Discussion Forum: Messages by Teup (6600)
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 Author: Teup View Messages Posted By Teup
 Posted: Nov 9, 2023 16:48
 Subject: Re: Update on November 3rd incident
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 Topic: Administrative
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In Administrative, CE_Uday writes:
  In Administrative, Teup writes:
  Can you be more specific here: Does this mean 2FA or not?

So it turns out the 'hacker's comment that 2FA wouldn't save us was
indeed bluff. It very much would have saved us. So is Bricklink going
to prevent this from happening again? I hope 2FA will be put in place before
the devs are going to be put through another series of sleepless nights...

At this time, we can't comment on specific security measures in development.
However, we will communicate about any new security features as they become available.

Thanks for the reply. I hope it will include 2FA or something else that in this
case would have prevented the outage. Both for the team and the sellers/buyers
sake..
 Author: Teup View Messages Posted By Teup
 Posted: Nov 9, 2023 05:17
 Subject: Re: Update on November 3rd incident
 Viewed: 89 times
 Topic: Administrative
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In Administrative, Admin_Russell writes:
  We take the safety of BrickLink and our members very
seriously and will continue to step up security across the platform.

Can you be more specific here: Does this mean 2FA or not?

So it turns out the 'hacker's comment that 2FA wouldn't save us was
indeed bluff. It very much would have saved us. So is Bricklink going
to prevent this from happening again? I hope 2FA will be put in place before
the devs are going to be put through another series of sleepless nights...
 Author: Teup View Messages Posted By Teup
 Posted: Nov 15, 2022 16:53
 Subject: Re: Reserve your LEGO® account nickname today!
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 Topic: Administrative
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In Administrative, Admin writes:
  Dear BrickLink member,

We’ll be making some changes to the LEGO® Account system in 2023 that’ll make
things a bit easier for you and other BrickLink® members. We’re introducing a
universal LEGO nickname that will work in all online LEGO experiences, including
BrickLink. This means that your username on BrickLink will be the same as your
LEGO Account nickname. That way, you’ll only have to keep track of one nickname,
and it’ll be easier for others to follow you and enjoy your LEGO content.

Right now, we’re giving our BrickLink and LEGO Ideas members a chance to create
and reserve their preferred nickname before we open the service to other LEGO
account holders. If you already have a LEGO Account, we’ll ask you to do a quick
setup on that account by following the link below. All you must do is submit
your BrickLink username as your new LEGO Account nickname. That’s how we’ll make
sure you get the nickname you prefer, on BrickLink, LEGO Ideas and everywhere
else!

If you do not have an account already, follow the link below to create an account
and to select your own nickname.

We understand how important it is to you that other BrickLink members recognize
you on our site, so we encourage you to complete the nickname setup as soon as
you can.

There’s one more thing, though. For trademark and copyright reasons, nicknames
can’t contain words like “LEGO” or “BrickLink” We appreciate all our BrickLink
members, and we understand that changing your nickname isn’t necessarily something
you’d like to do. It’s all part of our work to provide our BrickLink members
with the best possible way to connect with the LEGO brand and each other, and
we hope you’ll feel the benefits of this going forward.

If you find your nickname is rejected for this reason, we encourage you to use
other words related to the LEGO brand like “brick” or “build.” See what fun and
personal combinations you can make!

Anyway, here’s what you need to do:

• Follow this link to log in to your LEGO Account or to create a new LEGO account

https://identity.lego.com/en-US/profile?returnUrl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.bricklink.com%2F&clientid=0fd7ca3b-3a33-48e3-a747-8ec6f09557c1&appContext=false&adultexperience=true&hideheader=true&hideclosebutton=false&hideexternallogin=false&childsignupexperience=

• Click the Edit icon next to your avatar
• Choose your preferred nickname in the field
• Click Submit and wait a few seconds for your nickname to be approved
• That’s it! You’re all set!

Please select your preferred nickname by the 16th of January 2023. If you’re
not able to change it by this time, we’ll give you an auto-generated nickname.


PLEASE CHECK THESE GUIDELINES BEFORE SUBMITTING A NEW NICKNAME

A nickname...

