Want to sell more!

Teup

I have a simple issue: I just want to sell more here! :P I just want more income and I want to support BrickOwl more.

I've always been kind of accepting that BO is only a small trickle compared to BL, but stories of other sellers having decent sales on BO stack up. So I'm a little bummed. I am running a pretty OK store in the top 20 largest stores on BrickOwl. So this is not just any old "how to get more sales" post. Soon 1 million inventory but here I am spending my BrickOwl month sending single minifig headgears to a bunch of random countries.

So, what's wrong?? But like really, I think this is just strange. I have tried experimenting with mininum orders and shipping rates but it's always the same story. Something I am doing wrong, or is BrickOwl really a small platform and should I accept it, sit back and hope it grows?

Hoddie

There's certainly more to running a BO/BL store than pricing and variety of stock, though perhaps these are the two key draws. I've learned a few lessons over the years I've traded on eBay/etc. and the biggest one is don't always rush and buy a set that's been heavily discounted, because unless you're extremely lucky, you won't be the only seller with the same plan. The part out value might look fantastic but if just a handful of other sellers stumbled on that deal, the value will plummet.

Sometimes, advertising really does work (that's why Coca-Cola still advertises I suppose). I've run Facebook adverts, Google adverts, I've run giveaways in Facebook groups, I've given freebies to the local hospital and had a mention in their internal newsletter. I have given sets to our vet's kid, the kids of my wife's work colleagues, etc. I gave away a TMNT poly to one kid, and his cousin's parents asked to buy 100 of them. No idea why. Sadly I couldn't get hold of them at the time for the right price. Some 'obvious' things don't work and some not-so-obvious things have worked wonders for me. Facebook adverts were a dead loss but getting involved in a handful of Facebook groups did bring in sales.

I hate saying it because it's gobbledegook management speak, but try thinking outside the box. What worked for me isn't necessarily going to work for you. One member here had a blog giving critiques on other sellers he'd bought off. He then wrote a book about selling. Dagsbricks or something was his name. Others run their own stores selling little model kits, seasonal builds, etc.

There's one lesson I think all sellers should learn. Stop counting the pennies, it puts a lot of people off. A small loss can turn into a big win.

Teup

Many thanks for your elaborate advices. I rarely buy discounted sets, although I do tend to go for the ones with the very best PO value. Might be a good idea to include some less optimal ones too.

However, I was looking mostly at explanations or advice regarding precisely what's the deal with this discrepancy between BO and BL. If it really is true that some sellers are selling here as much as on BL, it would be interesting to discover what these sellers have in common. Is it their country? inventory? do they all include a business card? I'm really curious.

But anyway - your point about advertising is interesting, I am always wondering if it has any effect or not to have business cards, a facebook page, such things. But as for good generous service, yes, that is 1 thing that I can verify gets you returning customers. But this is all minor tweaking compared to that huge gap between BO and BL sales... either BO is just small - in that case I will stop thinking about this - or there is some reason that I haven't figured out..

qwertyboy

Have you enabled the relevant “affiliate” ticks in your store settings?

Hoddie

I started out on eBay years and years ago. Then I opened a store here on BO, and moved to both BO/BL about 12 months after. Now, I'm back on BO only. When I was on both, I received about the same orders on both sites (in terms of value), though the hassle associated with BL buyers and the archaic site made selling there a pita.

Teup

> @qwertyboy said:
> Have you enabled the relevant “affiliate” ticks in your store settings?

Thanks, yep, I have them on..

> @Hoddie said:
> I started out on eBay years and years ago. Then I opened a store here on BO, and moved to both BO/BL about 12 months after. Now, I'm back on BO only. When I was on both, I received about the same orders on both sites (in terms of value), though the hassle associated with BL buyers and the archaic site made selling there a pita.
>

Oh, interesting! So your stores is one of the specimens for me to examine ;) could you perhaps share where your buyers tend to be from? Just everywhere or a strong accent towards something? I am wondering if it could be the fact that you accept credit cards, for example.

Hoddie

All over really. I don't get many orders now because my store is so much smaller, but back in the day most orders came from within the EU, particularly the UK, Belgium and Spain (we target Spanish buyers via my wife's colleagues and friends). The highest value orders went to China and were for Duplo pieces.

