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Please make it possible for sellers to set a lot limit
Title says all.
Explanation: As a seller I sometimes need to restrict the amount of lots a buyer can order from my store. For instance when I do not have the time to pack 54 lots for an amount of € 8.00.
Right now there are 2 options available: minimum order amount and average lot amount. The first is not very welcoming to (new) buyers and the second option ensures that the seller's inventory will not be displayed in Wanted Lists.
If a lot limit could be enabled it would profit sellers and BO.
@ all sellers: please upvote my suggestion. Even if it doesn't affect your own business.
Explanation: As a seller I sometimes need to restrict the amount of lots a buyer can order from my store. For instance when I do not have the time to pack 54 lots for an amount of € 8.00.
Right now there are 2 options available: minimum order amount and average lot amount. The first is not very welcoming to (new) buyers and the second option ensures that the seller's inventory will not be displayed in Wanted Lists.
If a lot limit could be enabled it would profit sellers and BO.
@ all sellers: please upvote my suggestion. Even if it doesn't affect your own business.
This discussion has been closed.
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Wouldn't lot average value resolve this?
The problem with lot limits is that some sellers on BL abuse them to impose punative fees on unwary buyers. That couldn't happen on BO right now, but allowing lot limits would be the first step in that direction.
This will just add another thing buyers have to look out for. They already got to check for lot averages, min. buys, fees that the seller might add. Adding another restriction will make the buying side just a bit more tedious.
@Hoddie has a brilliant business model: Buy sets, build, use the Part Out feature to list- Truly Brilliant!
@firestar246 has a large inventory of parts from sets, minifigs, and others.
For the small-time seller who has a group of used parts from sets, that may be from AFOL use or may have play wear, the time to clean, sort, categorize with mold variances, grade condition, derive pricing from a list that includes a top-end outlier to the "Average", takes a bit of time. @Hoddie has always said to build your time into your price to sell to make a profit-
We have from the beginning understood that for the small seller there is no way to build profit in- it is a ministry of having these parts put to good use.
Having pulled many orders of lot amounts larger than, and for a lot less total buy than @Leftoverbricks is describing, we will just say that there is a disconnect on whether the tools for the small store, and its commissions, warrant any need for limits or site changes.
I guess I don't understand why there's a need for one. I would struggle to understand why a store would be happy to sell me 20 lots, but not 21. If the issue is that the 21 lots don't have enough value to justify the time, I would argue that neither do the 20 lots. So in a way it does come back to pricing.
Where we have problems includes the "pillaging" of smalls of "opportunity buy" and the total number of opportunity to get our orders out to builders and still have parts for the "Wish List" buyer. It is something only the small-time sellers experience...
If this was a new feature for stores, the default would be to "Opt Out"
But I don't see how restricting buyers to a maximum number of lots magically changes that, unless somehow 10 orders with 10 lots each are more valuable than 1 order with 100 lots, at least in a way that minimum lot value doesn't solve. If orders with fewer lots are more valuable, it suggests the store is baking value into their shipping costs rather than their items, which seems very odd given that their product is items, not shipping.
I fully accept that sellers will have different ways to do their stores, I just personally don't want to see a feature introduced here that has resulted in a lot of abuse and bad customer service on BL.
The first is that stores with Lot average Limits have, indeed, been included on at least our Buy options from Wish Lists.
The second is that BrickOwl does not allow any fees for buyers- there is a fee for "Combined Carts"
Now to continue the discussion above, regarding BrickLordoftheFlies and any abuse of "lot limits" and any fees that have been meted by those sellers- that is not on point here. What @Leftoverbricks is talking about is the time it takes to "pull" an order of a large number of lots, and, yes, @Hoddie , according to @Lawrence , building in your costs, be those what they may be here in the US, to shipping.
We could upload a picture of a buy of over 100 lots that took us over an hour to pull, confirm, photograph and package- there is no way to build in the amount of time from processing used parts to the then- pulling and packaging that allows for the profit you profess.
Again, and always when we post anything, with "Forum Regret" for the back-lash, we say, unless you are a small-time seller, you will not understand.
A remedy too often heard is: raise your prices. But that makes no sense. If I would raise my prices to make it more profitable (time-wise) to pull large-lot orders, then my other buyers who need 10 or 145 or whatever of each part would not buy from me. As a result I would spend the rest of my days by preparing shipments of 1 or 2 lots and earn nothing at all.
Minimum buy: first I had no minimum buy. I received many orders from the US, UK, Australia because I have low shipping costs. So I was pulling very small orders (worth less than a dollar). To pick an order was like 1 minute. To pack an order (printing a label and such) was like 2 minutes. That was OK for me.
