|  | | | | |
| | | | | Author: | BigBBricks  | | Posted: | Jun 18, 2021 23:32 | | Subject: | Re: Packing Dimensions - Seller Tools | | Viewed: | 48 times | | Topic: | Catalog | |
|
| Thanks for the awesome update Russell! I'm looking forward to all the announcements
and especially more emails in the future. Keep up the great work!
I was wondering if the development team had thought about the differences between
European/Asian shipping requirements vs. USA and how that effects the order?
We depend a lot less on the dimensions of an element and primarily on the weight
in part-based selling. The problem arises when the element/part in the catalog
gets listed as volume based (not set, that makes sense) and automatic checkout
no longer works for that element, discouraging people from buying.
Since the team is just really starting to dig into the seller tools and seem
to be taking requests, please consider using different zones based on shippers
location when BL forces an element to the volume based shipping. It causes more
issues stateside (your primary market) by limiting sale of that element via auto-checkout
until dimensions are entered or the seller manually changes it back to weight
based.
We're all just trying to sling our brick as quickly and accurately as possible,
things like changing elements to volume without having dimensions makes that
more difficult. Thank you for your time. 
- Big B
|
|
|
| | | | | | | | | |
| | | | | | | Author: | Vosblokjes | | Posted: | Jun 19, 2021 01:24 | | Subject: | Re: Packing Dimensions - Seller Tools | | Viewed: | 26 times | | Topic: | Catalog | |
|
| In Catalog, BigBBricks writes:
| | Thanks for the awesome update Russell! I'm looking forward to all the announcements
and especially more emails in the future. Keep up the great work!
I was wondering if the development team had thought about the differences between
European/Asian shipping requirements vs. USA and how that effects the order?
We depend a lot less on the dimensions of an element and primarily on the weight
in part-based selling. The problem arises when the element/part in the catalog
gets listed as volume based (not set, that makes sense) and automatic checkout
no longer works for that element, discouraging people from buying.
Since the team is just really starting to dig into the seller tools and seem
to be taking requests, please consider using different zones based on shippers
location when BL forces an element to the volume based shipping. It causes more
issues stateside (your primary market) by limiting sale of that element via auto-checkout
until dimensions are entered or the seller manually changes it back to weight
based.
We're all just trying to sling our brick as quickly and accurately as possible,
things like changing elements to volume without having dimensions makes that
more difficult. Thank you for your time.
- Big B
|
Maybe it should be enforced that when setting an item to volume based, dimensions
are required.
On the other hand, sellers have been able (since 2017) to spot those items quite
simple and put in a request to add dimensions (they supply)
But I don't see an announcement that BL will turn all items to volume bases,
so I don't think that will have to worry you.
For me as, European seller, size does matter
And for me the wide range of items missing dimensions was/is holding me back
to turn on Instant Checkout. Sending an order as letter to the US is way cheaper
then sending it as parcel (1.55 vs 25.50), so that is not something you just
'eat' as seller.
Russel,
Thanks for the info and congrats to the team for implementing this.
It would be nice if you could easily filter the results.
I took a look and have 1566 lots that have no (or complete) dimensions.
What I also see is that there are many the same kind of items without dimensions.
So a lot of torsos (without arms, 973*), but I also see a lot of stickered items,
for example I have 73 1x4 tiles (2431*) with stickers that have no dimensions,
why don't those stickered items inherent there dimensions from the unstickered
'parent'.
A sticker (or print) will not make the peace larger, yes the sticker will ad
a very small dimension increase, but I don't think anyone is able to measure
that (with normal equipment).
All in all, expect a lot of dimension catalog requests from me in the coming
days
|
|
|
| | | | | | | | | |
| | | | | | | Author: | calsbricks | | Posted: | Jun 19, 2021 01:27 | | Subject: | Re: Packing Dimensions - Seller Tools | | Viewed: | 52 times | | Topic: | Catalog | |
|
| In Catalog, BigBBricks writes:
| | Thanks for the awesome update Russell! I'm looking forward to all the announcements
and especially more emails in the future. Keep up the great work!
I was wondering if the development team had thought about the differences between
European/Asian shipping requirements vs. USA and how that effects the order?
We depend a lot less on the dimensions of an element and primarily on the weight
in part-based selling. The problem arises when the element/part in the catalog
gets listed as volume based (not set, that makes sense) and automatic checkout
no longer works for that element, discouraging people from buying.