• can be created in the languages available within a LEGO experience, e.g., LEGO.com
or LEGO Life.
• must be between 4-25 characters in length
• can contain both upper- and lower-case letters
• can be a mix of characters and numbers
• can include a maximum of 4 numbers
• can only include the following special signs: ‘.’ and/or ‘-‘and/or ‘_’
• can include spaces, but not two or more consecutive spaces
• can’t contain the LEGO wordmark including any variations that make it look
as if the name indicates an individual representing the LEGO Group
• can’t contain a LEGO franchise that is a trademark owned by the LEGO Group
• can’t contain a name from another intellectual property not owned by the LEGO
Group (example: Star Wars)
• can’t contain an email address or other contact info
• can’t contain references to other social platforms
• must adhere to the standard LEGO moderation guidelines including but not limited
to political or religious topics, drugs and alcohol, weapon references, hate
speech, profanities, violence, or abusive language


FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

Please visit our Help Center for a list of Freqeuntly Asked Questions

https://www.bricklink.com/help.asp?helpID=2576

If you would like to recieve information about this type of topic in the future,
you can sign up for Personalized Marketting here

https://www.bricklink.com/pref_contact.asp

It says "Teup" contains vulgar language. Can't proceed.
 Author: Teup View Messages Posted By Teup
 Posted: Nov 15, 2022 14:07
 Subject: Re: Inevitable thread for recent nickname email
 Viewed: 54 times
 Topic: Media
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In Media, Nubs_Select writes:
  Just got this email and though I’d post the first thread for it to confirm others
got it also and
1. That’s is legit.
2. That I’m not going crazy (at least in regards to this )
3. Can’t remember what the 3rd reason was

It says my nickname is a vulgar word, lol. And it tells me I have to try it again,
but then it tells me I'm only allowed to try once in 30 days. Mad IT skillz
 Author: Teup View Messages Posted By Teup
 Posted: Aug 3, 2022 04:48
 Subject: Re: Bricklink email? is it real?
 Viewed: 98 times
 Topic: Help
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In Help, Nubs_Select writes:
  Just wanted to ask if bricklink recently sent out an email regarding the selling
of minifigures as the entire email is just a bit off

Normally I don't come here on this forum anymore but this email was so silly
it made me laugh. So basically they are sending a direct message to all SELLERS
(not buyers) to look out for this even though Bricklink literally OWNS this database
and can see directly where the problems are without anyone's help. Except
now they lost this ability, because they have just told all counterfeit sellers
to sell in small batches.
I'm honestly wondering if the person who came up with this idea was just
honestly extremely naive, or if it is a deliberate instruction to all counterfeit
sellers to keep their quantities down in order to avoid Bricklink looking like
a suspicious marketplace, in light of item legitimacy being a hot topic lately.
I would not expect that from Bricklink, but I'm not sure which scenario is
more credible.
 Author: Teup View Messages Posted By Teup
 Posted: Apr 24, 2022 04:39
 Subject: Re: Teup out, see ya guys!
 Viewed: 87 times
 Topic: General
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In General, Teup writes:
  As some of you miiiight have noticed I haven't been around for a while here.
Just a last post to say I'm quitting this forum, as I feel we have plenty
of channels to discuss all things Bricklink and Lego selling in general these
days, and I no longer feel this forum has any merit to me. I might post something
someday if there's some kind of urgent selling emergency because of new rules
or whatever, but that'll be it. So, it's been fun, see you guys elsewhere
or good luck on all your Lego endeavours

I will just leave a couple of usual replies to common topics right here:

- Wear that first negative feedback like a badge of honor
- You have to separate payment status and order status, set payment status to
none, then try again
- Just pay your taxes
- You need Brickstore or other software to be able to do that
- Yeah, I'm also waiting until Bricklink lets me part out my Ninjago Gardens
- Those are all pearl gold
- Wow! Yes, I would love to buy that driver's license and US passport

