New Affiliate - Wall of Bricks

DadsAfol

It seems like there is a new affiliate based on this thread over on Brickset: http://www.bricksetforum.com/discussion/11262/the-lego-wall-new-site-for-tracking-pick-a-brick-pab#latest

But I don't see my store showing on their site. Do I need to do something here to enroll?

Lawrence

My understanding is that they haven't finished integrating yet, when they do I will make it available for all and announce it.

DadsAfol

Yes, its live. See: http://wallofbricks.com/brick.php?id=300126
and scroll down to "online availability"

bluedragon

and my store is the top of the list- nice!

dwalton76

Hey everyone, Daniel here...I'm the guy behind wallofbricks. I enabled brickowl integration on wallofbricks yesterday. Here is a quick overview of how my site links to brickowl stores:

Bricks Page
The page for displaying a brick now has an Online Availability section where it will list the brickowl stores that have this part. It may also list the Lego Online Pick-A-Brick site. Lots are grouped by used/new and then sorted by price.
http://www.wallofbricks.com/brick.php?id=302326

Sets Page
Once you've added your sets to "Sets I Own", the page that displays a set will calculate the cheapest way for you to purchase the remaining parts that you do not have. There will be an "Add To Cart" button for each brickowl store. The $$$ amounts will not be %100 accurate because I estimate $5 shipping and handling for each store but it should be very close.

I would love to have more brickowl stores sign up to be an affiliate. The more there are the cheaper it should be for a user to buy the parts needed to complete a set.

Feedback is welcome

Lawrence

The scheme has now been available for any stores to sign up for here http://www.brickowl.com/mystore/settings/affiliate_settings

Markyd7

Signed up. Have been using your site for a while to see what's at my local store.
@dwalton76 I'm guessing you've tried contacting the Lego store to get them to update the walls? My local store very rarely gets updated and I never seem to have the time to update it.

dwalton76

There are a few lego stores where the staff updates wallofbricks for their store but it is pretty rare. For some stores there are a few customers who regularly update their wall but in general it is pretty random and sometimes stores go a few months without updates. The site is pretty popular in the UK and their walls stay fairly up to date.

I wish I was better at marketing so that I could get more users to the site...that would certainly help keep the walls up to date. I do this just as a side project for fun though so haven't had tons of time to spend on building inbound links

DagsBricks

Someone in my LUG pointed out your site when it first came out. It's much easier to use so we are able to do a quicker job updating the wall at our local store. Thanks.

Brian

Loremonger

I have the affiliate settings checked, but I'm still not showing up on Wall of Bricks.

bluedragon

And my store no longer show up whereas it did yesterday.

alltrightbricks

Yep, signed up yesterday, and not showing up.

misbi

I just received my first order through Wall Of Bricks, so it's definitely working OK

rebrude

i have the same issue.. I signed up yesterday and my store doesn't show up anywhere..

dwalton76

Looking into it now...

dwalton76

I have it partially fixed. More brickowl stores have signed up and I hit a scale problem with the code the figures out the optimal combination of stores to use to complete a set. Will hopefully get the rest fixed tonigh.

For now when you view a brick it should show your store. If not please let me know.

Markyd7

Working for my store now, thanks.

Jazzabell

For now when you view a brick it should show your store. If not please let me know.

Nice idea, but doesn't work for my store. Signed up a couple hours ago, maybe that's why?

Isabel

rebrude

still not working for me either :-(

dwalton76

I'll take a look tonight after work. I have it set to download store data from brickowl every 12 hours so if you just signed up that is why it isn't showing up yet.

Loremonger

My shop is showing up now.

Lawrence

I've updated the affiliate scheme description to reflect the fact it will take a time to appear.

dwalton76

@rebrude there is an error on the brickowl side that is preventing me from accessing your inventory. I sent Lawrence some details so he can take a look.

Jazzabell

@dwalton76
First of all, thank you for your effort, it works now, my store shows up.

However, there is one major issue regarding different currencies. The prices are correct only for USD listings, not other currencies, like EUR or PLN in my case.

Look at the example:
http://www.wallofbricks.com/brick.php?id=4621617

My price is PLN 1.90 (USD ~0.62), not USD 1.90 as it shows. It is still the highest, but not so much stand-off

For EUR stores, it is even better, their prices in USD look significantly lower than they really are. My bad luck PLN is weaker currency than USD and EUR stronger


Please consider currency conversion here.
Thank you and good luck with your idea,
Isabel

elias3

@ Jazzabell: good find!

My price for your exaple is 0.32USD (my original EUR price is 0.35)
XE says 0.48USD


Stefaan

Jazzabell

I was acting in my own interest, so that my prices would not seem too high.
As a side effect, this concerns all the prices in EUR as well, so that they would not seem too low
Sooooorry all EUR stores

Isabel

dwalton76

Hmm, I had some logic in place to convert everything to USD but I missed Poland and had the conversion for Canada/Europe mixed up Will update here in a minute...

dwalton76

ok should be fixed now, please let me know if the prices I'm showing for your store are incorrect.

@jazzabell that did make a big difference for your prices

steendorp

It was working for my shop, but unfortunately my shop does not show up anymore.

Frank

Jazzabell

ok should be fixed now, please let me know if the prices I'm showing for your store are incorrect.

@jazzabell that did make a big difference for your prices

Thank you Daniel, I'm sure you did a good job, but all I can see now is only Gerald's store Brick Top's Top Bricks - currently the most competitive store in the world, LOL
(no other stores showing up at all)

[...] but I missed Poland [...]

No problem, I'm used to it

Isabel

Jazzabell

One of examples

dwalton76

Hmm somehow the updater that runs every 12 hours crapped out. Will be fixed in about 5 minutes.

Jazzabell

Perfect!
Well done and good luck
Isabel

alltrightbricks

Received a nice order today through Wall of Bricks
Thank you,
Katie

Markyd7

Also had an order this week. Customer lived 2 miles away so delivered by hand! lol

walstib

Thanks for the resource. Looking again I have one as well, and for a uncommon part you would never find on a PAB wall.

Unfortunately I don't seem to be showing up today on your site, but I trust the future looks bright.

steendorp

Hope I will show up again on the site. Had a nice order last week. I hope it will be fixed soon. It's a nice extra selling feature.

Frank

steendorp

That's a pitty, it was working this morning. But it is broken now.

Brikomania

I've got 5 wall of brick referrals since this weekend, it's nice!

Graham

Strange I got an order a few days ago via WoB referral (that wasn't enabled) - it is now - strange!

dwalton76

If you've seen your stores dropping in and out of wallofbricks it was because the updater than ran every 12 hours kept barfing. I just ran the updater manually and turned off the "run every 12 hours part" until I can figure out why it is failing. I think it has something to do the hosting company I am using.

Lawrence

If it helps, I would suggest checking for memory/time limits. You may be able to see in your logs if a process has been killed for either of those reasons.

dwalton76

yeah when I run it manually it is fine...hostgator appears to have a time limit on how long they are willing to let a cron job run.

Stragus

Have the cron job launch it in the background then? fork(), execv(), ignore SIGHUP and such

dwalton76

So hostgator has a 15 minute cutoff for cron jobs. I just need to break it up to download the data from each store in parallel intead of one at a time. I should be able to fix it tonight.

unbrickable

fixed

SilentMode

You know what, I think I'll sign up.