Since the team is just really starting to dig into the seller tools and seem
to be taking requests, please consider using different zones based on shippers
location when BL forces an element to the volume based shipping. It causes more
issues stateside (your primary market) by limiting sale of that element via auto-checkout
until dimensions are entered or the seller manually changes it back to weight
based.
We're all just trying to sling our brick as quickly and accurately as possible,
things like changing elements to volume without having dimensions makes that
more difficult. Thank you for your time.
- Big B
|
Hiya Big B
Just ran this on our inventory and came up with 1050 lots - lots of work to do.
|
|
|
| | | | | |
| | | | | Author: | Stellar | | Posted: | Jun 19, 2021 04:05 | | Subject: | Re: Packing Dimensions - Seller Tools | | Viewed: | 36 times | | Topic: | Catalog | |
|
| In Catalog, Admin_Russell writes:
Nicee, keep it going!
| |
Essentially this is a companion to the "No Weight in Catalog" filter for your
store inventory. Any catalog items that are missing dimensions data will come
up in the search, including those pesky ones containing a NULL or ZERO value.
|
Good!
| | How is this different than the "Instant Checkout Unavailable" filter? That filter,
which has existed since 2017, will find items that won't make it through
Instant Checkout in your store. But dimensions are not required for Instant Checkout
unless the Packing Type is set to Volume Bound. So there is some overlap, but
the "No Packing Dim in Catalog" filter is specifically designed to help sellers
fill out catalog data.
We also updated the Store Management page and the Item Listing page with some
new language. And more is yet to come!
|
PD: Nice you finally done the Administrative icon 
|
|
|
| | | | | |
| | | | | Author: | Teup | | Posted: | Jun 19, 2021 04:50 | | Subject: | Re: Packing Dimensions - Seller Tools | | Viewed: | 37 times | | Topic: | Catalog | |
|
| In Catalog, Admin_Russell writes:
With any luck that will include fixing this problem of parts appearing as a chaotic
mess in inventories and partouts because they're not sorted by dimensions
anymore, which you were going to address "next week" 9 months ago 
https://www.bricklink.com/message.asp?ID=1222702
|
|
| | | | | |
| | | | | Author: | Leftoverbricks | | Posted: | Jun 19, 2021 11:21 | | Subject: | Re: Packing Dimensions - Seller Tools | | Viewed: | 56 times | | Topic: | Catalog | |
|
| As suggested by Baskrie:
"What I also see is that there are many the same kind of items without dimensions.
So a lot of torsos (without arms, 973*), but I also see a lot of stickered items,
for example I have 73 1x4 tiles (2431*) with stickers that have no dimensions,
why don't those stickered items inherent there dimensions from the unstickered
'parent'.
A sticker (or print) will not make the peace larger, yes the sticker will ad
a very small dimension increase, but I don't think anyone is able to measure
that (with normal equipment)."
This.
The catalogue contains really thousands and thousands of items that could be
fixed in a minute by BL itself. Basically all printed tiles / bricks / shields
and other printed parts have the same packing dimensions as their unprinted versions.
Same for torso's, legs, heads.
While it's nice that you added this feature you could have done the
above first. This wouldn't be too much of a problem to program/execute, right?
So for all element that have a pb extension this could be automated.
Examples:
has 244 printed or stickered variants
[P=3069b,7]
has 969 printed or stickered variants
has 793 printed or stickered variants
and 973pb* (torso) brings up 8620 items - all have the same weight and
packaging dimensions.
Here's the link for this search: https://www.bricklink.com/v2/search.page?q=973pb*#T=A
Russell, now that TLG owns BL you have a wealth of resources that you could have
used before asking the community to help.
TL;DR: why do you ask the BL (seller)community to fill in the gasps in your inventory
while BL/TLG could have this problem solved easily for thousands of parts (perhaps
90% of the parts that are missing packing dimensions).
|
|
|
| | | | | | | | | |
| | | | | | | Author: | hpoort | | Posted: | Jun 19, 2021 12:30 | | Subject: | Re: Packing Dimensions - Seller Tools | | Viewed: | 46 times | | Topic: | Catalog | |
|
| In Catalog, Leftoverbricks writes:
| | As suggested by Baskrie:
"What I also see is that there are many the same kind of items without dimensions.
So a lot of torsos (without arms, 973*), but I also see a lot of stickered items,
for example I have 73 1x4 tiles (2431*) with stickers that have no dimensions,
why don't those stickered items inherent there dimensions from the unstickered
'parent'.