Hope this way my input is going to be relevant for many years to come

Thanks for the responses guys I figured there are benefits and drawbacks to
an "official" forum (well, this one anyway), the main benefit is you can give
input, but since they're never gonna do anything with any input I gave anyway,
that leaves us with just the drawbacks So, hope to see each of you around
through one of the other channels sometime, we have Facebook, Reddit, Discord
(still have to learn the ropes on this one).. All places where we - in the
absence of Bricklink's forum rules and other intervention - inexplicably
haven't burned down the place yet
 Author: Teup View Messages Posted By Teup
 Posted: Apr 23, 2022 02:51
 Subject: Teup out, see ya guys!
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 Topic: General
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As some of you miiiight have noticed I haven't been around for a while here.
Just a last post to say I'm quitting this forum, as I feel we have plenty
of channels to discuss all things Bricklink and Lego selling in general these
days, and I no longer feel this forum has any merit to me. I might post something
someday if there's some kind of urgent selling emergency because of new rules
or whatever, but that'll be it. So, it's been fun, see you guys elsewhere
or good luck on all your Lego endeavours

I will just leave a couple of usual replies to common topics right here:

- Wear that first negative feedback like a badge of honor
- You have to separate payment status and order status, set payment status to
none, then try again
- Just pay your taxes
- You need Brickstore or other software to be able to do that
- Yeah, I'm also waiting until Bricklink lets me part out my Ninjago Gardens
- Those are all pearl gold
- Wow! Yes, I would love to buy that driver's license and US passport

Hope this way my input is going to be relevant for many years to come
 Author: Teup View Messages Posted By Teup
 Posted: Mar 3, 2022 10:21
 Subject: Re: Sellers not using on site payment, why?
 Viewed: 75 times
 Topic: Payment Methods
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In Payment Methods, yorbrick writes:
  In Payment Methods, Teup writes:
  In Payment Methods, yorbrick writes:
  
  Can you imagine those "good ol' days" are still every day reality in 2022
for Dutch customers on Bricklink?
Place an order, wait for an invoice, grab your identifier, enter the code to
access online banking, copy all the details of the seller to the form, submit
it, again grab the identifier to sign the transfer, mark the order as paid or
send the seller a message that you paid... All because Bricklink doesn't
care much about adding more onsite Payment methods.

Do Dutch banks allow third party sites to set-up and control bank transfers?
I'm wondering how you expect BL to setup onsite bank transfer.

Plus, they would presumably need to do this for each bank, in each country, leading
to a very large number of payment methods that they wold need to monitor and
keep up-to-date.

The Dutch onsite interface for this is called iDeal. It can be enabled by pretty
much checking a box in Stripe's settings. Some other countries have similar
things, and they are all supported by Stripe. For my business outside BL, I just
checked pretty much all of the boxes in the settings. Great thing about Stripe
is, I have no idea how my buyers are paying, but it's all funneled into my
account

Presumably that still has the Stripe fees associated with it, if it is going
through Stripe and not free as it would be if you did a manual bank transfer.

Aside from the level of the fees, PayPal is somewhat similar concerning the origin
of the transaction. You don't know how the buyer is paying (existing balance,
debit card, direct debit through their bank account or credit card).

The fee for iDeal is €0.29 and no percentage fee, so it's only slightly more
expensive than a completely manual bank transfer. Usually too little to resort
to the extra hassle of doing it manually even if the seller would pass on these
costs.

Yes, with PayPal people can source it in different ways, but the nice thing about
Stripe is that it shows the customer the usual checkout interface that they are
used to, without mentioning "Stripe" anywhere. It's a seamless integration
whereas with PayPal AFAIK you are still aware that you are paying by PayPal.
 Author: Teup View Messages Posted By Teup
 Posted: Mar 3, 2022 05:52
 Subject: Re: Sellers not using on site payment, why?
 Viewed: 59 times
 Topic: Payment Methods
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In Payment Methods, yorbrick writes:
  
  Can you imagine those "good ol' days" are still every day reality in 2022
for Dutch customers on Bricklink?
Place an order, wait for an invoice, grab your identifier, enter the code to
access online banking, copy all the details of the seller to the form, submit
it, again grab the identifier to sign the transfer, mark the order as paid or
send the seller a message that you paid... All because Bricklink doesn't
care much about adding more onsite Payment methods.

Do Dutch banks allow third party sites to set-up and control bank transfers?
I'm wondering how you expect BL to setup onsite bank transfer.

Plus, they would presumably need to do this for each bank, in each country, leading
to a very large number of payment methods that they wold need to monitor and
keep up-to-date.

