Ordering from BrickLink

sctty1987

i guess what i am asking is this beacause of there collective value that there removed ??

cambridge07

resale value of the minifigs alone is a lot higher for older/rare sets so people split the sets....try bricklinking the missing figures if you need the sets for your collection.

sctty1987

thanks guys im just havin a moan i think being frustrated trying to buy full sets of topic a little is brick like safe to use having never used the site before ??

Joseph

^ Assuming I know what you're saying (good punctuation and spelling alway helps :-)), bricklink is a good site. As for safe, ignoring the fact it can cause you to incessantly buy more Lego, I'd say it is.

prof1515

There isn't really a problem finding sets with the figures, even if sealed sets are excluded. There might be an issue finding them for the price you want but if it's a discontinued set, you have to realize that the price is not going to be anywhere near MSRP.

MasterLego

Depending on what set it is the price could be double (I have even seen triple) the MSRP. DO NOT USE AMAZON FOR OLD SETS, prices very high.

wagnerml2

@sctty1987 - I have a huge open SW set collection that I sell on Ebay as I buy new collections. If you have a wantlist, send it to me. My sets are all comeplete with figs, so I'd be happy to sell to you and bypass Ebay. I have 16 sets closing on Friday. Search WAGNERML as a seller.

PM me your want list and I'll tell you what I have.

Match

Hello

Looking for some advice on this. I'm looking to create a large number of minifigures based on friends & family. However, I'm finding it really hard to identify anywhere that I could go about getting "normal" outfits. All I seem to be able to find are specialist sets (harry potter, star wars etc) or the Series minifigures. Even the "City" lego is still specialists such as policemen, firemen and similar.

Strangely, not many of my friends and family are astronauts, pirates or harry potter characters, and it seems to be difficult to locate more normal outfits - even something like jeans, shirts/t shirts etc. The "pick a brick" on the official lego website, while reasonably priced, is incredibly limited in this regard (although great in other ways!) and there isn't much variation. I've also tried in-store (same story) and I'm hoping someone on here might have some wonderful advice for me...

Also tried looking at bulk lots on ebay and craigslist, but none of these cater for non-character lego.

Happy building, thanks in advance for any ideas!

oldtodd33

Do you mean like this? http://www.bricklink.com/catalogItem.asp?M=pln024
Or this? http://www.bricklink.com/catalogItem.asp?M=hor015

akunthita

I would definitely recommend Bricklink. Just go through the torso selection and the legs selection, then add the ones you like to your wanted list, then see which seller has the most of the items you want. There are so many generic people minifigure torsos and legs you should have no problems finding your friends outfits - even if they are not astronauts or pirates... (c;

badbob001

On Bricklink, Wanted > By Shop will rank the stores by how much of my Wanted List they have, but since no one store has everything I want, it's hard to figure out what items are missing from one store and needs to be bought from another. I also have my list on BrickStore and was hoping that it could import several shopping carts so I can visually see which store has what (is that what the Tier 1, Tier 2, etc stuff in BrickStore is for?) but shopping cart importing is not working.

I did convert the BrickStore file to Excel and started to go through each vendor store and mark off what items they have from the list, but stopped because I wanted to see if there is a better less-manual way. Do people just open up several browser windows and start comparing that way while checking off items on another screen/paper?

BrickDancer

Start first by going through your want list arranged by lowest cost to get the 'optimum price' and write that down on the excel. Along the way, mark which parts are 'rare' or those found from only a few sellers. Since you have little option, start purchasing from there while using the 'optimum price' for the other common parts the shop might have. If its only a little higher, then its worth it to purchase in attempt to reduce number of total orders & shipping.

jasor

^^ I did that with my bley Cloud City and old Batcave. It really does help to shop "smarter" vs "cheaper."

I normally go with the cheapest rare i can find in the largest selection shop. You may pay a few cents more on some stuff, but it'll lower your multi vendor/shipping totals in the end.

