Why brickowl didn't implement it?

s0l0kr

Hey everyone, I have an idea that Brickowl can implement, and I don't know
why it is not implemented yet.
So, there are few type of sellers, someone responds for like a week, or doesn't
respond at all, ships parts in polybags which were used at dinosaur times, and
packaging 100 parts for like a 4 days.
Other type of seller is when a seller quickly responds, includes some gifts for
his customers, responds as fast as possible, in other words puts a lot of effort
in his job, but both of this sellers gets the same money from orders.
And my idea is pretty simple, why Brickowl didn't implement tip system?
Good sellers who put effort will receive a tip from customers if they want to
send it to them, other sellers will try to become better, will try to make their
packaging looking better, will put more effort in their job in order to get tips
for their work. Brickowl can collect fees on this tips.

Gaston.La.Brick

In my region, there is no habit of tipping. I find this in general, a good thing.

The initial transaction is the most important one: a customer should be able to expect to receive the ordered items and with a correct service, for the cost the seller charged and the customer agreed upon. No more, no less.
I do sometimes add a small gift to the order, but not to get extra money. On the contrary, it's to show the customer I am thankful for his (most likely large) order. Doing this, it is me who thanks the customer. I don't expect a thank you (in the form of money) to compensate for this initial gesture. A small email from a customer thanking me, is of course always much appreciated. :-)

Also from a practical point of view, I have some doubts:
- PayPal costs on small transactions will eat an important part of the gain, up to a point I would want to avoid getting any tips at all (unless it's € 10 or above )
- Finance wise, it would mean a transaction after the order has completed, without any product to account for the transaction. "Money for nothing" (Dire Straits ;-)) as a bookkeeping line might be hard to justify or to keep track of. It would be related to an order in some way, but after the order has completed it would be hard to link it to it.

I don't want to sound negative. It's good anybody brings ideas to the table. I only think there are features that justify development time and effort more at this point.

s0l0kr

Yes I agree about finance wise and paypal costs, but all of these can be fixed using something else for tips, for example Jool, which is used in my country in restaurants, customers scan qr code of a waitress and donate tips to waitres's account which can then be used somewhere else, and for example for myself I am not taking in to balance sheet, cashflow and income statement any money which was earned by the principe (money for nothing) it is easier to navigate all the financial statements then. I am not now talking about brickowl shop now, this is my hobby first of all , I am running my own start-up which produces toys for children with disabilities, and there all the tips we just don't take into the account

P6tu

I have a better suggestion in my opinion. Right now BrickOwl is somewhat biased against long term members with huge feedback amount. As a frequent user of the BrickOwl magic or the overall store view, then right now, if the sellers have the same amount of spares to offer, then the one with more feedback will be placed first - why not make it a bit more complex by adding a time feature that who has received more feedback in the recent 30 days for example. Another factor could be the favourite status - the more the store is favourite for other users, then the more likely it is to be above the other stores. And third, but not least - when I, as a buyer, have a favourite store, then why not have that store selected first despite the pirce gap in BrickOwl magic. Right now it is somewhat backwards that I have to scroll through multitude of store to find those little stars next to the store name to be able to select them on demand... Like for example the favourite store could be selected by default every time - would save a lot of hassle for me

HeartlandBrix

Here in the US, any tips we would collect are taxable, so we'd have to account for those funds. Whether it's Jool, Paypal, Brickowl, or something else, US sellers would have to track those tips (and the fees we are charged for collecting them).

Some (I included) wouldn't call us "producers" like yourself where we're creating a new thing from raw materials. My country/state calls me a retailer, just like Amazon, E-Bay, Wal-Mart, etc here in the US. We buy product from someone, package it, and sell/ship it to someone else. Retailers like that don't have a tipping policy here, per se...some charge their customers a separate fee in advance to get the prompt service you're describing. Asking customers for a tip on this platform would be very unusual to most US buyers, even if a seller on here is doing this in their space time as a passion project.

