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How to cost effectively shop for parts on BrickLink?

FireFox31FireFox31 Member Posts: 305
in Buying & Selling Topics
What are your methods for cost effectively shopping for parts on BrickLink?  How many parts do you shop for at once?  How many do you try to get from a single seller?  Are you ok with making small orders, paying lots in shipping and minimum order fees?  What are your methods for using the site to optimize your orders?

My goal is to get the best total price for parts and shop from the fewest different sellers (to minimize shipping charges).  I'm currently shopping for maybe 350 parts per set.  Here is my method:
I manually optimize my orders since the Want List "Easy Buy" button doesn't do a great job.  In a Want List, I use the "Buy All" button to view sellers with the most parts.  I click "Select" on each of the best matches to see how much they'd charge, then scroll to the bottom of each list to see which parts are they charging a lot for.  I will "Confirm Selection" for the shop with the best ratio of parts I need to total cost.  Then repeat, finding other shops with good prices for the remaining parts that the previous shops didn't have.
This method reveals sellers with large inventories who charge a fortune for certain parts, though smaller sellers charge much less for the same parts.  Always check the most expensive parts in the proposed shopping cart for odd outliers.
This method can get me 95% of the 350 parts I need from two sellers.  This requires me to place a small order with a third seller for the final 5%.  My solution to this is to keep multiple wish lists (~350 parts each) and shop for all of them at once.  Since I just started shopping on BrickLink, I only had one wish list and ordered 97% of it before I realized this solution, prompting me to make a second list.  More lists yields more savings, but how many lists should I make before I start placing orders?
Ordering for more than once list at once also requires sorting out the parts you receive into each of the different projects.  I haven't done this yet but I assume it could get tedious.
MinifigInSpace

Comments

  • madforLEGOmadforLEGO Member Posts: 10,837
    FireFox31 said:
    What are your methods for cost effectively shopping for parts on BrickLink?  How many parts do you shop for at once?  How many do you try to get from a single seller?  Are you ok with making small orders, paying lots in shipping and minimum order fees?  What are your methods for using the site to optimize your orders?

    My goal is to get the best total price for parts and shop from the fewest different sellers (to minimize shipping charges).  I'm currently shopping for maybe 350 parts per set.  Here is my method:
    I manually optimize my orders since the Want List "Easy Buy" button doesn't do a great job.  In a Want List, I use the "Buy All" button to view sellers with the most parts.  I click "Select" on each of the best matches to see how much they'd charge, then scroll to the bottom of each list to see which parts are they charging a lot for.  I will "Confirm Selection" for the shop with the best ratio of parts I need to total cost.  Then repeat, finding other shops with good prices for the remaining parts that the previous shops didn't have.
    This method reveals sellers with large inventories who charge a fortune for certain parts, though smaller sellers charge much less for the same parts.  Always check the most expensive parts in the proposed shopping cart for odd outliers.
    This method can get me 95% of the 350 parts I need from two sellers.  This requires me to place a small order with a third seller for the final 5%.  My solution to this is to keep multiple wish lists (~350 parts each) and shop for all of them at once.  Since I just started shopping on BrickLink, I only had one wish list and ordered 97% of it before I realized this solution, prompting me to make a second list.  More lists yields more savings, but how many lists should I make before I start placing orders?
    Ordering for more than once list at once also requires sorting out the parts you receive into each of the different projects.  I haven't done this yet but I assume it could get tedious.

    I always try to buy as many parts as I can get from one seller (which typically reduces S&H costs from ordering from multiple sellers), and buy parts in bulk if buying overseas (as best as one can) which typically means while I may pay an increased amount, it will still be worth doing that. Also if Im bricklinking a set I typically buy enough parts for more than one set to again reduce the cost (as silly as that can sound)
    bandit778FizyxKungFuKennyFireFox31
  • 7BS7BS Member Posts: 61
    edited April 2021
    I'm currently preparing to purchase all the parts on a wanted list for a large project—about 30,000 parts in 650 lots. For a set of orders of that size, manually selecting stores will almost always lead to a much less efficient set of stores than Auto-select (within Buy All). Auto-select can be a bit finicky, but a good way to make sure you're getting the best deal is to set a max price for all the pieces in your wanted list. I usually set it to 20-30% above the six-month average.

