A bunch of BrickOwl suggestions

Stragus

I wouldn't want to spam the forum with a new post for each suggestion, so here's quite a long wish list of features which I believe would improve BrickOwl! Many points have been raised before, some have been suggested by others, some would be very useful for inventory management software...

- Web: Display the currencies accepted by a store for payment somewhere, prior to checkout, the 3% currency conversion charge from Paypal makes a difference

- Web: When a cart is emptied, BrickOwl should forget the selected shipping method. At the moment, if we empty a large cart and add parts later on, it's still going to want to ship as a large parcel or whatever shipping method was last selected

- Web: An option to sort search results (store or catalog) by search string matching distance, like a word-order-independent Levenshtein distance or so, far more accurate than sorting by "Most Popular" when you know what you are looking for

- Web: When importing wishlists from BSX files, import the Remarks from the BSX file as Notes for the wishlist items (please, please!)

- Web: When listing stores by sale price for a part, don't use a sorting order that implies VAT will be paid when you aren't actually paying VAT for that store

- Web: When printing a received order, hide the block for the store's own address (who needs that? it takes ink and sometimes even an extra page unless cutting the printing range)

- Web: Being able to directly see lot quantities when browsing a store right away, without having to click "Add to cart" everywhere (that's an old one, it still bothers me!)

- Web: Improve the "add to cart" interface as explained in this forum thread

- Web: Less harsh than banning a difficult customer from a store, allow flagging him so he can only request quotes (so that we can apply any required tracking/insurance)

- Web: Feature to provide a password or flag an user so that he can bypass any store minimum or lot average

- Web: Allow to post a public reply to feedback received

- Web: Allow retracting a Chargeback Report when the issue was resolved with a customer

- Web: Being able to read a seller's non-positive feedback right away, without browsing pages and pages of feedback

- Catalog: Allow creating new minifigs that include parts outside of a set's inventory, due to these somehow frequently missing parts

- Web/API: An endpoint to directly fetch an item's image given a BOID, color and size, like www.brickowl.com/image?boid=771344-44&size=large (preferably not an API endpoint, so that external software can use it without needing an API key)

- Web/API: An endpoint to fetch price history information which should, ideally, also provide meaningful statistics such as standard variations (preferably not an API endpoint, so that external software can use it without needing an API key)

- API: A way to query the currency used for one's own store prices

- API: An endpoint to fetch currency exchange rates

- API: A way to update the "External ID" of an existing lot, without having to delete and recreate the lot just to change said External ID

- API: A way to uniquely identify the owner of the API key used (doesn't have to be the username, could be some hashed salted value or something)

I'm sure I'm forgetting a few at the moment, but these are probably the main ones for now. Feel free to comment if there are some of these suggestions you would also like to see implemented (or not!).

P.S.
The project for public inventory management software is currently dormant... Lacking BrickOwl features are just one of three reasons (the other two being limited free time and low expectations regarding donations), but it's the most critical one.

misbi

also
- API: A way to delete a specified lot

Stragus

Also
- Web: in the catalog, a way to sort the "Comes in" lists differently, especially being able to sort by date from the most recent set

budgetkids

I just placed a few orders and every single one came to my address, not the sipping address I told them to ship it too. Just cost me another $15 to reship everything.

Web: A way to print from inside BrickOwl and will connect with PayPal to ship the label.

No idea if this is possible, but not a happy camper having to resend items I told people to send to a different address in the first place.

Lawrence

- Web: When a cart is emptied, BrickOwl should forget the selected shipping method. At the moment, if we empty a large cart and add parts later on, it's still going to want to ship as a large parcel or whatever shipping method was last selected
- Web: When importing wishlists from BSX files, import the Remarks from the BSX file as Notes for the wishlist items (please, please!)
- API: A way to query the currency used for one's own store prices
- API: A way to uniquely identify the owner of the API key used (doesn't have to be the username, could be some hashed salted value or something)


Those are done, for the API, use the existing user/details endpoint, which I have added more information to



- Web: Allow retracting a Chargeback Report when the issue was resolved with a customer
If you want to retract a problem report you have filed, just send me an e-mail, and I can invalidate it


- API: An endpoint to fetch currency exchange rates
I don't think I can ever do that, the currency data isn't created by me

@budgetkids I think its best to contact the stores in this instance. With regards to PayPal, there is no API that we can use for the label printing thing they have.

Lawrence

- API: A way to delete a specified lot
Done, but test it, because I haven't

Stragus

Thanks Lawrence, that was fast!

- API: An endpoint to fetch currency exchange rates
I don't think I can ever do that, the currency data isn't created by me

Darn... Just to clarify, are you unable to provide exchange rates due to the terms of some agreement with whatever source providing BrickOwl with its exchange rates?

Would you then be able to... let's say, list the price of a given item in different currencies? Or update a lot's price with a given currency, and let BrickOwl convert to the store's native currency?

Any inventory management software needs some way to handle exchange rates. If I have part prices in USD and the user's store is in EUR, I need some way to convert the currency. Do you have some suggestion?

Jiries

What about active carts which often see numbers going up but shoppers just walked off and abandoned it. To have a forced option before exiting is to either buy it or delete cart if decided not to shop than abandoned it, had 71 abandoned carts at once time last year after averaging around 40-50 before clearing out. Had to clear the cart No occasionally to 0.

