The stripe integration used by Brick Owl stores has been updated to support 3D Secure as part of Strong Customer Authentication coming in later this year. Although this has been tested extensively, please do let us know if you notice any issues, or customers report any issues placing orders via card payments.
The tax profile system has now been updated to support Canadian province based GST, stores based in Canada will see a region selector in the tax profile form.
From February 1st, assemblies of parts (excluding minifigure related assemblies) will beging to be moved to the Minibuild section. For those using synchronisation software, this will have no effect on BrickSync but if you have your own code you may need to adjust it as the item type will change from Part to Minibuild for these items.
Changes have been made to commission payments. Due to a PayPal API being depreciated, Brick Owl and Affiliate Paypal payments will now have to be done separately. Credit/Debit card payments will take both commission payments in one go.
We have added the Lego 30571 Pelican as a new catalog points prize. If you've built up enough catalog points, you can redeem it here https://www.brickowl.com/points
To help with mis-identification, two colors will be renamed. "Glow in the Dark Opaque" will become "Glow in the Dark Transparent White" and "Glow in the Dark Transparent" will become "Glow in the Dark Transparent Green"
Changes have been made to money formatting to support locale specific formatting like £1,000.01 and EUR 1.000,01 . Please use the contact link if you notice any issues.
This can be used to search for items, filter by categories, and then click multiple items to add them to your inventory in one go. There is a colour picker, so you can easily add items in many different colours.
Changes have been made to combined shipping orders, you can now only set tracking/change shipping/leave feedback on the original order. There are now clearer buttons to indicate this.
We have also released Stripe iDeal payment integration, you can add that from your store payment methods
We've now added new Stripe payment methods of giropay for German customers, and Przelewy24 for Polish customer. This is in addition to the previously released iDeal, Bancontact and SOFORT.
Minor changes have been made to how custom store Pages appear (such as the home page). The main change is removing fixed table widths and text background colors to improve cross browser/device compatibility.
The bulk inventory adding tool is now available for both WishLists and Collections. Customers can now easily add large amounts of items to a wishlist and use the wishlist buying tool.
Brick Owl has been migrated to a new, faster server to help us handle the increasing customers over the past few months. For BrickSync users, or any API user that caches the Server IP, please restart BrickSync so it will connect to the new server. We will keep the previous server for at least the next month to allow people time to do this.
We recently added two new countries to the "World" region (Isle of Man and South Sudan). Some shipping/payment methods that apply to the world have been updated automatically, but you may need to update other methods to include these countries.
Additionally, wishlists now have an option to merge the contents of another wishlist into them.
A minimum order limit option has been added to coupons. Mass inventory updating now has options for price addition/subtraction and setting the price to the sale price. The partout form now supports sorting on all columns The partout and inventory editing form support saving the form without submitting it, so it can be finished later. Lot external ID has been added to the inventory management page so you can sort/filter/edit
To help ensure that customers can easily place orders in stores, we now require that stores have at least one shipping method other than "Request a Quote". This will only affect new stores or stores that are closed.
For UK stores, royal mail have now suspended EU bound mail. We would advise temporarily disabling any EU shipping methods until the situation is resolved.
Please also separately note, if no trade deal is made between the UK and EU, EU customers will likely be subject to customs charges in their country which they may not expect.
For API Users: During a maintenance window, Brick Owl incorrectly returned a 200 status code to API requests between 21:30 GMT and 21:37 GMT. These requests were not performed. If you have a custom API solution, which only checks the status code, you may need to check if any calls were performed during this window and possibly resend them. The API response would have had a 200 status code but the body would have been text with no JSON.
BrickSync users should not be affected, as that should have thrown a "JSON Parse Error"
The UK has now left the EU single market. As a result, any sales to the UK from outside the UK are subject to import VAT of 20% (for standard rated items such as Lego). The UK government has decided that all imports under £135 must have VAT paid before reaching the customs border.
Any item sent from outside the UK, to the UK, will now need to have customs information attached. This will take the form of a CN22 and will often also need to have "electronic pre-advice". Your local postal authority will have more information about this.
To minimise the impact this has on non-UK sellers, we have decided to register for VAT in the UK. At 00:01 on the 3rd of January we will begin charging UK Import VAT on all orders sent from non-UK sellers to UK customers. You will begin seeing a new tax profile within your store, which will collect the tax for the relevant orders (Orders to the UK from non-UK sellers).
The VAT will go directly to the store, via whatever payment method is used on the order. The store will then subsequently need to pay the VAT to Brick Owl. This will be done as part of the normal monthly commission payment.
Our understanding is that no import VAT will be charged at the UK border.
This will mean that all UK customers will see 20% VAT when browsing any non-UK store.
For any sellers that are located outside of the UK, but are registered for UK VAT, please contact us.
Separate to this, by registering for UK VAT, unfortunately Brick Owl will need to charge 20% UK VAT on all Brick Owl commission for UK Sellers. This will also begin being applied from 3 January. Unfortunately, this will mean a 20% increase in the commission for UK sellers that are not UK registered.
We apologise for the short notice given, and for the increased inconvenience and costs this process involves for UK Sellers and non-UK Sellers shipping to the UK.
