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My biggest purchase day so far
Am I an abnormal customer? In the past 24 hours here, I bit the bullet and completed 22 orders prepped over the past few days (3,126 pieces) for ~$437. Comes out to just under $0.14/brick which includes shipping etc. Mix of new & used. Past 24 hours was not normal, I have made a lot of orders in the past 2 months but the past 24 hours was way more than I usually do, mainly to scoop up the final needed stuff for the kind of builds I want to do.
Some brand new creator sets at Lego cost around $250 give or take and may have about ~4,000 pieces which, even when accounting for taxes then a VIP Lego discount, ends up costing only $0.07/brick.
I do tend to want very specific pieces, and some rare pieces, which a packaged set won't have, but it does seem tough to avoid spending 2x the cost here typically when I'm looking for specific things.
Some brand new creator sets at Lego cost around $250 give or take and may have about ~4,000 pieces which, even when accounting for taxes then a VIP Lego discount, ends up costing only $0.07/brick.
I do tend to want very specific pieces, and some rare pieces, which a packaged set won't have, but it does seem tough to avoid spending 2x the cost here typically when I'm looking for specific things.
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I still think you are getting a good deal.
Parts are twice this price for you, on average, because of what you want, not the sellers.
Some bulk small parts and some for Modular sets.
You would be lucky to get close to that average thru TLG (PAB etc)
You could always buy sets - sell the MF's and keep the parts - that's how I got started, it was a very inexpensive way to build up stock of parts, then I had too many parts and started selling the surplus - that was 9 years ago!
Now I rarely buy anything - I have pretty much anything I or the kids need "in stock"
G
The other thing to remember is sometimes stores might send out the wrong part or too many and the buyer doesn't realise or let us know about the mistake.
It's not the first time this has happen't to me in many years of selling, I can live with it, but what bugs me a little on that is that buyers should realise when such happens it's usually not 'voluntary', but if they keep silent about it, the sellers store quantities are 'messed up' and so it can lead to additional 'problem orders' with other buyers...
I work for a company where the picking process in the warehouse is extremely important and part of my job is to ensure the fulfillment flow is optimized for speed & accuracy. Selling Legos in the way that is done here is barely any different - the picking process for an order, if not controlled properly, can lead to lots of errors. You don't want picking to be searched for randomly nor counting by hand if you can help it, and you need a way to verify that the items picked match the order before they are finally packaged up.
I'd be interested to know if anyone uses scales for counting parts?
mine are accurate to 1g so I only use them on bulk parts. counting 100 weighing, adding parts to another bag and checking until I have 1g more.
medium stone, dark stone and tan, dark tan are my biggest cause of errors due to looking at the colour and not the writing. Normally caught on my final check before posting, but I have done it a few times.
@JayB-SoCal I usually check my orders when they come in but rarely count the cheap bulk parts, I value my time too much, plus I'm a bit lazy! I've even ordered parts that I've had in-stock from another store because I didn't want to pick the order myself!!
I usually count in multiples of 20. Then for the small parts throw in a couple extras/ 100.
The color thing drives me crazy, some really terrible photographs - even some white parts look DSG
I use the swatch, which helps a lot, however the dot is small, and when in a hurry sometimes get tripped up.
I wish @Lawrence he would just use the TLG image rather than all the randomness OR just use a monochrome picture with a much larger swatch "dot"...
@JayB-SoCal There are only a handful of stores with the level of inventory that would facilitate pick by part ID.
Being a mid-range store all my parts are stored by design ID (part name), that said it has been quite some time since my last error - I do a final check before packing - which is definately worth the time!
G
Some colors have a different weight: e.g. 100x Tan and 100x Red of the same part DOES NOT always have the same 'total' weight, so it would be foolish as a seller to count that way. On small lot counts the 'known' averages weights are a good guideline to pick and pack orders, but on higher counts I wouldn't risk it, read dozens of stories where things got really akeward when sellers used a scale 'only'.
@Markyd7 I regulary throw in extra counts (if I sell 40x part 54200, I count 41 or 42), sometimes I throw in an extra just to clear out a bag (costs me more to relist and pick 1 or 2 remaining ones) never ever a buyer says 'I got too many' ;-)
@Graham I didn't specify to pick by part ID, I said to use ID'd bins and associate specific part ID's to those bins. Then, when picking, the pick list would refer to the bin & bin location, not the part ID. You print your pick list and it tells you exactly where to go to get the parts - and you don't even have to know the part, just the bin locations. Then, when you have everything picked you do the visual inspection before packing.
As to stocking: my days to stock by color or by part type or by category are over, 99% of my stock is entirely based on box numbers and bagnumbers, it gives much more flexibility storagewise and it improves picking times. The only seperation I have is technic parts, they go in seperated boxes (but the system remains the same) as oftenly orders with regular parts include less technics, and the opposite is also oftenly true. Apart from that I try to isolate the larger parts that don't sell that often into seperate bins.
I started to flip over my entire inventory that way in oktober, took a while to adjust and move everything, but a true time saver on picking now.
This method won't work when your bulk is 1 and certainly not on low quantity counts, but it does work when there are bulksettings, as people are tempted to buy the bulkamount as there is a little discount on it ;-)
The idea to pre-bag low counts of 10 is not something I would do at the moment, but I can see some advantage in the long run when my store grows, I would only prepack half (in ziplocks) and keep the other half to fill random quantities. Or I would simply make 2 listings, with seperate stocklocations, one listing for bulk=1 another for bulk=10. A buyer could then buy any kind of amount.
I have had an interesting experience of pre-bagging as a buyer. I did a large order which included 400 of one part and 200 or another, the seller must have been a pre-bagger as I got 60 bags for 2 parts, ten in each little baggie!!
- You have 300 parts.
- You pre-bag 200 of them by quantities of 10, you leave 100 loose.
Someone orders 24. You grab 2 bags and 4 loose, pour the pieces out of the bags into a final bag during the ship prep, put aside the pre-bag bags for re-use. Or, if your source of bags is super-cheap then just leave bagged as-is.
Someone orders 37. You grab 3 bags & 7 loose. Etc.
Never once would you need to take some pieces out of the pre-bagged bags, if you need less than the amount that is in a bag, you pick from the loose stock.
Where does the re-labeling come in? You don't take out of the pre-bagged, you just grab the maximum you can that matches the order and the balance you take from the portion of loose stock. Every once in a while when you replenish your inventory, you pre-bag more of the parts but always keep some portion (roughly 1/3) loose.