The Dutch onsite interface for this is called iDeal. It can be enabled by pretty
much checking a box in Stripe's settings. Some other countries have similar
things, and they are all supported by Stripe. For my business outside BL, I just
checked pretty much all of the boxes in the settings. Great thing about Stripe
is, I have no idea how my buyers are paying, but it's all funneled into my
account
 Author: Teup View Messages Posted By Teup
 Posted: Mar 3, 2022 04:24
 Subject: Re: Sellers not using on site payment, why?
 Viewed: 59 times
 Topic: Payment Methods
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In Payment Methods, wildchicken13 writes:
  In Payment Methods, eileenkeeney writes:
  In Payment Methods, peregrinator writes:
  In Payment Methods, eileenkeeney writes:
  There is no sales tax in my state, so that is moot.

That is why sellers can continue to offer offsite PayPal in your case (and in
the case of any other buyer who lives in a sales tax-free state). But the request
for friends and family is a red flag. I wonder what would happen if you paid
as "goods and services" instead. Probably nothing good.

Not charging sales tax, to states that do not have a sales tax, is already well
handled by most systems. LEGO never charges me sales tax unless I am shipping
to someone in a State that has a sales tax. So that is not a valid reason for
not using on-site payment. I see no valid reason why this should be allowed.
I am sure it is a Legacy feature and will be changed at some point. For now,
I will just choose to not support the request even if the invoice did say "please"
when asking me to use the friend option. I am still deciding if I am going to
cancel the order or just pay using the option for purchasing goods. It does
have one rare piece, but a few other sellers have the piece. It is a low demand
rare piece.

Reminds me of the good ol' days of BrickLink. Place an order, wait for an
invoice, go to PayPal.com, type in the seller's address and the total, choose
"Goods and Services" or "Friends and Family", click send, and mark the order
as paid on BrickLink. If a seller was nice, they would give you a link so that
you didn't have to type everything in manually. Then onsite payment and instant
checkout changed everything…

In retrospect, it is such an outdated system.

Can you imagine those "good ol' days" are still every day reality in 2022
for Dutch customers on Bricklink?
Place an order, wait for an invoice, grab your identifier, enter the code to
access online banking, copy all the details of the seller to the form, submit
it, again grab the identifier to sign the transfer, mark the order as paid or
send the seller a message that you paid... All because Bricklink doesn't
care much about adding more onsite Payment methods.
 Author: Teup View Messages Posted By Teup
 Posted: Mar 2, 2022 15:08
 Subject: Re: Sellers not using on site payment, why?
 Viewed: 76 times
 Topic: Payment Methods
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In Payment Methods, eileenkeeney writes:
  I thought bricklink had started using onsite payment for all sellers.
I remember reading a thread, where a seller's buyers were getting messages
indicating he did not ship to that country, and the fix was to turn on onsite
payment.

I filled a cart, and went to check out, and saw that postage had been calculated.
The postage calculation was such that I did have to remove stuff from my cart
to meet the package size required for checkout. With everything so tediously
calculated, I fully expected auto-checkout. But instead it said I would get
an invoice. At that point I was fine with it, as long as the invoice would show
the same (or very close to the same) total cost. Then I get the invoice, and
the shipping cost is the same. So I look for the link to pay the invoice, but
it isn't on the invoice. Instead there are instructions telling me to use
paypal and to use the Paypal as friend option.

Do you mean instant checkout or onsite payment? From your description it's
not completely clear if this order was instant checkout or not (that is, whether
the invoice was generated instantaneously, or if the seller compiled it).

In this case it could have been offsite payment to avoid PayPal fees by instructing
buyers to use the Friends & Family option. It's always nice when people are
so generous with their friendships, but AFAIK it's against BL's terms.
 Author: Teup View Messages Posted By Teup
 Posted: Mar 2, 2022 11:44
 Subject: Re: Funding methods for Stripe (and PayPal)
 Viewed: 50 times
 Topic: Payment Methods
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In Payment Methods, SylvainLS writes:
  In Payment Methods, cosmicray writes:
  […]
Does BrickLink support any of the payment funding sources other than credit/debit
cards (on Stripe or PayPal) ?