From January 1, 2020 international mail regulations have changed. You can no longer ship 'goods' without pre-entering it on a website and have to print labels from there. So the time spent on my small international orders went from 3 minutes to 10 minutes and the costs and time also went up. (I could no lo longer drop envelopes in he mailbox, I had to go to the post office and have them scanned -- my PO means a bicycle ride of 20 minutes). So I raised my minimum order from zero to 2.50. And since Corona I do no longer ship outside the EU.
A lot limit is always arbitrary. If I allow 20 why not 21 is a valuable question. But you have to start somewhere. The argument makes no sense - it's the principle behind this that makes sense in my opinion.
The power of selling platforms such as Brick Owl and Bricklink (and eBay etc.) is that are a plethora of shops to choose from. From a buyer's perspective this means lots of options and that's a good thing -- that's how a free market is working.
So I hold on to my suggestion. By giving sellers more options you are also giving buyers more options to select the right store for their needs and that is great for the market principle of BO.
In an ideal world, there would be no minimum/maximums of any kind, and a customer is simply shown an item/shipping price.
This can currently be achieved through the use of shipping methods. You can have shipping methods that only apply to small orders, where the shipping and handling is a higher price, to cover the increased effort of shipping lower profit orders. Although there is more setup involved.
Adding the option of lot limits would negatively influence the general experience on brickowl, forcing buyers to wade through secondary requirements, understanding why they order doesn't "work", and breaking a flawless interaction with rebrickable.
I have yet to have a complaint on a slightly padded shipping costs under 10 dollars, and I'm actually considering to push it to the next extreme, flat shipping costs of 5 usd domestically for orders up to 10 dollar and free shipping for orders over 10 dollar. This is a positive incentive to push buyers to larger orders, instead of overcomplicating things.
My way is not the perfect way, or maybe not even the right way, but I do know a lot of potential buyers are chased away at our BL friends due to overly complicated procedures and complications when placing their orders. BO feels like a straightforward webshop when ordering, and that is a real strength we should protect.
As suggested above, look at your order picking time, your packaging time, and maybe even your margins. If it takes longer than 5 minutes to pick an 50 lot order, it is worth looking into ways to make this more efficient.
@Geert Middelman: 50 lots in less than 5 minutes?
I am at about 4000 lots / 120k parts at the moment, which still fits in a very compact space. Your inventory is probably quite a bit larger, which might increase the 'distance' between lots.
The only response to this is that over time it is generally balanced out by those orders of a handful of minifigs that takes 30sec to pull, and lands a substantial profit.
Even with the unproductive orders, you are still making margin on the bricks and offering a good service to improve your stores reputation. There is no getting away completely from the 'time stealing' aspect - in my IRL store, it's quite common for me to spend an hour talking to a prospective customer to make sure they have all the knowledge to make the correct purchase and then have them go away and buy online. It's just as much a cost of business as overheads like paying someone to do the admin. You can't just 'not do it' because that aspect isn't making a profit.
I think it is a really bad idea to put any hurdles in place that make it harder for buyers to shop with you, even if that occasionally causes you grief.
Why am I busting my butt trying to offer our, yours and mine, customers a huge selection in one location if you won't even show it to them?
MLAs make sense for sellers, but they are infuriating for many buyers.
In the example above, the buyer would be left with the unpalatable option of trying to rescue a wishlist that has been part bought, and find stores willing to service the rest of it, or otherwise bulk up the carts at the suggested stores by buying stuff they don't actually want right now, rewarding those stores despite them being the cause of some frustration.
There is a way around this of course, for the wishlist feature to include those stores that use MLAs, and only include them if the MLA can be met with the suggested cart. I imagine that's easier said than done.
Question though, how does Rebrickable deal with MLAs?
Total number of lots Why? What’s the difference between one $40 order with 100 lots Or four $10 orders of 25 lots?
What about the $400 order with 180 lots?
Imagine going to retailer dot com with your shopping list to find you can’t buy everything on your list even tho they have everything in stock.
@Graham but we're not retailer dot com, we're Ma and Pa selling out of our basement dot com and there should be some understanding with users that we are not and never will be Amazon. At intro to the site, the user should be told that most stores are run by individuals, not corporations, and the expectation should be as such.
Something that seldom comes up is the elephant in the room: PAYMENT FOR YOUR TIME.
In my experience, payment for time (or lack thereof) is usually at the root of most frustration that leads to thoughts of limiting lots.
There are two costs for parts sellers: product cost and labour cost. Product cost is covered in part prices. Labour cost is brushed under the carpet by most, because there isn't a sensible way to account for it in part prices. Frustration eventually surfaces.
The only way to properly address this is with a per lot service charge to account for the labour cost.