Brickarmor

I'll toss in my two cents here.
1. Be sure you are sorting by Unique Lots, not Total on the By Shop page.
2. For any set (or any order really) consider making something like a Top Priority list for those parts that absolutely cannot be substituted. When the top shop shows for that list you can run your others through it and have much of it done in one fell swoop. Sometimes shops that have a ton of a common element will overshadow the parts you really need.
Hope that helps. Good luck!

mdelleman

I looked through 4 or 5 pages of posts to see if I could find anything relevant so please move this somewhere if I missed where it should be.

I am looking for some sets on Bricklink and found a good deal on a few... almost too good.

How do you deal as a buyer dealing with a store with 0 feedback? PayPal is supposed to protect you correct? Is there no risk in buying where as if something goes sideways PayPal will refund my money or am I wrong?

y2josh

^PayPal will refund your money if you don't receive SOMETHING, but I'd be very wary of any 'too good to be true' type deals from a 0 feedback user (or any user, honestly).

All a scammer needs to do is ship something to your ZIP Code and you'll have an uphill battle getting a refund. Shipping an empty box 'near' you will prevent you from opening a 'Not as Described' case, because you don't have the item... but it will also stop you from opening an 'Item Not Received' case as well.

If it's over $250 (the item BEFORE shipping), you'll have a little more ground to stand on, as that level of purchase requires a signature before PayPal will back the seller.

mdelleman

This is what I am looking at in particular.

http://www.bricklink.com/store.asp?p=maseman03&itemID=41677637

$10 less than what it would cost getting it 30% at YOYO.

y2josh

I wouldn't buy anything off that seller. Worst case scenario - he ships you nothing and you're likely out your money... best case scenario - he's a fraudulent dropshipper who'll send you a stolen set which will cause you A LOT of hassle to get sorted out. Almost certainly not a legitimate seller, in my opinion.

(You may want to look into getting one of the mods to change the title of this thread, by the way. It may get more feedback if your dilemma is more specifically mentioned in the title.)

mdelleman

^ Thanks for the feedback. I didn't think about the drop shipping issue with Bricklink but that makes sense.

Mods feel free to change the thread title to something more relevant please!

mdelleman

Seller does have some feedback on eBay (16 all positive, member since 2007).

y2josh

It's ultimately your call, but those prices just don't add up. In my opinion, there's no legal way he obtained those sets and could still be turning a profit at those prices, and he has too many for it to be something simple like "I got this duplicate set as a gift."

mdelleman

That is what logic tells me as well. I mean Wargs is over 50% off. Maybe i'll ask him and see what he has to say. Worth it just for my curiosities sake.

MathBuilder

The item from your link is gone, either somebody bought it or got removed. The store gives me a very bad feeling too. I am 99% sure this is a double account on BL. Only yesterday or 2 days ago I saw a store which had the 79000 Riddles for same price and same description except free shiping was over 40 and now over 50...
The user had a large ammount of negatives. Some said worst experience on BL.
Unfortunately I can't remmeber the name of the store from 2 days ago otherwise I will be emailing BL Admin right now for a merge. But I will post in the BL forum to see if somebody else has any info.

MathBuilder

Found it:
http://www.bricklink.com/store.asp?sID=352867&itemID=40209783
Suspended as I imagined.
Turns out that searching for "Connecticut" on safari quickly gave me the last 3 BL stores I have visited in that state.

mdelleman

I messaged him asking him about feedback and after his reply this was my response:


"My issue stems from your pricing. 79002 is discounted over 50% MSRP. I know you are not just giving away sets for less then you bought them for so I am a bit confused
at how you can sell that low. I have dealt with someone drop shipping sets from
LEGO before and this is not something I want to get into again so I am careful
with who I deal with especially when the price seems too good to be true.

Mark
"

Maybe someone did buy them after I posted here I'm not sure. It doesn't look like the buyer has seen my message yet so that seems like the case. Anyways, the pricing was great but until I had an answer from him I wasn't about to throw money at it hoping for the best. Oh well! Lots of time for the Hobbit sets yet.

mdelleman

Wow. So looks like someone was scammed or seller got smart to the heat.