For addresses in the UK, a customer must now choose a region from a dropdown, so that Northern Ireland addresses can be easily identified. In your store tax settings, you can now further refine your tax profile by UK regions. All existing customer addresses in Northern Ireland have been identified and have had their region set.
In your tax profile, you can now choose whether instruction should be zero rated for tax purposes. Additionally tax profiles can now have a maximum order subtotal limit.
The country option has been removed from store settings, and the store country is now determined based on the store address. This only affected a few stores which have been contacted.
The payment of commission is temporarily paused for UK stores while we work on invoicing. Commission will still be charged, but it will not be possible to pay for a few weeks.
The tax system has been further updated to support stores with multiple tax registration numbers. Please enter your tax ID numbers here https://www.brickowl.com/mystore/settings/tax_settings. The old way of entering a single tax ID for display on invoices has been removed. If you enter multiple tax IDs, multiple tax IDs will be displayed on invoices. If you have a valid GB ID, the recent GB Import VAT system will be disabled.
Users now have the option to hide alternates when viewing an inventory. Additionally, there is now filtering available when viewing decorated/stickered versions of a part like Tile 1 x 4.
We have also made it clearer, when viewing an order, what taxes have been charged and why. We anticipate that later in the year we will implement similar systems for non-EU orders sent to EU countries.
Between approximately 2PM yesterday, and 8PM Today (06/02) there was an issue with the file importing system which meant no action was taken on BSX/BSX XML file imports. This has now been fixed and you can continue importing files. You can see in your history which imports have been actioned here https://www.brickowl.com/mystore/inventory/import_history
There have been several updates to Brick Owl this week.
There is a new option allowing stores to use their own domain name, available from the whitelabel store settings tab. Customers entering new addresses at checkout can now use an address autocomplete. UK Stores can enable Royal Mail Click & Drop integration from their order settings. The items shown within catalog blocks such as "bestselling" and "most viewed" are now semi randomised to appear less stale. Orders show an "internal source", indicating if the wishlist magic, whitelabel or catalog cart tools were used to create the cart for the order.
We have updated the PayPal integration used in the checkout process for the "Paypal - Premier / Business Accounts" payment method. You may see a difference in the e-mail that you receive from PayPal. Additionally, it is now much easier for customers without a Paypal account to pay via card through PayPal.
Quotes now automatically expire after 3 weeks if they are not used by a customer. Canadian stores can now use zone based pricing on shipping methods. The country selector in shipping/payment/tax methods now shows the countries currently selected. There is a new "restocked" block available within store pages.
We have now added the translation system to the catalog points system, so any translations will now get 5 catalog points. If you are bilingual, speaking both English and one of (French, Spanish, Italian, Dutch, Danish, German), and would like to improve any incorrect translations that you see, please contact us from the link at the bottom of the page.
Between now and the end of March, Brick Owl is running a store promotion to help deal with old parts without images. If a store submits an image for any part that has been in the catalog for over a year, and this is approved, they will receive a credit of £0.40 on their store commission account.
Images would need to follow our standards set out in the edit form, be approved, and be submitted on an item without any image. The image would also need to be correct for the colour/item that it has been submitted against.
For orders paid with PayPal, the shipping address (for non-US orders) and the shipping/tax amount are now passed to PayPal.
Whitelabel stores can now optionally set a google analytics tag.
The whitelabel feature will be chargeable from the 1st of April, if you don't want to be charged, you can disable the functionality before then.
The messages and orders list now remembers the page you were on if you use the back/forwards buttons. Orders can be sorted by the checkbox (if enabled from your order settings).
Following on from the implementation of collecting import tax for orders sent to the UK/NO from non-UK/NO stores, we have now made the first round of payments to the relevant governments.
Historically, Brick Owl commission has been calculated as 2.5% of (order_total-shipping-tax). This presents an issue for orders where import tax has to be collected by Brick Owl, as payment fees reduce the amount received by Brick Owl. This means that orders where import taxes have to be collected results in the commission received by Brick Owl being approximately 1.7%.
We have therefore updated the system so it will now be calculated as 2.5% of (order_total-shipping-non_import_tax). This only affects order where import tax is collected by Brick Owl, and no other orders. We expect this change to have a very small impact on the amount of commission charged to indiviudal stores, and will mean the revenue Brick Owl receives from orders with import tax is closer to that of non-import tax orders.
Brick Owl is now registered for the EU IOSS scheme. From now, all non-EU stores will see new tax profiles in their store tax settings. The tax profiles will collect import VAT for all EU countries, for orders imported into the EU, from outside the EU, with a value below 150 EUR.
The VAT will be paid by the customer, to the store. The store will then pay the VAT to Brick Owl. Brick Owl will then pay the VAT to the relevant tax authorities.
It is very important that you follow the instructions on orders received that indicate what ID numbers to display on the package or provide to the postal service.
The direct debit system has been updated to automatically setup the payment each month. Any outstanding payments have been made today, and all future payments will be setup on the first of the month. An email confirmation will always be sent with information about the payment amount.