The day BL supports iDeal or other bank transfer method through Stripe or PayPal,
even the deafs will hear Teup sing thanks

You beat me to it But actually no, I'm just pushing it because the fact
they don't support it annoys me on principle, but financially it's a
blessing Bricklink doesn't care, because it's one of the reasons my business
outside of Bricklink is so successful.

So the answer: You raise an excellent point and no, Bricklink does not support
any other methods, and yes, they've been 'wanting'/'trying'
to add them for years now (the BL team told me in a call 2 years ago that they
were trying to add them). I think there is simply not anyone at Bricklink whose
paycheck directly depends on how much business Bricklink generates - people at
the office just have their positions and want to keep them, LEGO wants to maintain
Bricklink the way it is (at least as long as they don't feel 100% confident
they know the ropes), and that's it. Adding payment methods would be a very
easy and virtually costless way to generate much more sales here, pretty much
a nobrainer for an entrepreneur, but it seems for them it's not important.

By the way, the LEGO website is actually the same way here. Besides Bricklink,
it's the only webshop I know where we can't pay onsite; we have to wait
until Lego sends an invoice. So I don't think the LEGO takeover is going
to inspire much change there anytime soon
 Author: Teup View Messages Posted By Teup
 Posted: Mar 2, 2022 06:33
 Subject: Re: New Medium Brown
 Viewed: 50 times
 Topic: Colors
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In Colors, randyf writes:
  In Colors, randyf writes:
  In Colors, crimson30 writes:
  Maybe I missed it, but with the new Medium Brown coming out (Hogwarts Magical
Trunk is for sale today), I wanted to see if there would be another discussion,
like there was with Neon Yellow.

It strikes me as similar to BL Medium Brown, so I could certainly see "New Medium
Brown". Also I made a swatch based on similar colors. I'd really like to
see what everyone thinks, but honestly one of the key reasons I'm bringing
it up is that I *do not* want to see both colors covered by one BL name.


This one is a tough situation. The official LEGO name is "Medium Brown", but
BrickLink already has a "Medium Brown". The BrickLink "Medium Brown" is LEGO
"Brown", but BrickLink already has a "Brown". The BrickLink "Brown" is LEGO "Earth
Orange", but BrickLink already has an "Earth Orange". *sigh*

Maybe go with "Medium Brown 2022", like Bladerunner 2049.


Two possible choices I have come up with that would avoid any color renaming:

"Light Brown" - This is a name used by LEGO for what is BrickLink "Fabuland Orange",
but BrickLink does not use this name yet. It is simple and short.

"Nougat Brown" - Since this color comes between "Reddish Brown" and "Medium Nougat"
on the skin tone scale, this one is a blend of those names. It is also simple
and short.

More to come on this...

Actually I like both more than Medium Brown in the first place. The "Medium"
word always confuses me, as sometimes it means "lighter" and sometimes it means
"darker".. it basically just means "another"
 Author: Teup View Messages Posted By Teup
 Posted: Feb 28, 2022 11:39
 Subject: Re: Risks of buying from Russia right now
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 Topic: Buying
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In Buying, axaday writes:
  But please be ready to welcome our Russia stores back when
things are more settled one way or the other. Whether they agree with it or
not, none of this is their fault.

Though I tend to agree, it's actually something you can debate, and I do
follow the logic of stores that would keep some kind of boycott. But IMO it's
not going to be effective unless perhaps it's going to be part of a real
dramatic change in everyday life (and actually, we are kind of going in that
direction). Knowing Russian nature a bit, I think the people would only stand
up if they really run into a dead-end in their life. If it's just going to
be some online businesses nagging them by not sending things anymore, it could
quickly be accepted as just another one of those annoying things you just have
to bear in an already pretty harsh daily life. That would just be a loss for
everyone.