    I then try running Auto-select with and without "Exclude lots over max price" checked. Sometimes, the smaller number of stores that charge higher prices that are selected when ignoring max price are cheaper overall because of shipping savings, but that is not always the case. When comparing options, I've found that, in the US, $7 is a very very good estimate for average shipping per store on domestic orders.

    Finally, it's always good to take a peek at which parts are being allocated to which stores. For example, on this project, I discovered that it would be cheaper, considering shipping, to order from 110 less expensive stores (enforcing max price) than 30 pricier ones. I found the number of stores in the former option anomalous, so I looked into the parts lists and discovered that I was buying green 2x2 round plates from almost every store. This was because the quantity of that part that I needed was exceeding the quantity that was available in bulk for reasonable prices in the US, and so the max price was forcing Auto-select to add a huge number of stores to compensate, buying just a few of the part from each. Ultimately, I found it would be even cheaper to buy that particular lot internationally, even with elevated shipping costs.

    Auto-select claims to take estimated shipping into account and to consider all possible store combinations. In reality, its behind-the-scenes shipping estimation leaves something to be desired, and it certainly does not consider all options, because that would require a supercomputer. Still, Auto-select will do a better job than you can for wanted lists with many parts in many different lots (even for projects much smaller than the one I've described). It's just up to you to tame the algorithmic beast.
    KungFuKennyCymbelinebandit778FireFox31MinifigInSpacePaperballpark
  • lowleadlowlead Member Posts: 693
    edited April 2021
    CCC said:
    I don't think there is a single method to fit all cases....
    ^^Agreed.  I spent many hours tweaking my wanted list for 2mpaired's ISD Eviscerator 2.0 and eventually narrowed down the required parts to nine BL orders.

    After using the Buy All and Auto Select features, I used the advanced search parameters to select BL stores within the U.S. to eliminate any long and/or costly international shipping issues.

    Then it was just a matter of consolidating shopping carts to arrive at the 9 final orders.  Probably not the cheapest methodology, but I didn't mind paying a bit more if it meant fewer orders that I could count on receiving within a week or so - I had a limited amount of time off from work for the build.  
    bandit778FireFox31MinifigInSpace
  • BobflipBobflip Member Posts: 728
    There's a number of things going on, but the main part that'll be helpful here is I have a Priority list. I put the important and rare parts in here, and then search for stores that have more of those priority parts. I'll then check the top few interesting ones and remove/block any super expensive ones... and sometimes stores that have multiple entries for the same colour parts, not wasting my time looking through all those! Then I'll see how much of my other wants lists they have, there might be non-priority parts that pique my interest more than others.

    If I'm placing multiple orders, I go through the carts and make sure the cheapest option for any duplicate parts is selected and delete the others. I would love to have this bit automated.
    bandit778FireFox31MinifigInSpace
  • FireFox31FireFox31 Member Posts: 305
    Wow, these are all great suggestions!  Thinking hard about this makes me wish I could design a better algorithm for BrickLink.  It seems possible...
    7BS said:
    I'm currently preparing to purchase ... about 30,000 parts in 650 lots. ... I discovered that it would be cheaper, considering shipping, to order from 110 less expensive stores (enforcing max price) than 30 pricier ones.
    This is operating on a scale I can barely fathom.  How do you know which parts to bother checking and setting a max price for?

    Some new questions:
    On a Want List, I know that I can "Apply Order" to mark parts that I bought as "Have".  But is there a way to see only the parts and their quantities that I still need from a Want list?
    When looking at a specific part in the catalog and seeing the list of sellers, is there a way to default that view to only show sellers in a certain country?  It hurts to always have to click "More Options", choose my country, then click "Search".
    Is there a list of stores we all know to be unreasonably expensive and should just be ignored?
    MinifigInSpace
  • MinifigInSpaceMinifigInSpace Member Posts: 134
    It may not be the most time effective, but here's my method for a "big" project with multiples of the same part. It's saved me a ton of money personally:

    1. Open a separate web tab for each bulk part I'm after.
    2. Enter HALF of what you need for that part into the advanced search (I'll explain in a moment).
    3. Get a sheet of paper and write down stores that have multiples of what you're needing, and what quantities.
    4. Try to find the top 2-5 stores that have the most of what you need.
    5. Now remember step #2. There's a good chance that you'll be going through a few other stores that also have that same part... and combing the stock from a few separate stores may get you to the quantity you need!
    Well, that's the basics of what I do. I hope it's helpful for others too.