A sticker (or print) will not make the peace larger, yes the sticker will ad
a very small dimension increase, but I don't think anyone is able to measure
that (with normal equipment)."
This.
The catalogue contains really thousands and thousands of items that could be
fixed in a minute by BL itself. Basically all printed tiles / bricks / shields
and other printed parts have the same packing dimensions as their unprinted versions.
Same for torso's, legs, heads.
While it's nice that you added this feature you could have done the
above first. This wouldn't be too much of a problem to program/execute, right?
So for all element that have a pb extension this could be automated.
Examples:
has 244 printed or stickered variants
[P=3069b,7]
has 969 printed or stickered variants
has 793 printed or stickered variants
and 973pb* (torso) brings up 8620 items - all have the same weight and
packaging dimensions.
Here's the link for this search: https://www.bricklink.com/v2/search.page?q=973pb*#T=A
Russell, now that TLG owns BL you have a wealth of resources that you could have
used before asking the community to help.
TL;DR: why do you ask the BL (seller)community to fill in the gasps in your inventory
while BL/TLG could have this problem solved easily for thousands of parts (perhaps
90% of the parts that are missing packing dimensions).
|
+1, it has been raised many times before.
I suspect that they may have lost the (or the expertise) to the database
and have to rely on incomplete admin tools only. If those are in
the same state as the well bespoken seller tools, that explains a lot. Indeed
at the database level (to be more exact: at the data definition level), this
would simply be adding a rule triggered by an update on the packaging dimension
field.
[Items_ItemNr.OnChange]:
UPDATE Items SET Items.PackagingSize = :Ref.PackagingSize WHERE Items.Itemnr
LIKE :Ref.ItemNr & "pb*"
|
|
|
| | | | | | | | | | | | | |
| | | | | | | | | Author: | Grego | | Posted: | Jun 20, 2021 02:42 | | Subject: | Re: Packing Dimensions - Seller Tools | | Viewed: | 37 times | | Topic: | Catalog | |
|
| In Catalog, hpoort writes:
| | In Catalog, Leftoverbricks writes:
| | As suggested by Baskrie:
"What I also see is that there are many the same kind of items without dimensions.
So a lot of torsos (without arms, 973*), but I also see a lot of stickered items,
for example I have 73 1x4 tiles (2431*) with stickers that have no dimensions,
why don't those stickered items inherent there dimensions from the unstickered
'parent'.
A sticker (or print) will not make the peace larger, yes the sticker will ad
a very small dimension increase, but I don't think anyone is able to measure
that (with normal equipment)."
This.
The catalogue contains really thousands and thousands of items that could be
fixed in a minute by BL itself. Basically all printed tiles / bricks / shields
and other printed parts have the same packing dimensions as their unprinted versions.
Same for torso's, legs, heads.
While it's nice that you added this feature you could have done the
above first. This wouldn't be too much of a problem to program/execute, right?
So for all element that have a pb extension this could be automated.
Examples:
has 244 printed or stickered variants
[P=3069b,7]
has 969 printed or stickered variants
has 793 printed or stickered variants
and 973pb* (torso) brings up 8620 items - all have the same weight and
packaging dimensions.
Here's the link for this search: https://www.bricklink.com/v2/search.page?q=973pb*#T=A
Russell, now that TLG owns BL you have a wealth of resources that you could have
used before asking the community to help.
TL;DR: why do you ask the BL (seller)community to fill in the gasps in your inventory
while BL/TLG could have this problem solved easily for thousands of parts (perhaps
90% of the parts that are missing packing dimensions).
|
+1, it has been raised many times before.
I suspect that they may have lost the (or the expertise) to the database
and have to rely on incomplete admin tools only. If those are in
the same state as the well bespoken seller tools, that explains a lot. Indeed
at the database level (to be more exact: at the data definition level), this
would simply be adding a rule triggered by an update on the packaging dimension
field.
[Items_ItemNr.OnChange]:
UPDATE Items SET Items.PackagingSize = :Ref.PackagingSize WHERE Items.Itemnr
LIKE :Ref.ItemNr & "pb*"
|
It was either hire a web monkey @ $15.00/hour or have the BL community do
it for free ...kinda like their alpha and beta testing of program updates
|
|
|
| | | | | | | | | | | | | |
| | | | | | | | | Author: | Leftoverbricks | | Posted: | Jun 20, 2021 11:19 | | Subject: | Re: Packing Dimensions - Seller Tools | | Viewed: | 33 times | | Topic: | Catalog | |
|
| | |
+1, it has been raised many times before.