To Russians who may be reading this: Maybe it's comforting for you to know
that even if sanctions are hitting you very hard right now, people over here
at least do understand it isn't the Russian people who wanted this war. We
have plenty of media coverage of Russian protests, Russians against the war,
and the problems Russians are facing right now. People here don't hate you!
 Author: Teup View Messages Posted By Teup
 Posted: Feb 27, 2022 05:57
 Subject: Re: Why are these terms allowed?
 Viewed: 60 times
 Topic: Help
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In Help, Ellum writes:
  I found this in a seller og vintage sets terms

What is included and excluded in the sets

We mainly sell complete sets. Sometimes, we also sell a number of parts. When
there is something missing in the set, it is mentioned in the description of
the advertisement. Please note: we only check sets by inventory lists, we do
not build them in general. If so, the set will be send in build condition. This
is always mentioned in the description. However, for some vintage sets, minifigs
have a feather on their hat. In the inventory list is mentioned that each feather
must be there in three sizes. We only add one size of feather: the one that is
actually on the minifig its hat. The other feather sizes are just extra, as they
were sold originally all three bundled together. You do only need the one we
add to have the set complete by building it. Furthermore, in case there is a
horse included in the set, the plate and brick in the same color for "in" the
horse are not included. This is because a saddle is always on the horse. This
plate and brick are not used when playing with the set.

Seller sells complete sets with this in terms. Why is this allowed? I sell vintage
sets as well and will only list a set as complete with the extra parts because
that is bricklink listing policy. This is unfair behaviour from this seller.

You're right that's a terms violation:

Complete - Contents are brand new and may have been removed from their plastic
bags and handled for inventorying purposes only. Includes all contents that originally
came with set including extra parts, stickers, instructions (if any) and original
box/packaging.


At the very least the seller should add these comments in the listings themselves
rather than hidden in the terms field.

But as for that terms field in general: BL doesn't care about it or moderate
it, as long as it isn't a US seller who charges PayPal fees (probably under
pressure from PayPal). Just today I was trying to buy a part and couldn't
find a single store (I checked about 10) that offered it without having a legal
violation in their terms. It's 'business as usual' that I just accepted
long ago, but when you think about it that's pretty crazy.

I will keep repeating it: Terms should be abolished and replaced with BL's
own terms plus some multiple choice settings for the seller (that the buyer can
filter on). In other words, BL should look at how BrickOwl does this. This case
is just once again an illustration that that would be much better.
 Author: Teup View Messages Posted By Teup
 Posted: Feb 26, 2022 19:54
 Subject: Re: N00b Questions- How To Gauge Sales?
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 Topic: Selling
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In Selling, Upstate_Brickz writes:
  Hello Bricklink,

I'm just curious if there is any way to gauge how well I'm doing with
sales? I don't know of any data or charts I can look at on BL to compare
my store to other stores of similar size that opened around the same time, or
if it's just a question I have to ask here and get responses to. Is 13 a
good or bad number of sales for only being open 2 months?

I'm kind of adrift with BL's lack of data for sellers. I wish I knew
if people were coming to my store because I had the lowest price for an item,
buy now on their wanted list, advertising, people buying to get feedback to open
their own stores or a specific search.

Thanks for any advice!

Upstate_Brickz

I know how you feel, it's often hard to figure these things out, and usually
there's no hard evidence. If you're doing "ok" really depends on what
country you are in, what kind of things you sell, which payment methods you accept,
etc, etc.. No two stores are the same. I guess the answer is, 'it is what
it is': Your store is doing the way it should be doing. And if you want to
compare, compare your store to your store + a change. Like, see what adding inventory
does for your sales, see what higher or lower prices does, etc. Getting to
know your own store is most important. For example, I know that my busiest month
is January, and that is really useful info for my planning. But this is different
for every store. I don't know what other stores are like, but at least I
know what to expect from mine.

(But when experimenting with changing things, evaluate the results after some
months, not after some days. That way you're sure you're not being fooled
by random factors.)
 Author: Teup View Messages Posted By Teup
 Posted: Feb 25, 2022 09:10
 Subject: Re: What, if anything, do sellers use lot id for
 Viewed: 29 times
 Topic: General
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In General, calsbricks writes:
  Just curious - if it wasn't there would that be a problem ?

Yes, of course it would be a problem. Products always need SKU's. Without
barcodes, the supermarket would be a giant mess.

But it's true you could in some situations derive SKU's from a kind of
part+colour code, which is actually what I personally do in my inventory management
outside of BL. But principally it's a little bit dirty because those numbers
aren't meant to serve that purpose, and functionally it's a downgrade.
Because obviously that makes it impossible to list the same part+colour(+condition,type,..)
multiple times, and means consolidation is obligatory. Also, if an item number
changes (rare but it happens), you're in trouble if you don't have a
separate SKU to fall back on.