    As for individual orders, I tend to spend $15-$30 USD per store to make it worth it for shipping. However, I rarely buy just bricks on BrickLink. I typically buy my bricks through a local bulk used LEGO store, or buy a bunch of cheap incomplete sets for parts. I usually use BrickLink for minifigures. If I'm after, let's say, a special $5-$6 minifigure, I'll throw in a bunch of interesting $1-$3 figures to average out the cost and cover the shipping. If that same store has special parts I can't find easily elsewhere, then I'll definitely throw those in my order too.
    bandit778FireFox31
  • bandit778bandit778 Member Posts: 2,398
    FireFox31 said:

    This is operating on a scale I can barely fathom.  How do you know which parts to bother checking and setting a max price for?

    Some new questions:
    On a Want List, I know that I can "Apply Order" to mark parts that I bought as "Have".  But is there a way to see only the parts and their quantities that I still need from a Want list?
    When looking at a specific part in the catalog and seeing the list of sellers, is there a way to default that view to only show sellers in a certain country?  It hurts to always have to click "More Options", choose my country, then click "Search".
    Is there a list of stores we all know to be unreasonably expensive and should just be ignored?
    Rare parts, New parts or large quantities are the favourite for a max buy price as they seem to be the ones that certain stores price higher than run of the Mill parts.

    For your new questions, to only see the parts you still want, when in your parts list tick the hide items if have qty is > want quantity. (See below)


    This page also lets you choose the country/region you want to buy from.

    You can also define a lot of other stuff by playing around with the settings in your profile to suit you.

    There isn't a list of stores (that I know of) that are unreasonably expensive but you soon learn which are by doing a bit of research prior to buying then add them as least favourite stores which you can then block from your searches.

    Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be a quick or easy way to negotiate Bricklink to get the cheapest LEGO (otherwise the expensive stores would sell hardly anything) but with a bit of trial and error (and a fair bit of research) you learn from experience how to get the best out of it to suit you.
    MinifigInSpaceCymbelineFireFox31
  • daewoodaewoo Member Posts: 851
    Yeah, make sure you check the official Pick a Brick site.  Many BL stores are actually more expensive than if you order directly from Lego.  For example, I was looking for some 2x8 plates and Lego sells them for 25 cents a piece.  Some BL stores were as high as 70 cents a piece for the same element in the same color.  
    MinifigInSpace
  • FizyxFizyx Member Posts: 1,364
    daewoo said:
    Yeah, make sure you check the official Pick a Brick site.  Many BL stores are actually more expensive than if you order directly from Lego.  For example, I was looking for some 2x8 plates and Lego sells them for 25 cents a piece.  Some BL stores were as high as 70 cents a piece for the same element in the same color.  

    Yeah, any time you start going over like 15 cents each it may be worth checking.  Honestly, of all the improvements that could have happened when LEGO bought BL, I think this brings up probably the biggest one:  Integration of BL with BnP would be amazing.  Just have LEGO listed in the site like a regular seller for pieces, so that when you're going to shop they show up.  If people want to sell at higher than LEGO prices, go for it, but then we have an option right there were we can actually see/shop from BnP if they have what we want for the right price.