I suspect that they may have lost the (or the expertise) to the database
and have to rely on incomplete admin tools only. If those are in
the same state as the well bespoken seller tools, that explains a lot. Indeed
at the database level (to be more exact: at the data definition level), this
would simply be adding a rule triggered by an update on the packaging dimension
field.
[Items_ItemNr.OnChange]:
UPDATE Items SET Items.PackagingSize = :Ref.PackagingSize WHERE Items.Itemnr
LIKE :Ref.ItemNr & "pb*"
|
Thank you hpoort!
Wouldn't it be possible to do this with Python?
I was googling "python webbrowser fill form" and got this idea:
- set up a loop where the item number changes from let's say 3069bpb001 to
3069bpb800
- go to the change URL of the part https://www.bricklink.com/catalogReq.asp?itemType=P
- fill the 3 related input fields with pre-filled data for the item 3069b
- submit request for the given part number in the loop
- and so on, until finished
Wouldn't it be nice if admin Russell would react? He could then learn that
there are a lot of BL members who are willing to help to get the automation of
these processes finally going on.
|
|
|
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
| | | | | | | | | | | Author: | SylvainLS | | Posted: | Jun 20, 2021 11:47 | | Subject: | Re: Packing Dimensions - Seller Tools | | Viewed: | 39 times | | Topic: | Catalog | |
|
| In Catalog, Leftoverbricks writes:
| | […]
Wouldn't it be possible to do this with Python?
I was googling "python webbrowser fill form" and got this idea:
- set up a loop where the item number changes from let's say 3069bpb001 to
3069bpb800
- go to the change URL of the part https://www.bricklink.com/catalogReq.asp?itemType=P
- fill the 3 related input fields with pre-filled data for the item 3069b
- submit request for the given part number in the loop
- and so on, until finished
|
That would be a (ro)bot… and robots are forbidden (supposedly).
Anyway, simpler would be to generate the complete requests for change. That
is, access the URL the submit button sends its info to, with the correct parameters.
The difference is a bit like between:
— making a humanoid robot to type on your keyboard and move your mouse,
— and making a little electronic device that plugs in like a keyboard and sends
the keystrokes you want.
| | Wouldn't it be nice if admin Russell would react? He could then learn that
there are a lot of BL members who are willing to help to get the automation of
these processes finally going on.
|
Yep but the best would really be if it was done at the database level.
|
|
|
| | | | | | | | | | | | | |
| | | | | | | | | Author: | qwertyboy | | Posted: | Jun 20, 2021 11:43 | | Subject: | Re: Packing Dimensions - Seller Tools | | Viewed: | 35 times | | Topic: | Catalog | |
|
| In Catalog, hpoort writes:
| |
[Items_ItemNr.OnChange]:
UPDATE Items SET Items.PackagingSize = :Ref.PackagingSize WHERE Items.Itemnr
LIKE :Ref.ItemNr & "pb*"
|
Agreed. Then do a forced trigger for all non-decorated entries already in the
DB (so current decorated items get fixed), and then change the current web page
from allowing a manual update on a decorated item if there is no "parent" undecorated
version defined.
Niek.
|
|
| | | | | | | | | |
| | | | | | | Author: | jennnifer | | Posted: | Jun 19, 2021 17:45 | | Subject: | Re: Packing Dimensions - Seller Tools | | Viewed: | 50 times | | Topic: | Catalog | |
|
| Yes, this.
Asked for many times and (apparently) impossible to achieve.
On the bright side, whoever submits these hundreds of dimensions will get tons
of credit in the catalog!
https://www.bricklink.com/catalogMembers.asp
Oh, wait...
Jen
In Catalog, Leftoverbricks writes:
| | As suggested by Baskrie:
"What I also see is that there are many the same kind of items without dimensions.
So a lot of torsos (without arms, 973*), but I also see a lot of stickered items,
for example I have 73 1x4 tiles (2431*) with stickers that have no dimensions,
why don't those stickered items inherent there dimensions from the unstickered
'parent'.
A sticker (or print) will not make the peace larger, yes the sticker will ad
a very small dimension increase, but I don't think anyone is able to measure
that (with normal equipment)."
This.
The catalogue contains really thousands and thousands of items that could be
fixed in a minute by BL itself. Basically all printed tiles / bricks / shields
and other printed parts have the same packing dimensions as their unprinted versions.