I have such a foul taste in my mouth at some of the sellers I have experienced as of late. Its disgusting the greed and ease at which these people can fraud people.

Glad that this is still a small minority but just sad mostly.

legoprods

Well I recently got a few Goblin kings for less than 60€ over on amazon Europe.

So being a BL seller, and in the States, it may be a true price.

But I also wouldn't from him...

mdelleman

^ that store had Goblin Kings earlier for $75 USD.

iso3200

I have a wanted list that I imported using XML format into Bricklink, and I'm chipping away at it going through my part bins deleting which pieces I've found and therefore don't need to buy.

I've been going round in circles trying to find a part count for what is left on my wanted list. I can see from the *Items On My Wanted List* view that I have 326 unique items to get, but I cannot for the life of me see a total part count anywhere.

I'd like to easily see how many parts quantity I have left to purchase, so I can gradually count down each time I find or buy more parts.

This time around I tried a search but it didn't throw up anything meaningful. I must be missing something really obvious. Can anyone tell me how to do it?

graphite

I don't believe there is a way. I always thought it was odd as well, but I've been using Brickstore to maintain my wanted lists for a while now instead unless the list only has a couple parts.

ColoradoBricks

I second the use of brickstore, it has been in the center of any project I bricklinked. I also always have 2 wanted list, one with the quantities I need, the other without, so it also selects the store that have less than I need.
Order at one store, manually update the list with quantity, create a one with 0 quantity and re-import those new list.
It looks like a lot of work, but it is actually quite fast, I took me less than 1h ordering all pieces I needed for GC (starting with the Brickstore part-out functionality, not creating a list from scratch).

graphite

^ If you make an order, you can just import the order by order number into Brickstore, multiply the quantity by -1 and paste it over your quantity list then just sort the merged list by quantity and remove the 0 or less items. Beats having to manually update especially with big lists.

ColoradoBricks

@graphite, thanks for the tip, will do that on my next project.

legoprods

And, if you are in Mac, search the BL forums for 'Brickstock'. It will help you a lot.

iso3200

Thanks all.

joel4motion

Couldn't find a better thread to post in but Im having an issue after ordering some parts from a seller and wanted some opinions. I am trying to complete a few sets for Fairy Bricks so ordered 7-8 parts from a seller in Belgium and bought up all of his used 2x1 bricks to make the order worthwhile for him.

So, 25€ order, 13€ shipping (seems a lot but not the issue) but its arrived with only the bricks, none of the parts I actually needed. The box was well sealed and he is adamant he put everything in. Ive explained to him what is missing but dont know where to go from here. Ive basically paid nearly 40€ for 300 old used 2x1 bricks.

CCC

Tell him you want a refund for the parts and shipping, or you file a complaint through PayPal.

Out of interest, what was the postage cost?

graphite

joel4motion said:

So, 25€ order, 13€ shipping 

CCC

^ If that is aimed at me, the question still stands, what was the postage cost? Not what they were charged by the seller, but the actual postage cost.

sid3windr

Shipping cost for a parcel 0-5kg to UK is 16.40€ with bPost. If it fit in an envelope it's more likely to have been around 11€; either way the cost should be clearly visible on the shipping label I believe (unless actual stamps were used).

Astrobricks

This seemed like a good a thread to resurrect for this.
Does anyone know how far back BL’s history of orders goes? I was looking for two orders I made back in 2016 but my history shows no orders at all.

DB361

^ Orders are purged from the website after 6 months, so are no longer viewable after that.

CCC

They will still be in your email, unless you delete them.

Aleydita

DB361 said:

^ Orders are purged from the website after 6 months, so are no longer viewable after that.

I hope British stores are downloading the orders and keeping them safe, HMRC requires businesses and the self-employed to keep pertinent records for 6 years, longer in some cases, and there's a £5k fine if they don't.

MaffyD

^ I wonder if the payment details and emails are enough. I certainly wouldn't rely on a third party to track it if the fine wouldn't also be their problem...