    I could see the argument that this could be a conflict of interest or anti-competitive, but LEGO already sells those pieces themselves, and this would just be saving people the time of having to go back and forth between the two sites to compare.  As long as LEGO wasn't intentionally dropping the prices on pieces on BL compared to what they normally sold them for, I feel like it bring way more positives than negatives.
    cody6268pxchrisMr_Cross
  • eMJeeNLeMJeeNL Member Posts: 822
    daewoo said:
    Yeah, make sure you check the official Pick a Brick site.  Many BL stores are actually more expensive than if you order directly from Lego.  For example, I was looking for some 2x8 plates and Lego sells them for 25 cents a piece.  Some BL stores were as high as 70 cents a piece for the same element in the same color.  
    I find the brickhunter-plugin for Chrome very useful for checking that - it lets you upload (a/multiple) WantedList(s), and checks the PaB and BnP-prices for your country for you and allows you to create a shopping cart for S@H. Also very useful for setting max prices.
    https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/brickhunter/plhoblcmafoglbnhekjmegkknhifedne
    (I have no affiliation, just a very useful tool IMHO!)
    7BSandheYellowcastle
  • 7BS7BS Member Posts: 61
    FireFox31 said:
    How do you know which parts to bother checking and setting a max price for?
    ...
    Is there a list of stores we all know to be unreasonably expensive and should just be ignored?
    I don't worry about selecting particular parts—I just select all of the items in the list and Apply Price → As Price Guide, then Apply Price → Increase/Decrease (by a percent), as I described above. This way, I can set a reasonable maximum for all my parts automatically in a minute or two, and I don't have to worry about stores with ridiculous prices.

    That being said, there is a small group of outlier stores that sell parts for about 10 times the going rate, hoping to make as much money from a few orders from naïve buyers as most sellers make from many orders at reasonable prices. Lucky Ed's Good Ol' Bricks, AndrusBricks, and eBricksOnline come to mind, but there are more. When you don't set a max price on your wanted list items, these kinds of stores pop up frequently in Auto-select because they often have a very large number of lots and large quantities.
    Fizyxbandit778CymbelineMinifigInSpacedbrouge
  • veyniacveyniac Member Posts: 312
    You also should avoid BBB Brick Store and Around The Clock Bricks.
    CymbelineFireFox31MinifigInSpace
  • FireFox31FireFox31 Member Posts: 305
    These are all such great tips.  I knew there had to be ways to efficiently work on BrickLink and you have listed them here.  Great info.
    7BS said:
    I just select all of the items in the list and Apply Price → As Price Guide, then Apply Price → Increase/Decrease (by a percent), as I described above.
    You are a ninja master of BrickLink.  This just saved me hours of time.

    Is there an easy way to add sellers to the Least Favorites list?  Now I manually find the seller name (not the store name) and add it on the Least Favorite page.  I was hoping for a button to click to easily block them.
    MinifigInSpace7BS
  • CCCCCC Member Posts: 20,556
    Yes there is, you can select least favourite from the favourute stores tab in their store.
    MinifigInSpace
  • BobflipBobflip Member Posts: 728
    A tangentially related question - is there a way to quickly find the cheapest on average colour for a specific part number? There's using no-colour to just find the cheapest available, but am looking to refine the insides of a couple of MOCs that I'm planning to sell instructions for.
    MinifigInSpace
  • MinifigInSpaceMinifigInSpace Member Posts: 134
    Bobflip said:
    A tangentially related question - is there a way to quickly find the cheapest on average colour for a specific part number? There's using no-colour to just find the cheapest available, but am looking to refine the insides of a couple of MOCs that I'm planning to sell instructions for.
    Not that I know of.

    However, from doing lots of research in the past, the two cheapest colors in general are red and yellow.
    Bobflip
  • CCCCCC Member Posts: 20,556
    Bobflip said:
    A tangentially related question - is there a way to quickly find the cheapest on average colour for a specific part number? There's using no-colour to just find the cheapest available, but am looking to refine the insides of a couple of MOCs that I'm planning to sell instructions for.
    You can always make them a really odd colour that you don't use anywhere else in the design. Then let people known that parts in that colour can be any colour as they are just internal filler.
    BobflipMinifigInSpace
  • BobflipBobflip Member Posts: 728
    CCC said:
    Bobflip said:
    A tangentially related question - is there a way to quickly find the cheapest on average colour for a specific part number? There's using no-colour to just find the cheapest available, but am looking to refine the insides of a couple of MOCs that I'm planning to sell instructions for.
    You can always make them a really odd colour that you don't use anywhere else in the design. Then let people known that parts in that colour can be any colour as they are just internal filler.
    That's the route I'm taking, but figured it'd also be good to colour them the cheapest for anyone who might prefer not to recolour things as they go
    MinifigInSpace
  • BobflipBobflip Member Posts: 728
    MinifigInSpace said:
    Bobflip said:
    A tangentially related question - is there a way to quickly find the cheapest on average colour for a specific part number? There's using no-colour to just find the cheapest available, but am looking to refine the insides of a couple of MOCs that I'm planning to sell instructions for.
    Not that I know of.

