Percent Sale Frustration

alltrightbricks

So my current method of bringing in new inventory is to upload through BL and bring over to BO going through Bricksync. But since sales percents do not carry over I'm stuck waiting on my inventory to show that it is no longer making adjustments, then I download my BL inventory to Brickstock and upload to BO so that my new inventory now has the correct percentage sale.

This process is taking longer and longer. I have to wait 20/30 mn before the "changes are being made in your inventory" note goes away and I am comfortable uploading the file from Brickstock to set the sale percentages.
It worries me, because I have a sale going on, and it can take awhile before my new items are actually on sale. I'm sure that dozens of wishlist emails are being sent, showing the non sale price.

But what has really got me today is that I keep going in and double checking my inventory to see if the correct prices are showing. And they are not. It has been over an hour and a half since I uploaded the file from Brickstock, and the prices are still showing up without the sale. The "changes are being made" warning went away for awhile, came back for a short time, and then went away again.
I can go into my inventory see the item, see that it shows that it is x% off, go into the price guide, and it is showing at the non sale price in the price guide. If I go into my store it is showing the non sale price.
It seem that it is taking longer and longer, and unless I keep checking, I'm never certain when the sale prices are actually in effect.

I don't know if there is a better way to do this, but it is very frustrating. Any help on this would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
Katie

alltrightbricks

After 3 hours with sale prices still not showing (even though my inventory shows the percentage that the items should be discounted), I redid the brickstock upload, and sale prices showed immediately.
Don't know why it didn't work before. A bit frustrating as there is nothing other than intuition telling me to check these things out.

Katie

pumbaugh

Why wouldnt you just adjust the prices/upload on bl...then when finished, open up brickstock-import store inventory, save as a .bsx and upload using the lot id function to BO? I do not use Sync yet so I dont know if using the service causes reasons for your process...but how I do it is pretty much as I described and have no issues.

alltrightbricks

I don't believe this was a Bricksync issue. I did an import/update with lot IDs from a brickstock file.

My biggest concern was that. If I went into my inventory it would show that item XXX was on sale, say 15% off, but when I went to the Price Guide or into my store the item was not reflecting the sale price.
I tried different browsers. I tried logging out and going into my store. The sale prices just plain and simple were not in effect even though my inventory (seller's view) showed all the lots as a percentage on sale.
It wasn't until I redid the entire process that it worked.

So now, I can't trust what my inventory is showing me, and must double check every time to see if the sale prices are showing up in my store or not.

Thanks,
Katie

pumbaugh

I didnt suggest sync was the issue. I was questioning why it seems like you have to do it in many parts. It just seems like doing all the work on BL then using Brickstock to upload to BO seems like less steps....I was looking at the process as I am always interested how other people do it. You make it seem like you add inventory to BL, then use sync to add it to BO, then use BL to adjust your prices, then use Brickstock to update prices on BO when yo could do it all at BL, then just import to Brickstock and upload all here in one swoop.

unbrickable

why not update your inventory though bricksync and then with the sale price adjustments on bo en bl make the total sale price equal to each other ?

but for me, it takes to long before bo updates when i update and change the prices i have always a few days no order before order start coming again, very weird

Hoddie

but for me, it takes to long before bo updates when i update and change the prices i have always a few days no order before order start coming again, very weird

I've noticed something that's perhaps related? There are usually anywhere between 10 and 15 open carts with my store, but if I mass update my inventory the number usually reduces by half almost immediately. Sure, some customers might not like the new prices but the vast majority of parts stay at the same price so I'm not sure this explains it.

unbrickable

but for me, it takes to long before bo updates when i update and change the prices i have always a few days no order before order start coming again, very weird

I've noticed something that's perhaps related? There are usually anywhere between 10 and 15 open carts with my store, but if I mass update my inventory the number usually reduces by half almost immediately. Sure, some customers might not like the new prices but the vast majority of parts stay at the same price so I'm not sure this explains it.

Hi thanks for replying, I have the same symptoms if i do a mass update. Do you also have a drop in sales ?

are there more people who have the same issue ?

alltrightbricks

I didnt suggest sync was the issue. I was questioning why it seems like you have to do it in many parts. It just seems like doing all the work on BL then using Brickstock to upload to BO seems like less steps....

Since I use BrickSync, it is an automatic and necessary step. I use the blmaster on mode, do my upload on BL and when I type blmaster off all those changes are automatically carried over. BrickSync doesn't support the percent the item is on sale, even a brand new item, so that is why when BO has finished updating I save to Brickstock and upload/update to BO.
Basically a very simple process, at least the part that I have to do. It's waiting on BO that can cause the process to take 20/30 min. Or in yesterday's case, much longer. Even the wait doesn't really bother me as I always have things I can be doing. What DOES bother me is having new items for sale and wanted notifications being sent out before I can get the correct sale price established.