Unfortunately, that's a thistle that nobody is prepared to grasp, so the conversation just goes round and around, year after year 🙄
Lawence
June 2
I apologise for the confusion, I was incorrect in saying stores with minimum lot averages are not shown in the WishList or Catalog buying tools. I thought they did not support minimum lot averages due to the complexity, but we previously improved them to support that, so there are no limitations on that.
No I operate out of a (converted) storage shed 😎
Back to my example a person has 100 items they wish to buy, a store has all those items BUT only allows a person to buy 25 lots in each order. So (most definitely theoretically) that person places 4 separate orders of 25 lots. Store owner has same amount of “work” for the same amount of $$ but the customer pays 4 shipping fees. Store owner ships all 4 orders together = one seriously upset customer.
@misbi
I believe you are referring to MLA not limit of total number of lots
I said many years ago I would never do MLA, but I have considered every time I get a 50 to 100+ lot order With sales price close to $10. Then I look at the day’s totals. There’s rarely a day when the totals of ALL orders, across both venues, have a lot average of less than $1/lot!
Having refined my process I am able to pick/pack and have orders in the post at a rate of 100-200 lots per hour.
The most time is spent adding inventory. That’s the part I don’t like!
Picking and packing orders is just another.
To realise the part-out value of a set you not only have to shift the minifigs and the sought-after items, you also have to shift the low value ones too. Those orders with 100 lots, 200 pieces and worth only a few $, tend to comprise of a lot of those sorts of items.
So that order worth $$$$$$ that took 2 minutes to pick and pack, the trade off is that you have to also shift the items worth $ that came from the same sets those premium items came from. You can look at it this way, part of the value of that order was actually compensation for having dealt with the other orders containing the low-value items from the same sets. If you choose to set limits and thresholds to prevent those low-value orders, your part-out values aren't necessarily correct and the $$$$$$ order might actually only be worth $$$$. Not only that but you risk the stock levels of those low-value items creeping up faster than your overall stock level, taking up increasing amounts of space for stuff you're ultimately unlikely to sell until and unless you liquidate.
When all is said and done, only you know whether your store is worth the effort or not. You may think "I could earn more with a part-time job" but being your own boss comes with a lot of incidental perks that it's easy to forget about. Choosing when to do task A, and task B, fitting it all around a family life, working odd hours, in your pyjamas if you so desire. Taking the opportunity to get a few errands done while you're out visiting the Post Office. Claiming some of the household expenses as business expenses. Some probably not declaring the income at all.
Some sellers on BL try and divvy everything up absolutely fairly between orders, passing on the most ludicrous of charges. Some will charge for driving to the post office, and some will charge for every grip seal bag and inch of tape used to pack an order. It never ceases to amaze me how ridiculous some sellers will be. I refuse to pay someone for selling me items they are presumably selling at a profit (and if they're not, and the value to them is in the fees and shipping, they shouldn't be selling imo).
But they get away with it. We could argue all day long about whether it's fair or not, but BO has set its stall out as the 'no fee', 'no complication' place for buyers and sellers to meet. Changing BO until it's just a copy of BL with a different face is an absolutely pointless exercise.
This seems to be increasingly prevalent as more BL sellers flee to here. Please don't change what made this site great in the first place. If you are tired of BL quit trying to change this to BL.
Tyson.
First, my attitude is there no right or wrong, just what works for the whole. There are almost always solutions that get the desired end result for a seller without impacting the whole (other buyers and sellers) for the win-win.
Looks like the thread owner found some ideas toward adjusting their shipping costs to compensate for high lot/low $$ orders through this friendly discourse, so bravo! :-)
I would like to share my arbitrary and absolutely unimportant personal opinion - it's just another worldview to consider as a seller, is all. :-)
When I bought a ton over on BL years before I became a seller over here (so 100% pure customer view who had never shopped on sites such as BL and BO before) I hated, hated, hated, hated stores that had lot limits, lot averages, fees, etc. Thousands of dollars went to other stores, I avoided stores with fees and limits like the plague (no disrespect, folks, truly - this was before I got insight into both sides of the transaction! <s>).
As a buyer, it was horribly frustrating to go thru the hoops of the wishlist, figuring out who might have what, start the order going, pilfer through a novel's worth of horribly-written terms pages (in some cases) to figure out if I can buy there, then get to the end... and find out there's a lot limit, lot average, fee, or what not. I'd invested so much time at that point with that store, I actually would cave and add more stuff, but I drew a line one day and just went "nope". :-) Ugh, and then waiting for quotes... from a new consumer POV, that was frankly weird. I intellectually understood why and cheerfully rolled with that part (not the store's fault, it wasn't a BL function then), but it was off-putting.