    However, from doing lots of research in the past, the two cheapest colors in general are red and yellow.
    Yeah, generally finding that, with a good shout out to green and red too, haha! The internals looks like something I built in the 80s right now, just with a lot more esoteric offsets.

    There's some things like bricks with studs on two adjacent sides that can be cheaper in tan or light bluish grey, but I'm already using light bluish grey in the build... 
    MinifigInSpace
  • 7BS7BS Member Posts: 61
    edited April 2021
    @Bobflip
    There's no perfect way, but I usually find the 2-3 colors with the most lots available, then see which one appears cheapest among those options.

    Below is an image of the colors I use for various elements when color doesn't matter. No guarantees that they're the absolute cheapest options, but they've worked pretty well for me in the past. (PM me if you want the Studio file.)


    Edit: disregard the green bricks, those were for a special circumstance and are not price-optimized.
    Bobflip
  • BobflipBobflip Member Posts: 728
    7BS said:
    @Bobflip
    There's no perfect way, but I usually find the 2-3 colors with the most lots available, then see which one appears cheapest among those options.

    Below is an image of the colors I use for various elements when color doesn't matter. No guarantees that they're the absolute cheapest options, but they've worked pretty well for me in the past. (PM me if you want the Studio file.)


    Edit: disregard the green bricks, those were for a special circumstance and are not price-optimized.
    That approach was something I tried for a bit, though found a couple of pieces where the most common colours were also higher priced - may have just been light bluish grey and black, which are common but widely used. The lowest priced for all colours can be skewed by people selling off damaged parts too. That image is really good though, thanks! 
  • PaperballparkPaperballpark Member Posts: 4,270
    edited April 2021
    If I want a lot of elements, I usually pull up the rarest pieces on my wishlist and open up 10-12 sellers of those pieces in new tabs, with my wishlist in another tab, and go through each seller for each piece and allocate each piece to the cheapest seller. Once each piece has been allocated, I look through to find any which only have one or two elements allocated, then reallocate them to slightly more expensive sellers to remove a seller and save on the postage. By the time I checkout for each of them, I'll usually have about 5 or 6 sellers with everything I want, for pretty much the cheapest I'll get it all for.

    And then half an hour later I'll remember about an element I forgot to put on my wishlist.
    560HeliportCymbelinebandit778MinifigInSpaceMr_CrossSwitchfoot55
  • FireFox31FireFox31 Member Posts: 305
    What quantity of a single part do you need in order to bother optimizing as @7BS and @Paperballpark mentioned?  How much are you saving with this effort (in total dollars/pounds/euro or price per part)?
    Time is money, so for me, spending time optimizing needs to yield a reasonable savings.  Saving $5 on a $50-$100 order feels pretty good.  That's the 5-10% discount that I chase when buying expensive sets.
    Bobflip
  • CCCCCC Member Posts: 20,556
    FireFox31 said:
    What quantity of a single part do you need in order to bother optimizing as @7BS and @Paperballpark mentioned?  How much are you saving with this effort (in total dollars/pounds/euro or price per part)?

    A minimum of one.

    There is no real answer, as it depends on prices, quantities needed, other parts being bought, shipping.
    7BS
  • PaperballparkPaperballpark Member Posts: 4,270
    edited April 2021
    There's no real answer to that, it just depends on the order.
    The autoshop function is good if you only have half a dozen elements or so and can get them from one or two shops, but with 20 or 30 or so it'll often spread out the elements over so many different shops that I'd end up paying loads in postage. So in those cases I prefer to have more control over it by doing it manually. Usually in such cases I'll end up spending about £50 or more in total.
    MinifigInSpace
  • gold682gold682 Member Posts: 257
    For me, now we are out the EU, I didn't want to chance anything at the moment, so limited my stores to UK. I have recently bricklinked #21104 Mars Rover and the Stranger Things Castle Byers. As others have done, to make it more "economical" I purchased enough to bricklink 4x #21104 and 5 x Castle Byers. The only thing I did not bricklink was the steering links for the Rover, instead found an ebay seller to get those from and the Castle Byers stickers, found a 3rd party sticker specialist.