And if we talk about not just hiding it but really removing it from the
code, we're in trouble as obivously it's not uncommon for a particular
part to be in the inventory of not just one but multiple sellers worldwide
In order to facilitate that, items would need a list of which seller sells them
and how much. So instead of sellers having lotIDs, lots would be having sellerIDs
I won't call any data structure "wrong", it's all a matter of style,
but let's say the current one does make sense
 Author: Teup View Messages Posted By Teup
 Posted: Feb 24, 2022 13:56
 Subject: Re: Upcoming sanctions against Russia: BL?
 Viewed: 109 times
 Topic: General
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In General, Leftoverbricks writes:
  In light of the upcoming international sanctions against Russia, what is Bricklink's
stand?

I suppose that when all international economic traffic with Russia will be disallowed
this also implies that BL (as an American registered company) may no longer handle/support/allow
traffic between shops and buyers located in Russia and the rest of the world.

@BL admin: please update the community.

My estimation is that sanctions (I guess the idea being to motivate changes at
the highest level by changing people's minds about their government) are
going to be completely ineffective/counterproductive for the reasons I outlined
here: https://www.bricklink.com/message.asp?ID=1329597

But of course, if governments should decide on it, it makes sense Bricklink has
to follow along.
 Author: Teup View Messages Posted By Teup
 Posted: Feb 24, 2022 09:21
 Subject: Re: How do I change to countries were I ship to
 Viewed: 129 times
 Topic: Shipping
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In Shipping, Fenneke_Jose writes:
  hi all,

Where can I find the settings to change the counries where I am shipping to?
Due to the political situation I would like to put a stop to some countries.

Kind regards,

José

Sorry if this is political, I'm not posting specifically to voice my political
preference or opinion as I know that's not what this forum is for... but
as for the sanctions topic and whether those are relevant: I don't believe
this has any desired effect in any way form or shape even if I grant that the
entire Russian population would be unanimously cut off from all international
ecommerce. I think:

- It's in Russian nature to accept ever new levels of daily problems as just
hardships of life - a "high pain threshold" to sanctions as it's sometimes
called;
- This proves those in power right saying Russians don't have any friends
beyond the borders;
- This increases the grasp of those in power as they seem to want the population
to be fully dependent on the domestic world and not be exposed to contacts that
lead to international comparison. They don't even need Western sanctions
to cut people off from LinkedIn etc;
- Even if this would lead to a bottom-up protest, which is the goal of such sanctions,
Russia is, well, let's say not a country where initiative arises through
a bottom-up kind of mechanic.

I think the main effect that is that Russian people have less Lego to play with...
But that's just my 2 kopeck.
 Author: Teup View Messages Posted By Teup
 Posted: Feb 23, 2022 10:51
 Subject: Re: show only IBAN-shops in "Buy Wanted Lists"?
 Viewed: 21 times
 Topic: Help
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In Help, 1001bricks writes:
  In Help, tbds writes:
  Hello Sylvain,

thank you very much for your answer.

I don't have Paypal or Stripe or anything like that. And I only want to
buy from sellers in my country.

That's the point - you DON'T need either a PayPal or a Stripe account
to pay with them.
Simply input your Credit/Debit Card number for example.

You need to have a compatible card though, and I don't know what cards in
Germany are like but ours for example are not. And it seems some of the failed
payments I've been getting in Stripe are because of some cards that are not
being accepted..

But yes, whenever it works with your card, Stripe's card method should be
very convenient and doesn't require any signing up.
 Author: Teup View Messages Posted By Teup
 Posted: Feb 23, 2022 10:43
 Subject: Re: show only IBAN-shops in "Buy Wanted Lists"?
 Viewed: 27 times
 Topic: Help
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In Help, tbds writes:
  This is really stupid. I wonder, if any of the bricklink programmers have checked
their 'baby' from the perspective of a buyer. I'm inclined to doubt
that, because bricklink really has a lot of design flaws

They don't, and they don't really care. There are many things they could
easily do to increase revenue, but it's not in anyone's direct interest
so it doesn't happen. It could be worse though, at least what we have works.
Once you accept the fact that there isn't some kind of vision or plan behind
Bricklink it saves a lot of frustration
 Author: Teup View Messages Posted By Teup
 Posted: Feb 22, 2022 08:43
 Subject: Re: Enabling of B2B transactions for EU orders
 Viewed: 57 times
 Topic: Administrative
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In Administrative, SylvainLS writes:
  In Administrative, 1001bricks writes:
  […]
I also think it may not be 100% legal to refuse (or overcharge), but I can be
wrong.
I couldn't find a precise text.