Lawrence

The currency data we use is from an api, Google "open currency API" and you'll probably find it, I can't remember it at the moment. It's free.

Jiries, I would try not to let that bug you, I would certainly say never delete your inventory just to clear customers carts, those customers certainly won't be able to place orders with you if you empty their carts and it tarnishes the Brick Owl reputation as a whole.

misbi

- API: A way to delete a specified lot
Done, but test it, because I haven't

Great - will do thanks

Stragus

The currency data we use is from an api, Google "open currency API" and you'll probably find it, I can't remember it at the moment. It's free.

Cool, I hadn't heard of that one. The free service is limited to 1000 queries a month, which isn't enough for potentially many users... I'll have to buffer exchange rates in some centralized server then. Just grabbing the BrickOwl exchange rates would have been simpler, but that works, thanks.

DadsAfol

Regarding the abandoned carts, the eCommerce software I use for my own website has a feature to send an automated email to the buyer that they still have items in their cart after x days. Just today I got a system message that an abandoned cart was converted to an order. A feature like that might be useful here. Buyers could complete their purchase, return to delete the cart, or opt out of the emails and ignore it. Bottom line, it might trigger additional sales for minimal effort.

I have 81 active carts right now, but I've seen it up over 100.

DadsAfol

- Web/API: An endpoint to fetch price history information which should, ideally, also provide meaningful statistics such as standard variations (preferably not an API endpoint, so that external software can use it without needing an API key)

This is available on the dark side. They have an undocumented API for it. PM me if you need details.

Stragus

Cool, thanks DadsAFOL.

Those are done, for the API, use the existing user/details endpoint, which I have added more information to

Lawrence, the user/details endpoint currently requires ticking the "Process usernames and passwords" permission for the API key.

Could it perhaps be made accessible to all?... I don't want people to think my software wants to access their password information, just because it wants to retrieve their store's currency!

misbi

One more that came to mind:

API - Create a new lot
Could this also accept a 'personal_note' argument so that (for instance) the lot's location can be stored. I know that this can be added later with an update, but allowing at point of creation would be more efficient.

Stragus

@brickcounter I have asked that before, if /create could be used to set all fields just as /update does, Lawrence said he preferred to keep them separate...

misbi

@stragus Hopefully he'll reconsider personal note as a special case since so many of us use this to record the lot's storage location

Lawrence

Afraid not, making exceptions would defeat the point, the idea is to not have duplication to reduce maintainence burden and mistakes in a very complex section of code.

misbi

Fair enough - thanks for the insight.

Lawrence

@stragus okay, use token/details

Ems Bricks

My vote also for the web suggestions, particularly the sorting of the 'comes in' list and bypassing store minimum.

robernat

Well, the only 'die-hard' suggestion I have at the moment is to put a 'listing' limit (value-wise) on unidentified brand new sellers (recent subscription/low or no feedback). Every few weeks a store pops up with either CMF Star Wars sets, Older Modular Buildings and/or Sculptures and/or other valuable items. For the sake of buyers (who might never return to the site if they get scammed by such a seller), it would be wise to simply put a 'value limit' on brand new sellers, untill the site unlocks the seller (sellers with large inventories will usually request their feedback to be imported from elsewhere and/or are known by the community) , or untill it unlocks by generating a number of feedbacks or after providing official documents like ID cards/Official Bills/Drivers License/etc... (paypal also uses such methods on brand new accounts)
@Lawrence: You know what kind of seller I'm talking about, you need to make it harder for such scammers ;-)

Stragus

@Lawrence Perfect, thanks.

@RobErNat I believe BrickOwl already has effective ways to limit the damage posed by potential scammers, ways that are much more subtle than limiting what people can list for sale. And it's best for all of us if these mechanisms aren't publicly documented...

robernat

@stragus
I'm sure Lawrence has a few ways to detect Scam stores, but clearly it's not effective enough as on a regular base I need to warn him on stores popping up with a bunch of sets with prices that are too good to be true and that such raises red flags, reason I stated that he knew what I was talking about :P

Stragus

Another suggestion:
- Messages attached to orders (or "General messages" to a store) can be replied by email, but forum messages can't: replies just disappear in the void. Instead, if email replies can't be implemented for forum messages, can you make noreply(at)forum.brickowl.com send an email error message back to the user?

I have (almost) made this mistake several times, but always noticed the "noreply" address in time. But recently, a big seller needed BrickSync tech support; he thought I wasn't answering for 2-3 days... but I never received his messages. [-( :-q

Stragus

There is absolutely no rush but I would like to explain this suggestion:

- Web/API: An endpoint to directly fetch an item's image given a BOID, color and size, like www.brickowl.com/image?boid=771344-44&size=large (preferably not an API endpoint, so that external software can use it without needing an API key)

If we can't directly fetch an image for a BOID and color, then I would have to perform 57733 color-specific API catalog lookups to get the URLs to parts in all colors. I would then have to store 345912 URLs to all small/medium/large images.

My current database for the future BrickManager software holds everything from BrickOwl and various other sources, all merged in one coherent database. And yet, to allow instant updates, it's just 2.7mb thanks to custom purpose compression algorithms worthy of the Curiosity Mars rover (I might be way too perfectionist). I really don't want to add 345912 URLs in there when it should be totally unnecessary...

Thanks.