I did a good trade in the Technic steel balls back when they were rare. I had an opportunity to grab a lot of the newly produced sets that contained them, and received orders from all over the world just for those. Now they're pretty common again.

I think that's the key between having a store to earn cash to buy Lego, and having a store to earn cash to live - you need to spot the opportunities before everyone else. Obviously, volume and low cost price helps enormously, but no matter how much volume you have and how low your cost price, others out there will enjoy the same thing, so spotting the gaps in the market is key imo.

Teup

I see, again not a clear parameter to isolate there. I find it strange, because these things you mention like having an exclusive inventory should affect both platforms in some way. I bought some Mannschaft collectible minifig series boxes with the same thought of having something unusual, since I noticed very few sellers had those parts. It got me some (small) extra orders on both platforms.

In order for me to get a similar sales pattern to someone who sells 50-50 on BO and BL, I would need to find something that causes BO business to multiply by 5 while BL business remains the same. That almost sounds like missing a crucial setting like an important payment method not enabled.

Well, maybe every shops has its pros and cons and I somehow have alot of BL pros that don't work out on BO.. I always buy 20 copies per box to have a good deep inventory, and I get fairly large orders on BL as a result. But I can't remember when I last had a big order on BO..

qwertyboy

We do twice the numbers of orders on BL compared to BO (in 2018: 648 vs 318), and value-wise it is almost exactly 3:1. This is with predominantly used parts.

Calibrick

I do wonder if it's possible to affiliate with additional sites perhaps, such as Brickset (though perhaps they have an exclusive agreement with BL)?

I haven't quite cracked this code myself yet as a newer seller that originally intended to sell on BL, got incredibly annoyed on BL, found BO, and dumped all my passion and effort into launching on BO at the 11th hour (delaying my launch, but WELL worth it!).

I can name some discriminators myself as a buyer, one of the biggest being shipping costs. I've noticed that my costs are higher than a lot of folks (I'm above avg in pricing, but not by too much), but my shipping charges are a lot less. I use PayPal's discounted USPS rates, and charge actual cost + PayPal fee and a teeny bit on top. My store pricing has all the profit and donations (I give 10% of all sales to the Crohns and Colitis Foundation of America) already built in, so why add on extra for shipping? So I think that is one thing many buyers look at.

I've also started doing a lot of analytics on what sells and doesn't sell on my store thanks to some Excel magic and API access; for example, I know 40% of my customers are actually in my own state (which surprised me at first - I'd have thought they'd want to avoid sales tax but reached the conclusion that the faster delivery is probably the priority). I know the color black outsells all other part colors on my store. I know 99.997% of my orders are unique to my own country. In process, but I'll soon know what part categories are the biggest sellers. The long game is to understand the best-selling themes (which is tougher to crack, as that data is not available on the API).

So I'm trying to understand at least what is and is not working here (vs. comparing to another service) in terms of my customer and my inventory. That can position me later to hopefully make better choices in restocks (vs. scattershot purchases I stumble over) and potential targeted customer outreach and messaging.

Yes, I'm a data analyst and data junkie. :-)

I think this contributes to the topic - understand who the customer is and what the customer wants is the most important information for us to lay the groundwork for getting them to come HERE vs. elsewhere. Once you know that, then you figure out how to communicate that "hey, we're here, this is what sets our store or the BO service altogether apart" etc. At least that seems to me like Marketing 101 (I'm new to all of this).

Does anyone else do any data analytics that can contribute to this out of curiousity?

A comparison then of our own personal data vs. what BL posts in their public analytics could be interesting.

Sorry so long... I love talking data, analysis, and causal analysis... ;-)

bricksinbins

I'd say there are simply more buyers on BL. Especially true AFOLs. They have been around a long time and BL is where they went long before BO came along and they see no reason to change that.

My observation is that buyers on BO are more of the "first time" variety and not as "big" as many buyers on BL. The BL catalog is also far ahead of BO and cater much more to the serious AFOL.

Teup

I agree that statistics are very important, as otherwise you're pretty much doing your work blind. However, I think not all statistics are that useful :) I've also analysed what categories sell most, I do this whenever I redesign my storage. I like to keep all frequently used bins at arm height. But as for choosing what to buy, I don't really think it matters that much. All themes use all categories, the only rough bias they have is colour. But also it's quite random what parts become uncommon and desired, a part may appear only 2 times, in 2 entirely unrelated sets. The only theme that has a strong category bias is of course Technic, but it's fairly easy to just have a "complete" Technic stock as the number of different parts are very limited, mainly because of the minimal colour variation.

