new, minimally handled, and NEVER "clicked"
and "not sure" - even if it looks new to you = USED - always
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A number of months back, in a sale on the other site, a customer had a bit of a tiff about a large quantity of blue bricks they received. They contended that the parts were OLD and the color had faded (because bright lights). I responded that the source of the parts were various sets/buckets broken down between 2003-2006, so while they might have been older, they were not USED. And they had been stored where light/heat would not affect them. Certain ABS colors/batches, are not as color fast as others. I offered a full refund if they wanted to return them. Never heard anything more about it.
Here is my short rant on that subject from a while ago: "Selling Used as New"
https://www.brickowl.com/forum#/discussion/12345/selling-used-as-new-a-short-rant
But as an example of subjective labeling, look at the 4495 "flag wave left" and "flag wave right". Wave left relative to what? Put aside that waves undulate. If one of these flags is rotated 180 degrees from right to left, is it a flag wave left waving right or a flag wave right waving left or a flag wave right waving right…? To properly describe the form, and differentiate between the two, an agreed upon initial orientation is required: Using a top-down view, with the piece oriented perpendicular to the viewer such that the stud portion is at the relative top and the banner is at the relative bottom, the banner curves first to the right from its connection point at the stud portion…but that is not succinct. So we get ambiguous but succinct in favor of cognitively accurate descriptions.
And LEGO doesn't always help with their sometimes giving a new catalog number to a part with an existing mold and other times keeping an existing catalog number for a revised mold.
In one specific set, 4562 which was called Creator Value Pack, the bonus parts came in 5 or 6 specific configurations. Those were purchased at rock bottom from a chain of US pharmacies, before most people had ever thought of selling the parts online. I broke down 200-300 of them. A couple of the parts were all over the map color-wise, there were (to me) quality rejects. But they were perfectly usable parts. If you did not have a hundred of them to compare, you would never know about the color issue.
Many of the blue bricks (mentioned above) came from those sets. I do not recall the blue parts having color issues, but they were not sold in a set where all the parts needed to match one another, so it is possible some of those might have had color issues. All of these parts were NEW, but some of them could have been 'second quality' for one reason or the other.
Another example of TLG having color issues was 8009 R2-D2. I broke down 20 or 30 when I first got some. There were a number of DK BLUE parts, where some were opaque dark blue, and others were translucent (not transparent) dark blue. TLG was having a serious problem with dark blue that year. I divided them up as best as possible, and listed them by what they were nearest to with a comment about the situation.
New
Lego that is classed as New should have never been built or played with and is often taken directly from sealed Lego Sets. New items can contain some hairline scratches as Lego package parts all mixed in together but they should not have any major damage such as dents or chips. The items should ideally be as pristine and perfect as when they were first moulded and printed.
As George Carlin said: "It's okay to prick your finger, but don't finger your prick."
For our new sellers, please be and stay honorable like 99.999% of your peers! :-) If you pulled it out of a sealed LEGO box or polybag and only sorted them, they're New (unless damaged in postal delivery, of course).
If it LOOKS spankin' new and is pristine, but you didn't pull it out of a sealed LEGO box or bag, that is the purpose of the USED - LIKE NEW category on this site. :-)
As Graham so rightly noted, all us sellers affect one another in terms of how prospective customers view the integrity of this terrific sales platform! People don't tend to think they had a bad experience with X seller (save the truly regular AFOL buyers), they tend to think they had a bad experience on X SITE. The more favorably the tightly-knit LEGO community views BO as a whole, the more customers that will give us a chance. :-)
It only takes one truly bad apple to get a negative Reddit thread on us (BO as a whole) going. :-(
I would say that just about every seller does correctly list new as new and used as used. But there are those few extremely picky customers that expect new to be mint. I remember early on getting a customer who complained that I sold some used tiles as new because of some marks he spotted on them (at that time we only listed brand new pieces from sets so there was no way they were used). Come to find out after some correspondence that he uses magnifying glass to look for imperfections on pieces; of course he's going to find marks on new tiles if he does that!
So I wouldn't get too upset/worried that there are sellers who are listing incorrectly, whether on purpose or accident because of a customer or two who claim it happens.
@firestar246 to have fully connected parts in a new set is extremely rare, some maybe loosely attached, on minifigs personally I feel that if a fig is being sold new/assembled it should at least be noted. Parts out of a new/sealed set will always be "new"
@Pikka I think you are conflating new/old with new/used - new/old is still new, no matter how long its sat in inventory
@Hoddie exactly!
My original point wasn't to debate these rather unusual points. Simply (please) don't sell used parts as new, which is what was done to my aforementioned customer.
I realize there might be some slight scratching on new parts because of how they're packaged by LEGO, but this was clearly heavy playwear. How do sellers get away with this? I'd be embarrassed to sell bricks that looked like that and were listed as "new." If my parted-out bricks are too scratched, I wouldn't list them as new, even if they were. It's just bad business.
With regards used, on BO we can list them in different conditions and the like new category is there for those parts which look new but have come from a display build etc
People trying it on selling used as new just spoils the integrity of the site and tars all sellers with the same brush.
It's more than merely packaging.
1. The part is molded and ejected from the mold.
2. The part exists (for some period of time) in a large container with others of the same element number (design + color).
3. The part is then handled by the assembly systems, which count, collate, and seal bags.
4. The bag of parts now residing in a set box/polybag/blister/etc, is moved around from warehouse to warehouse to retail to customer.
5. The customer may open it immediately, or may store for some time.
I recently parted out some 4400-1 tubs, which had been in my inventory for over 15 years.