Suggestions about Suggestions

Thor

Reviewing the suggestions already made, I see a lot of them (including some of mine) were for features already available on BL. Henceforth, I will make an effort to suggest features that do not already exist on BL, improvements of existing BL features, and features which will differentiate BO from BL. I hope others do the same. One starting point may be to go through the list of NON-implemented suggestions on BL.

We do not want BO to be accused of being a BL clone or copycat. There may also be legal issues with BL if BO copies so many BL features too closely.

Thor

patpendlego

BL wil have it's name registered, but features? How can there be legal issues?
I assume BO's underlying structure will be different enough from BL in such a way that features will be different enough as well.

Thor

I haven't done the research, so I am just being cautious and relying on my prior experience in various legal matters. It just raises red flags to have too many identical features. Copyright??? Business method???

As for the latter, BL should have looked into trying to get a business method patent years ago. It may be too late now, or maybe not.

Thor

YELLOW FARM BRICKS

well all the suggestions seem to be from experienced BL sellers looking to replicate what they do there. It's a good point though. I'm "lurking" here rather that selling so far and one thing I'm looking for is some sense of what will attract buyers here as opposed to sellers. Is the target market BL buyers or, more interesting to me, new/different buyers? Admin any comments on this?

Robert

Lawrence

I'm looking for is some sense of what will attract buyers here as opposed to sellers. Is the target market BL buyers or, more interesting to me, new/different buyers? Admin any comments on this?

Robert

The target is "normal" folk, the kind of people we get one our main website that had never heard of BrickLink or struggle to navigate it. They might have tried buying on eBay, but that's a pain if you want more than one or two parts.

Once we get properly indexed by Google, I can get to work on attracting buyers more. At the moment, I'm working on getting a solid platform that we can then work from. If Brick Owl becomes a success, the BL buyers may come too.

YELLOW FARM BRICKS

that is really helpful Admin, thanks! We started selling Lego on eBay back in '05 and built up a good trade. we opened on BL in '07 and ran the 2 together for a couple of years by which time we'd focussed on the AFOL customer and stopped eBay (except for a few ad-hoc sales). The 2 brought in very different business but it was too much work to run both at the time. We cannot put our BL inventory on here as we have a big business over there with inventory changing all the time, any time of day and night so this sync option would end in tears for us in terms of customer service. This helps us think about what (separate) inventory we might have a go at selling here which we are thinking about, cheers, Robert

Lawrence

That's an interesting point you bring up, I suppose if you are going to segment your inventory, BrickLink may be preferable for parts, and we may be preferable for Sets and Minifigures

YELLOW FARM BRICKS

my thinking at this point, yes. I guess the answer may be different for different stores. Minifigs come to mind for us - they are a market in themselves.

steelwoolghandi

I have found that selling Sets on BL has never worked out for me as well as selling parts on BL, I have broken up vintage sets and sold the parts off because they sat for so long without selling. I agree parts are a big thing but if sets would sell here better I would do that in a heartbeat!

I already appreciate the ease of loading and starting a store, as well as the Welcome attitude here as apposed to BL. Its so hard to navigate if you are a new user on BL whether buying or selling. I think that this site will shine when it comes to ease of use for new users.