It made me a crazy woman. Seriously. Parting out the original UCS Mill Falcon was not as pleasant an experience as it could have been. ;-)
Now BO (I moved here exclusively about 2 1/2 years ago) seems to have a very different groove (I'm pretty sure I'm just echoing Tyson here - mea culpa if so!). There's just a few key things to know about a store (smoking/nonsmoking, variations, lot averages, dispatch time) - a SMALL list that's right on our front pages underneath our name/flag/feedback - and no hidden fees. And the vast, vast majority of stores here are instant checkout, at least for smaller items.
It's more like a normal web site one would go to to purchase anything, e.g., Amazon. I don't have to pilfer through a bunch of terms to deduce if I want to do biz with the seller, I immediately know what little I truly need to: do they seem like an honest person (feedback) and is there a lot average (again, no disrespect, but I'll avoid you as a customer - it's just too much of a PITA for occasional buyers like me today <s>).
What I call "normal" web sites, brick (ha!) and mortar businesses, etc., build-in their fees and costs into their product - maybe their shipping costs. The price is right there, including shipping auto-calculation (quotes only for tougher stuff, like large sets, if even then). The normal consumer knows this and has dealt with it everywhere on the Internet, they're good with it. Kind of boring buyers like me like stuff simple, and that was a big draw for me coming here and opening my store here. Well and oh yeah, no Brickarms, but that's a different story. ;-)
It's an instant gratification customer experience- that's the best way to put it.
The site is clean, modern-looking, easy-to-navigate (once you get past the BL to BO jump habitual changes), tacitly encourages sellers to build their fees into their product or shipping costs by not having multiple sales options, etc. - the design strikes me as being buyer-focused (without whom we wouldn't be here), though of course that doesn't mean Lawrence (admin) doesn't bend over backward to do awesome stuff to facilitate the seller's experience, too - boy howdy, does he!
I just wanted to offer an alternative viewpoint to those missing lot limits and perhaps some other features from BL in that vein.
Consider the massive growth we've all seen recently due to LEGO Masters - I've never seen so many 0 feedback customers before, all awesome people. They haven't spent years navigating BL or BO, so their expectation would be a simple purchasing experience ala target.com, amazon.com, etc. Find the item, see the price shown, see the shipping auto-calced, and pay - done in a minute, and the goods later appear at their home. The seller makes money. Everyone wins! :-)
Again, this view is only mine from when I bought a lot. Having been a seller several years now, I certainly have a LOT more empathy for why sellers have lot limits, lot averages, etc., in the first place - that 300 lot order for $50 can be very, very rough. But that same person comes back and spends $200 on a 10 lot other the next round, or a diff customer drops $80 on two minifigs.
I try to look at it as all fiscally balancing out in the end... and knowing my own attitude about buying, I worked super-hard to incorporate my costs into my actual product, then just added on $0.50 into actual shipping costs. That covers those times when the single plate is bought, not losing any $$ in fees, packaging, etc., or if some tighter-priced items are bought.
Again, I am making NO judgment on anyone's approach - I'm all about what's good for each seller (yay, open market! <s>).
Just another worldview to consider as we're all growing this business together right now - my success is YOUR store's success, just as your store's success is also MY store's success. Why? Because when I'm out of something, the awesome folks who may choose to prioritize buying from me (regulars) will come to you - heck, I encourage them to! And likewise, if you're out of stock, your customer may choose to give my store a shot.
Wow, I wrote a novel. Sorry about that! If you're still awake, thanks for listening, stay well all, and have an awesome weekend!
R,
Sandy
If you're not prepared to complete an order with 54 lots for $8.00 what would you set your lot limit to? If you limit it to 50 lots you may still get an order with 50 lots for e.g. $7.40, is that any better? And you may miss out on the order with 54 lots for $12.00. Presumably what you really want is a limit on the ratio between lots and cost and that would be way complicated for everyone to understand what's going on.
Just to be clear, I would not be in favour of a lot/cost ratio limit. Or a lot limit. I understand that as a seller I wouldn't have to use them and that there are already some limits, but anything that makes it more complicated for the buyer could make them look elsewhere.
I don't know an adequate solution to the problem, though. But I definitely charge for this extra time (and money) spent on the new postal system. PostNL has basically outsourced part of their work to us, by making us do administration and label printing. In return for this, they've made it significantly cheaper. I think it's only fair that at least some of that difference flows to the seller. For the buyer it doesn't matter if PostNL or their seller puts the work into getting their order delivered.
So say that you want to earn €20 per hour. Previously you earned €20 profit per 1 hour, from processing two €20 orders. Now, you need to put in 15 extra minutes to do this. That's a quarter of 1 hour or €20, and that's €5. Divided over these two orders, I'd charge €2,50 extra in handling per order. The buyer will still have a great deal with rates that are significantly lower than they were last year, and your work pays the same as it did before.