White Horse Bricks

Personally I'm really against the idea of tipping.

I'm happy with the money I receive from the orders and have no expectations above that. If I have given fantastic service, the best I want is that buyers consider me first for their next purchase.

s0l0kr

@P6tu To be honest here I perfectly agree with you, this idea sounds better than mine

Calibrick

Re the OP, as other US sellers have said, in the US we do not tip for a straight sales transaction of a product. That is an extremely foreign concept - the tipping tradition is here historically to help offset an underpaid SERVICE industry (e.g., restaurant wait staff, cooks, folks who work in casinos) who fall under different Federal minimum wage rules than everyone else.

I for one - and this is just me, to be clear - would find it deeply off-putting being expected to "tip" someone who sold me a retail product. It's the reason they exist, why would I pay additional for it? I'm not going to tip Amazon, Wal-Mart, 7-11 (a gas and go store chain) and so on... all profits are supposed to already be built into their pricing. If the profit levels are inadequate, the pricing should increase - which in common industries then to rise and fall together when the raw materials or products rise and fall (except for some industries who collude, but don't get me going on that <s>).

I don't know how EU laws work in this area either at all... I know for retail, their pricing is supposed to be all-inclusive (e.g., VAT)?

I'm not saying it's a bad idea to be clear, I'm just saying this is not the idea for me at all. ;-) I did downvote it, respectfully, based on that. That kind of precedent would actually scare me a bit (a tipping expectation for NON service industries). Another poster made a great point about additional PayPal or other credit card processing fees also.

Bottom line, I think CUSTOMERS would find it off-putting - which could put customers off the site in general, which could then affect my business (which is why, super respectfully, I downvoted this.

Re a separate post - I think it was from @P6tu, are you 100% sure the Wishlist tool sorts in this manner? I have used it quite a bit - my observation (and I've compared this one to the "other site" as well several times for very large lot count buys) is that sorting is always based on the highest number of lots/quantity for the least amount of money including shipping. When you pick one seller, the system then resorts what is left to return to that factor for remaining items on the list. I have NEVER observed it recommending one seller "higher" than another wasn't the lowest price including shipping for the highest volume of lots and items (at original sort or at resorting).

I have to be honest - tho only admin can answer this - I don't think favorites affects the wishlist algorithm at all. I believe that only affects (if anywhere) who pops on the front page - most feedback counts and most favorited. Which would be the lowest risk stores to feature on the front page, so I can totally see that from a biz perspective. Or, you can cash in your catalog contribution points to appear in the featured stores list on the front page.

Brandish_Jaye

Honestly, feedback is the best punishment/reward system, and I wish more buyers would actually use it. Not just because positive feedback gives me the happy brain chemicals , but it also helps buyers paint a picture of what to expect from a store. An unintentional side effect of implementing a tipping system would be bigger stores being able to "game" the system easily for more revenue while small stores would go broke trying to keep up with demand for extras.

WESTIEKaTH

I personally do not like the idea of tipping. I am happy with what my customers pay me and I dont expect anything more. Ideally I would like to post my orders the same day or following but much depends on my work shifts and whether or not I can catch the PO opening time. If I know I am not going to catch the PO for a few days, I always message the customer and explain the situation and give them the option to cancel the order - thankfully this does not happen too often!! I do not seem to have any problems and going by my feedback my customers are happy with it too.
But as I say this is just my opinion :-)

unbrickable

i think a tipping system could cause alot of other unforseen problems. Ask the price you want/need for the product and if an buyer is interested he/she will buy it. Put is simply you do a good job and make youself memorable a customer returns.

to make it geographical it is a very strange concept over here to tip for a purchase, why would you do that ? a commercial bussiness should be payed by the products / service you sell and pay for employees etc. it should contain al the cost related to running the bussiness.

if there is a way to make the feedback system better and more frequently used by customers im all for it !

ps: there is no wrong just my opinion