For the third year we are giving away yearly prizes to further reward catalog contributors. The prizes for 2021 can now be seen at https://www.brickowl.com/points
Comments
For more information see https://stripe.com/docs/strong-customer-authentication
This can be used to search for items, filter by categories, and then click multiple items to add them to your inventory in one go. There is a colour picker, so you can easily add items in many different colours.
Additionally from your all orders page, you can select orders, and then choose a combined pick list from the dropdown
We have also released Stripe iDeal payment integration, you can add that from your store payment methods
Additionally, there is a new inventory management page here https://www.brickowl.com/mystore/inventory/manage
Additionally, wishlists now have an option to merge the contents of another wishlist into them.
Mass inventory updating now has options for price addition/subtraction and setting the price to the sale price.
The partout form now supports sorting on all columns
The partout and inventory editing form support saving the form without submitting it, so it can be finished later.
Lot external ID has been added to the inventory management page so you can sort/filter/edit
Please also separately note, if no trade deal is made between the UK and EU, EU customers will likely be subject to customs charges in their country which they may not expect.
BrickSync users should not be affected, as that should have thrown a "JSON Parse Error"
Any item sent from outside the UK, to the UK, will now need to have customs information attached. This will take the form of a CN22 and will often also need to have "electronic pre-advice". Your local postal authority will have more information about this.
To minimise the impact this has on non-UK sellers, we have decided to register for VAT in the UK. At 00:01 on the 3rd of January we will begin charging UK Import VAT on all orders sent from non-UK sellers to UK customers. You will begin seeing a new tax profile within your store, which will collect the tax for the relevant orders (Orders to the UK from non-UK sellers).
The VAT will go directly to the store, via whatever payment method is used on the order. The store will then subsequently need to pay the VAT to Brick Owl. This will be done as part of the normal monthly commission payment.
Our understanding is that no import VAT will be charged at the UK border.
This will mean that all UK customers will see 20% VAT when browsing any non-UK store.
For any sellers that are located outside of the UK, but are registered for UK VAT, please contact us.
More information can be found here https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/changes-to-vat-treatment-of-overseas-goods-sold-to-customers-from-1-january-2021/changes-to-vat-treatment-of-overseas-goods-sold-to-customers-from-1-january-2021#goods-located-outside-the-uk-at-the-point-of-sale
Separate to this, by registering for UK VAT, unfortunately Brick Owl will need to charge 20% UK VAT on all Brick Owl commission for UK Sellers. This will also begin being applied from 3 January. Unfortunately, this will mean a 20% increase in the commission for UK sellers that are not UK registered.
We apologise for the short notice given, and for the increased inconvenience and costs this process involves for UK Sellers and non-UK Sellers shipping to the UK.
In your tax profile, you can now choose whether instruction should be zero rated for tax purposes. Additionally tax profiles can now have a maximum order subtotal limit.
The country option has been removed from store settings, and the store country is now determined based on the store address. This only affected a few stores which have been contacted.
The payment of commission is temporarily paused for UK stores while we work on invoicing. Commission will still be charged, but it will not be possible to pay for a few weeks.
We have also made it clearer, when viewing an order, what taxes have been charged and why. We anticipate that later in the year we will implement similar systems for non-EU orders sent to EU countries.
We have also added a new "orders by country" report here https://www.brickowl.com/mystore/orders/download as well as adding excel download options.
There is a new option allowing stores to use their own domain name, available from the whitelabel store settings tab.
Customers entering new addresses at checkout can now use an address autocomplete.
UK Stores can enable Royal Mail Click & Drop integration from their order settings.
The items shown within catalog blocks such as "bestselling" and "most viewed" are now semi randomised to appear less stale.
Orders show an "internal source", indicating if the wishlist magic, whitelabel or catalog cart tools were used to create the cart for the order.
Images would need to follow our standards set out in the edit form, be approved, and be submitted on an item without any image. The image would also need to be correct for the colour/item that it has been submitted against.
Whitelabel stores can now optionally set a google analytics tag.
The whitelabel feature will be chargeable from the 1st of April, if you don't want to be charged, you can disable the functionality before then.
The messages and orders list now remembers the page you were on if you use the back/forwards buttons. Orders can be sorted by the checkbox (if enabled from your order settings).
Historically, Brick Owl commission has been calculated as 2.5% of (order_total-shipping-tax). This presents an issue for orders where import tax has to be collected by Brick Owl, as payment fees reduce the amount received by Brick Owl. This means that orders where import taxes have to be collected results in the commission received by Brick Owl being approximately 1.7%.
We have therefore updated the system so it will now be calculated as 2.5% of (order_total-shipping-non_import_tax). This only affects order where import tax is collected by Brick Owl, and no other orders. We expect this change to have a very small impact on the amount of commission charged to indiviudal stores, and will mean the revenue Brick Owl receives from orders with import tax is closer to that of non-import tax orders.
The VAT will be paid by the customer, to the store. The store will then pay the VAT to Brick Owl. Brick Owl will then pay the VAT to the relevant tax authorities.
It is very important that you follow the instructions on orders received that indicate what ID numbers to display on the package or provide to the postal service.
Please see https://ec.europa.eu/taxation_customs/business/vat/online-sellers_en for more information