I also agree with bricksinbins that buyers on BO seem more casual. And actually I sometimes feel like they're making mistakes. Ordering for examples wheels and tires in equal amounts that don't fit together, or me discovering ages after that I must've sent a wrong part but never got a message.

Some intuitive "statistic" that comes to mind is that on BL the most common quantity for a lot I sell is the complete stock, whereas on BO the most common quantity is 1. As I'm buying 20 of each box, I have mostly a very deep inventory. I guess that simply doesn't attract BO buyers that much.

However, I'm currently working on a broad part-out of all different sets, to up my lot count. I will upload it next month. I'll have some 1000-1500 more lots. Let's see if it will make a difference...

batjen

I can’t comment on the sales portion of this conversation as I am not a seller, but as an AFOL I’ve been using BO exclusively for about 2 years. I’m a causal builder but I find BO is much better than BL for finding parts and getting an honest deal for shipping. The difference for me is mostly that - the upfront nature of the cost for shipping here vs. BL. I do wish more sellers used BO, as I often buy dozens of the same part but they aren’t always available in the quantity I want from the same seller. Sometimes though, I am looking for just that one specialty part as well which is sometimes hard to find on BO. As a buyer rather than a seller - maybe finding ways to make inroads with AFOLs by promoting the benefits of BO over BL might help as well?

Hoddie

I think a BO advert in Blocks would work wonders for increasing the number of customers. Maybe even a BO stand at some conventions in the UK - BL tends to concentrate purely on the US convention scene (and even then, not really).

Jay37

An advert in Blocks (or even just a mention in an article or response to a reader's letter) wouldn't go amiss. I remember a letter recently where someone was trying to source one or two parts and asked where they could try. Lego themselves was mentioned (if the part was still being produced), or BL. No mention of BO at all! Whenever one of their writers is working on an expansion of an existing set it's always BL that gets a shout out for the extra pieces. I understand that BL has a good few years of recognition over BO, plus availabilty/quantity of parts is greater, but there's room for two players in the market.

I know it's been mentioned in other forums, but I think if everyone helped a little bit with improving the catalogue here, even if it's just names and dimensions, it would make a huge difference. So often I see "Unnamed Part" in a store's inventory here, and on BL that part has a name and a picture. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that the sale is more likely to happen on BL where a buyer can see what they're buying! I only sell here, but if a part I want to sell doesn't have a decent catalog entry, then I make sure I do my best to improve it before I list. I don't want a potential buyer browsing my store only to come across a bunch of Unnamed Parts and then go to BL where those parts are named and pictured.

rebrique

I agree that it is important to update the catalog because if a parts has no size or weight the delivery price can quickly increase from letter to parcel for a small parts. In a big shop there is more missed sales from this mistake because there is more choice.

Whenever I update the dimension in my shop my sales increases.

exemple : https://tworkshop.brickowl.com/store/lego-snowshoe-11187-28263 for me is 11.80 € for delevery

rebrique

> @rebrique said:
> I agree that it is important to update the catalog because if a parts has no size or weight the delivery price can quickly increase from letter to parcel for a small parts. In a big shop there is more missed sales from this mistake because there is more choice.
>
> Whenever I update the dimension in my shop my sales increases.
>
> exemple : https://tworkshop.brickowl.com/store/lego-snowshoe-11187-28263 for me is 11.80 € for delevery

Edit : I update the parts

Teup

> @rebrique said:
> I agree that it is important to update the catalog because if a parts has no size or weight the delivery price can quickly increase from letter to parcel for a small parts. In a big shop there is more missed sales from this mistake because there is more choice.
>
> Whenever I update the dimension in my shop my sales increases.
>
> exemple : https://tworkshop.brickowl.com/store/lego-snowshoe-11187-28263 for me is 11.80 € for delevery

Oh I see, I was not aware of that! Thanks for showing that example. I did a little bit of catalog work when I still had the time, and if I will have time again I certainly will. (Right now I don't, and I mean really.. running a large LEGO shop has gotten me to the point that I'm building storage in my garden and I can say it's a crazy amount of work by oneself :D)