Thanks,
Katie

Hoddie

Hi thanks for replying, I have the same symptoms if i do a mass update. Do you also have a drop in sales ?

are there more people who have the same issue ?

Sorry I don't generate enough sales to notice any sort of pattern at the moment.

Lawrence

It will probably help for me to explain, there are sort of two places that your inventory is stored. Your inventory is permanently stored in the normal database, which is always up-to-date (except for the final after sale price), and it is also stored in a search/browse system, which is not always up-to-date.

The search/browse system is what is used when customers are searching or browsing around your store. It is updated once a minute, and also once an hour. On the hourly update, this can take 15 min, and in that time, it's not updated, so this would account for the variation in that sometimes it's quick and sometimes it's not. when you see a message on your store, about it taking a few minutes to be updated, that is what it is referring to.

Editing your inventory is done purely in the database, so you can always do this, and the message about waiting a few minutes for your inventory to be up-to-date is not relevant for this.

With regards to the sale prices, these are not instant, and are calculated separately, very occasionally, this can go wrong, and rather than being applied instantly, they will take 24 hours.

Lastly, with the wanted notifications, they only go out once a day, at roughly the same time, so customers won't receive an instant notification of an item, unless you do it around the time of the e-mail.

I hope that helps explain a bit

alltrightbricks

Thanks, @Lawrence, that is very helpful. I think the first time I did it yesterday I was in that 24 hour wait. I'm glad I did it again.

And great to hear about the wanted notifications. I don't use the wanted list here myself, and so did some looking around for that information. I saw that upon setting up a wanted list I could choose how often to be notified--instantly, daily, and weekly (?).
So is it not possible to be notified instantly than? Thanks for all the info!
Katie

unbrickable

@lawrence thanks for you comment now i understand it better although I have a few questions.
Is it possible to see when the wanted notifications will be sent ?
so it is possible to time the new inventory with the new wanted list notification.

thus if something goes wrong the old item prices will be present in the browse database for 24 hours before updating them ?

this is important for me to know because i now work like this : i update my whole inventory with new prices(bricksync) and then adjust them with the percent option to lower and raise them.
for example i update for 1000 euro of parts and lower the price by 15%.

what does then happen ? will this take first 24 hours to adjust the prices and then another 24 hours to update the drop or raise in price ?

just wondering my apologize if i have it all wrong.

peter

robernat

@pwpeter,
If you update your prices from your BSX file (in brickstock), or if you update your prices on BL and use the master mode, and you synchronise then, the prices will be updated nearly instantly. In the browsing section this might show a little later, but if you go to your own inventory, it is updated 'nearly instantly' (soon BS finishes updating your lot's).

What lawrence was talking about is when you apply a manual % discount on BO itself (so after syncking). Any % applied on BO is taking a bit longer, and *might* take 24hours if something goes wrong when that action is being processed (at least that is what I understood from Admins writings).

unbrickable

@robernat thanks again for reply. I will change how i update the prices to BO to avoid a no sale period. every time this happens i think did i close my store ? hahah :P

Stragus

I have the same symptoms if i do a mass update. Do you also have a drop in sales ? are there more people who have the same issue ?

Carts will be emptied out and disappear if you somehow delete your inventory and upload again (which I really hope no one is doing, it's terrible for costumers).

BrickSync updates existing lots and wouldn't cause this to happen. If you delete the whole BL inventory and add it back (as I heard some are doing to send notifications), then the BL LotIDs will have changed and the BO lots will also have to be recreated. For some reason, the BO API doesn't allow modifying the "External ID" of an existing lot.

unbrickable

@stragus thanks for you answer. I do not perform something like that i only update (loadprices) with bricksync. but the step adjusting prices on BO can cause the drop in charts and sales as i read from earlier explanations.

alltrightbricks

Lastly, with the wanted notifications, they only go out once a day, at roughly the same time, so customers won't receive an instant notification of an item, unless you do it around the time of the e-mail.

I hope that helps explain a bit

Lawrence, could I get you to look into this a bit maybe?
If you look at the create a wishlist page. It asks how often you want to be notified. One of the options is instantly. After reading what you said above I was very hopeful that there truly were no instant notifications. But this afternoon, right after an upload of new items I had a buyer email me with a question about one of my brand new lots. I couldn't even see this lot in my inventory yet. But after looking I found that it was showing in my store. I also found it in the catalog, and could see it in my inventory by looking under the sell tab, but it was not showing in my regular inventory. Anyway he contacted me almost immediately after this new lot was imported. I have a hard time believing that he just found it by "browsing". It seems likely that he received an instant notification.

Thanks,
Katie

Lawrence

Ah, I forgot the normal inventory view in the backend, and searching your inventory, also uses the search and browse system. Although there is an option for instant WishList notifications, this hasn't yet been implemented, it is just once a day.

alltrightbricks

Thanks, Lawrence. I appreciate the response!