Same for torso's, legs, heads.
While it's nice that you added this feature you could have done the
above first. This wouldn't be too much of a problem to program/execute, right?
So for all element that have a pb extension this could be automated.
Examples:
has 244 printed or stickered variants
[P=3069b,7]
has 969 printed or stickered variants
has 793 printed or stickered variants
and 973pb* (torso) brings up 8620 items - all have the same weight and
packaging dimensions.
Here's the link for this search: https://www.bricklink.com/v2/search.page?q=973pb*#T=A
Russell, now that TLG owns BL you have a wealth of resources that you could have
used before asking the community to help.
TL;DR: why do you ask the BL (seller)community to fill in the gasps in your inventory
while BL/TLG could have this problem solved easily for thousands of parts (perhaps
90% of the parts that are missing packing dimensions).
|
|
|
|
| | | | | | | | | |
| | | | | | | Author: | Admin_Russell | | Posted: | Jun 23, 2021 21:13 | | Subject: | Re: Packing Dimensions - Seller Tools | | Viewed: | 73 times | | Topic: | Catalog | |
|
|
BrickLink
ID CardAdmin_Russell
|
Location:  USA, California |
| Member Since |
Contact |
Type |
Status |
| May 9, 2017 |
 |
Admin |
|
|
| BrickLink Administrator |
|
| In Catalog, Leftoverbricks writes:
| | As suggested by Baskrie:
"What I also see is that there are many the same kind of items without dimensions.
So a lot of torsos (without arms, 973*), but I also see a lot of stickered items,
for example I have 73 1x4 tiles (2431*) with stickers that have no dimensions,
why don't those stickered items inherent there dimensions from the unstickered
'parent'.
A sticker (or print) will not make the peace larger, yes the sticker will ad
a very small dimension increase, but I don't think anyone is able to measure
that (with normal equipment)."
This.
|
| | TL;DR: why do you ask the BL (seller)community to fill in the gasps in your inventory
while BL/TLG could have this problem solved easily for thousands of parts (perhaps
90% of the parts that are missing packing dimensions).
|
We incorporated Packing Dimensions into our catalog change forms because the
requests coming in from the community were more than a manual process could handle.
And people had been asking for a way to find which parts were missing dimensions.
We are also trying to increase the use of instant checkout, and there is a certain
percentage of catalog items that really need help. Instructions, most Gear items,
catalogs, large parts, unconventional minifigure assemblies, etc. Sellers are
the ones who physically possess these items, not BrickLink and not the LEGO Group.
So it makes sense to give the ability to update info on these items to the people
who have access to them.
The parts you mentioned above - these are not an issue for Instant Checkout.
They are weight bound and are treated like a liquid, and the dimensions only
come into play as a liquid volume check at the end of the process after weight
has been already considered. Unless you are shipping quantities of parts that
are of unusually light weight, for all practical purposes it's a weight-based
system we are dealing with.
So it really doesn't matter to us if 4000 torsos have dimensions. Instant
Checkout has worked fine for the last 3 years without them. But there is some
benefit to leaving them blank. It means that people who like to see things complete
will have something to complete, and they can get their username on the catalog
page with relatively little effort. We frequently talk about lowering the entry
barriers to BrickLink, and this is one barrier (catalog contribution) that is
already very low.
As for the general idea of filling in data with scripts, it's an interesting
topic and a discussion we should probably have. I could see something like that
being useful for modular dimensions (studs / bricks), but for non-harmonized
fields like weight and metric dimensions, those fields have an acceptable range
and they are supposed to represent a user's findings as submitted by them.
To submit or adjust something to the catalog, you should really have it in hand.
That is the general rule, and it contributes to the dependability and accuracy
of the catalog overall.
Last year we had some cases where people were copying dimensions from one item
to the next, only to find that the dimensions they were copying were wrong.
|
|
|
| | | | | |
| | | | | Author: | cosmicray | | Posted: | Jun 19, 2021 17:38 | | Subject: | Re: Packing Dimensions - Seller Tools | | Viewed: | 44 times | | Topic: | Catalog | |
|
| In Catalog, Admin_Russell writes:
Thank you. I have only 687 items that lack packing dimensions. sigh
Nita Rae
|
|
|
|
|
|
)
)
Netherlands, Drenthe
United Kingdom, England
Spain, Comunidad Valenciana
Canada, British Columbia
France, Nouvelle-Aquitaine
