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Penny parts? Please Discuss, does any one make any money selling on this site?

brickman4youbrickman4you
in Site Issues Vote Up0Vote Down
The top 8 Bestselling parts as of the time of this post are all for .01 US cent.

Comments

  • 15 Comments sorted by Votes Date Added
  • JayB-SoCalJayB-SoCal
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    Those parts are the ones that are available by the truckload. My average per-part spend is 9 to 11 cents. Nobody is buying just penny parts. I've ordered from you 5 times so is your question literal or are you asking in general if people make money selling penny parts vs other parts?
  • brickman4youbrickman4you
    Vote Up0Vote Down
    Just more of a general question to sellers as parts in these high quantities (of the truckloads) seem to be increasing on this site but not sure if the demand is presently at that level.
  • JayB-SoCalJayB-SoCal
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    My guess is that for such parts the stores purposefully put an extreme number up there to inflate their overall part counts - knowing no single order will ever put them in the negative. It's easy to do with such parts. Not saying it's happening, just a guess.
  • StragusStragus
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    As a seller, it is very easy to end up with tens of thousands technic pins ($0.01 each) and similar parts. There's no need to inflate part counts to get there.
  • unbrickableunbrickable
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    @stragus same here, you just have to items in sets. for example if you buy a couple of 42055 sets you have a couple of 1000 pins in the inventory
  • bricksinbinsbricksinbins
    Vote Up0Vote Down
    When it comes to Technic pins, you get tons of those even if you don't part out any Technic sets at all. If you do, you easily have truck loads of them :)
  • brickrepositorybrickrepository
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    The good ol' Black Technic Pin... I have accumulated 1610 of them in about 1 year of running the store, and I'm a small enough store and don't even part out Technic sets...
  • BrickGenieBrickGenie
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    Funnily enough I always sell out of the used technic pins for some reason although the difference with the new ones is only €0.003.
  • brickman4youbrickman4you
    edited August 2017 Vote Up0Vote Down
    I guess my main point was with more and more sellers with bloated inventories,
    accept for rare and hard to find parts of course, all common parts will be a penny. Just my opinion....
  • HoddieHoddie
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    Market forces will intervene before then. The market can only sustain so many sellers.
  • RubyGirlRubyGirl
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    I believe selling those parts in bulk is going to be the only way to do it economically.
  • robernatrobernat
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    my personal opinion is that selling in bulk drives buyers away...
    Buyers make a whishlist, 2 of this, 4 of that, 9 of those, they enter a store and notice they need to buy 10 or 20 of each, which basicly means they are 'forced' by the seller to buy more then they need. Most people, when they feel they are forced to buy something they do not need, they simply abondan their cart...
    I'm personally more in favor of leaving the opportunity, wanna buy just 1, sure, no problem, wanna buy 8, also possible, same price (x8), BUT, if you buy 10 or more, you'll have a lower price because of my 'tiered pricing'... and as a matter of fact, if you buy 10, you might actually pay the exact same price as if you'd only buy 8, so why bother, just grab the 10 and you'll have 2 on spare for the same price...
    The psychological effect on buyers is much more 'positive' with tiered prices compared to bulk settings IMHO, because they are no longer 'forced' but 'invited' to buy 'extra'.
    As to the economical point, sure those 89 lot orders with 230 parts (average of 2.58 parts per lot) like I had this week are time takers, but the other 30/40 orders this month where quite easy to pick, that one pita (sorry for the naming) order (wasn't even on Brickowl) once in a while is just something one needs to live with... Today I received an order with 4 lot's and 432 parts, I only need to open 1 drawer and 1 box to pick those 4 lot's, sure it's a lot to count (alltough some of it is precounted and prebagged, handy with the tiered pricing offcourse), and alltough the final amount is low, it's still a x3 compared to my purchase prices.
    x3 is 300% or a near 200% benefit, mainly on technic pins, not fantastic due to the amounts to count/verify, but not that bad either ;-) And at least I get rid of over 400 technics pins, orders like that don't bother me at all, because plenty of others make up for it ;-)

    Oh, and sidenote: I don't think anyone ever got 'rich' on selling spare lego parts, in best case you make a decent living out of it, or you can buy a few extra set's for yourself with the benefit, but that's about it ;-) Investing in bitcoins would have been better LOL
  • nosomisnosomis
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    I have a sorting machine that selects and packages Lego orders. Just enter the part number, colour and quantity. Currently working on a barcode system where you scan each line of the picking list. This makes the order processing must faster and more profitable.
  • Markyd7Markyd7
    Vote Up0Vote Down
    > @nosomis said:
    > I have a sorting machine that selects and packages Lego orders. Just enter the part number, colour and quantity. Currently working on a barcode system where you scan each line of the picking list. This makes the order processing must faster and more profitable.

    Would like to see that running.
  • robernatrobernat
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    @Markyd7 I'd be curious to see that as well :-)
    That said, I've seen systems (like in a pharmacy) running which do exactly that, the computer processer the order, sends info to the 'stock' and a belt system throws out anything that is requested. However, those are offcourse prelabeld (barcode indeed) 'boxes' that can be stocked one after the other (or on top of eachother), you need 1, the system picks one, you need 2, 3 or more, the system picks them.
    If a system is refined enough it could indeed pick parts, but would it be profitable enough on ROI ?
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