A way to sell an individual sealed bag of parts?

ChunkLi

Hello,

First, I’m aware there’s a very recent discussion that sounds very similar to my question, but I promise I’ve read it and it’s different!

I sell second-hand Lego and occasionally luck upon unopened, sealed bags of lego. For example, bag 5 from a set with 7 bags.

I’ve learned that just opening the bags to store them individually is apparently frowned upon, but I can’t seem to find a way to sell these as ‘new’, as the catalog doesn’t list individual numbered bags from within a set.

Ideally, the ability to link inventory into a bundle would be a feature, but I cannot for the life of me find it so turning to anyone else on here who might have an answer or suggestion.

I hear Bricklink has this kind of feature, but it’s becoming near impossible to get that first feedback - everything I need for my MOCs ends up being available from Brick Owl, so my feedback ends up here, which has me in a pickle.

I just want to sell these new pieces without being frowned upon from opening the bag/s and parting them out further.

Thanks in advance!

ChunkLi

If anyone knows how to change my icon from the frowning face, that’s be great. I promise I’m not that angry IRL haha

Papa Pearson

Brick Owl is for selling parts individually. I'm not sure what you mean when you say opening the bag is frowned upon. Unless a store sells only new unopened sets, we all open the bags to sort the parts and store them. The parts are still new. Are you trying to sell the entire bag as 1 lot? I think there is a way to do custom lots, but you will need to know which set it came from. Ebay may be the easiest option.

Jay37

At the top of the forum you will see your little frowny face. Tap it once and a menu will drop down. Click the body in a circle to display your forum profile. Click View Profile. Your frowny face will now be larger. Tap it and you should see an option to change icon. I haven't done it before so I hope it's straightforward from there!

P.S. In the mobile view you may have to scroll a fair way down to find some of the options - a quirk of the site!

Graham

@ChunkLi
While viewing forum. You need to click the "cog" click it then select preferences then you will see the option to change picture.
I'm on iOS
See pics
Maybe other ways

tons_of_bricks

What @Papa Pearson said. We sell thousands of new pieces, and they're all out of their original bags stored safely in ziplock bags inside plastic bins.

Graham

@ChunkLi

To your original question there is no way to sell what is essentially an "unsorted lot" even if you could list the contents. Used to be able to on BrickLink but I think that is no longer an option. So eBay FB or CL would be the only options.

Pikka

@ChunkLi If you find out what set that bag comes from, you may list the set under "New (Incomplete)" condition and put a public note that clearly explains the situation, for instance: "Contains bag No.5 only, priced accordingly ". Now, I'm not sure if this is legit so I hope others will chime in.

Jay37

@ChunkLi @Pikka Probably pushing the definition to do so under the store selling terms...

Pikka

@Jay37 That's why there is the magic word "usually"

nita_rae

There are two (somewhat different) scenarios involved here. One is where the bag was a spefic sub-assembly. A good example of that is 6575-1 (the larger Polar Base set from 2000). Individual bags were printed with pictures of the sub-assembly contained therein. The other is the more common numbered bags. Those may have been adopted by TLG so that their stock keeping of bags was more utilitarian. The numbered bags are more related to a section of the assembly instructions than they are to a free-standing sub-assembly.

Sub-assemblies could almost be thought of as a larger version of the micro-build.

Jay37

@ChunkLi I wonder just how much of a market there would be for this. As you say there is no way to inventory an individual bag without opening it (in which case you might just as well do this and add the parts individually as new), and how often is someone in possession of say the other six bags of a seven bag set, and you just happen to have the one they're missing? Plus if you sold as an incomplete set, how do you judge a price? Does the bag you have contain fairly standard parts, or is there something of inherent value, like a rare minifigure? If so, I would remove said valuable parts and sell them individually as there is likely to be more demand.

tons_of_bricks

@Jay37 "I wonder just how much of a market there would be for this."

I have seen this brought up several times, usually when someone buys an incomplete set off of Ebay or such and it's missing just one or two bags. It's made me wonder if it would be worth the time of @Lawrence to consider implementing an alternate inventory or something similar for sets where you could view the bags and inventory of those bags.

Hoddie

The bags in any given set can vary over time, depending on where it's put together and where the constituent parts are made. Sets made in Mexico may have different bags than the same set produced in the Czech factory, and the same set made in the same factory but in different years may have different bags.

ChunkLi

Thank you all so so much for the advice! I really appreciate it!

I read somewhere in passing that once a sealed bag is open, the parts can no longer be called new, but from all the responses here it’s clear that what I read wasn’t the norm.

I’m so relieved to hear I can open the bags, store the individual parts and they’re still ‘new’. Never built or put together, just sorted

Thanks again for the wonderful advice!

If you’re still reading, here’s a bonus question:

I’ve got about just over 1000 unique lots to upload. How long did it take you to upload that many lots?

So far I’m averaging about 40 a day and wondering if that’s ok or not fast enough haha

Papa Pearson

@ChunkLi ...If you're adding parts from a bulk box of stuff, I would say 40 a day is pretty good. I don't usually deal in bulk lots, but from what I have heard its best to sort by color first. Then sort by part type. And just an FYI, its much easier to sort and add parts from sets.

ChunkLi

Thanks @Papa Pearson !
I’ve started with a bulk lot I happened across at a secondhand shop, to dip my toes in and see how things go. If it becomes somewhat profitable/busy/worth my time, I’ll then look to grow, otherwise sell the stock and shutter shop.
That said, I’m cautiously optimistic as I’m fairly confident this lot will let me hit the 1000 unique lots starting point. The lot ended up having about ¼ new parts still in sealed bags and the remaining 3/4 are in very good condition, now they’re cleaned!
Just want to make sure I get things right so I don’t piss off anybody in the process.
If you’ve got the time, please feel free to visit my store (so far) and let me know any feedback

In future though, I can definitely see how much easier it would be parting out new sets. That’s a while off though because I’ll need to do a lot more research into that before I would be confident enough to start buying new sets for parting out.