Rule of thumb: Does S@H do it?

Well, hard to know because I think they have a presence in every country, so
the intra-EU-import situation doesn't occur. But when I think about Dutch
webshops that ship to NL and Belgium, I can't really imagine they all have
a system to accommodate 0% VAT transactions.

But even if they have a right to refuse it, it would be nice if EU sellers could
at least choose to enable this feature in their store if they want to. That would
really save a bunch of hassle asking and answering "hey do you make 0% VAT invoices",
verifying the VAT ID on ec.europa.eu, removing VAT, and hoping the buyer didn't
already pay so you have to go and book a refund for the VAT amount, etc... it
could really boost B2B transactions within the EU if buyers can see immediately
that their B2B order will be accepted and even pay when checking out.
 Author: Teup View Messages Posted By Teup
 Posted: Feb 22, 2022 08:11
 Subject: Re: Enabling of B2B transactions for EU orders
 Viewed: 74 times
 Topic: Administrative
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In Administrative, 1001bricks writes:
  In Administrative, CE_Tanja writes:
  Dear 1001bricks,

Please try to reset your browser or clear the cache.

Ah oh - that's not very clear, as Teup wrote it only works for Imports (from
outside EU to EU)?

I was expecting B2B within countries inside Europe.

This last one feature I was expecting, and would greatly be welcomed!

Sylvain

Yep, agree. This new feature is great news for American shops, but it would be
really nice if it applied to EU shops too. But for that, first we need to figure
out whether sellers are legally allowed to refuse doing 0% VAT intra-community
transactions. I don't think they are, and certainly not for a fee as some
are doing, but I'm really not sure about it... maybe someone knows?

It means extra administrative hassle and some sellers are not confident that
the tax agency is going to accept the 0% VAT transactions, so I do understand
the reasons why some sellers like to be able to refuse it.
 Author: Teup View Messages Posted By Teup
 Posted: Feb 22, 2022 04:19
 Subject: Re: Enabling of B2B transactions for EU orders
 Viewed: 77 times
 Topic: Administrative
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In Administrative, 1001bricks writes:
  
  In order to make use of this new feature, simply click on the 'Verify your
VAT ID' link under the Order Summary section to enter your valid VAT registration
number during checkout

Quick tests:

I tried in 3 different shops including Brick24, and couldn't see no "Verify
your VAT ID" link or whatever even close to this, up to the very last step of
the check out (4th).

It's late, tired - please have a good evening!

Looks like it only works on stores outside the EU, I wonder why? I like how it
works, I think the same could be applied to EU stores, no? Or should stores be
able to refuse accepting them? According to the tax agency helpdesk here, it's
not something stores are allowed to refuse, but I've also seen on the forum
that intra-community transactions are problematic for sellers in certain member
states.
 Author: Teup View Messages Posted By Teup
 Posted: Feb 21, 2022 18:45
 Subject: Re: Why most orders on Mondays?
 Viewed: 43 times
 Topic: Off Topic
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In Off Topic, SylvainLS writes:
  In Off Topic, Teup writes:
  […]
Useful tip: When it's really busy (holiday season), it could be smart to
send out orders on Tuesday. Mondays are sometimes so busy for PostNL that they
leave some of the Monday bags untouched until a week later to avoid a domino
effect. So shipping out on Tuesday in busy times can actually make things arrive
faster.

And now everybody will post on Tuesday, so Monday will be okay again… or maybe
better post on Wednesday

Actually yes that's right, what they told me is that it's Monday "and
sometimes Tuesday"... so Wednesday is safest But for me so far, almost all
of my delayed orders can be traced back to Monday batches

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