    I estimate each Rover has cost me about £25 and each Castle Byers about £6-7.
  • CCCCCC Member Posts: 20,556
    gold682 said:
    For me, now we are out the EU, I didn't want to chance anything at the moment, so limited my stores to UK. I have recently bricklinked #21104 Mars Rover and the Stranger Things Castle Byers. As others have done, to make it more "economical" I purchased enough to bricklink 4x #21104 and 5 x Castle Byers. The only thing I did not bricklink was the steering links for the Rover, instead found an ebay seller to get those from and the Castle Byers stickers, found a 3rd party sticker specialist.

    I estimate each Rover has cost me about £25 and each Castle Byers about £6-7.
    Are they genuine steering links? As they cost about £6-7 each normally.

  • gold682gold682 Member Posts: 257
    Yes all genuine. The stickers are repo but as good as originals imo.
  • FireFox31FireFox31 Member Posts: 305
    I'm trying these new BrickLink techniques for the first time but the results seem unfortunate.  I'm trying to part together the red Mini Cooper from #75894.  I'm seeing all new parts for $52 for the car, automotive tools, two figures, and shipping from two stores.  The set was $50 MSRP so I could have had it for $40, yet I'd be paying $more for the parts for half of it.  Only 10 total parts are over $0.65 so the prices seem fair.
    Is there a trick to cost reducing this?  Can I swap all the parts on my Want List to a new, cheaper color?  Can I easily determine which color has all the parts I need at a cheaper price?
    For the time I've spent, I should have just bought the full set for $40 from Amazon.  But this is a learning experience.
    MinifigInSpace
  • CCCCCC Member Posts: 20,556
    The price it was available in the past is meaningless unless you have a time machine. For most sellers, parting out typically doubles the investment meaning if a buyer buys all the parts from the set then they will pay double what the seller paid.

    What you could do is look at incomplete sets. There is currently a US seller selling the red mini (new) at $30.
    bandit778Bumblepants560Heliport7BSCymbelineFizyxFireFox31
  • MinifigInSpaceMinifigInSpace Member Posts: 134
    FireFox31 said:
    I'm trying these new BrickLink techniques for the first time but the results seem unfortunate.  I'm trying to part together the red Mini Cooper from #75894.  I'm seeing all new parts for $52 for the car, automotive tools, two figures, and shipping from two stores.  The set was $50 MSRP so I could have had it for $40, yet I'd be paying $more for the parts for half of it.  Only 10 total parts are over $0.65 so the prices seem fair.
    Is there a trick to cost reducing this?  Can I swap all the parts on my Want List to a new, cheaper color?  Can I easily determine which color has all the parts I need at a cheaper price?
    For the time I've spent, I should have just bought the full set for $40 from Amazon.  But this is a learning experience.
    As @CCC mentioned, buying incomplete sets is a great way to start (especially if you don't mind minifigures missing).

    For example, I've bought an 90% complete Space Police Galactic Enforcer (missing 3 minifigures) for $40, and all the missing parts were common and cheap. Another time, I was able to snag a Power Miners Crystal Sweeper for $30, and all it was missing was the blue rock monster and half the catapult. More recently, I bought Exo Suit for $17 and all it was missing was one spaceman and most of the turtle robot.

    All that to say, buying incomplete sets is an amazing way to get parts. Sometimes buying a couple incomplete sets to make one complete one is way cheaper.
    Cymbeline
  • FireFox31FireFox31 Member Posts: 305
    CCC said:
    For most sellers, parting out typically doubles the investment meaning if a buyer buys all the parts from the set then they will pay double what the seller paid.
    Thanks, that's a really helpful metric.  From now on, I won't expect to part together sets for an average of $0.10/piece.  If there's a set I don't want all of, I'll consider the time required to part it together and that I might pay $0.20/piece for it.  Might be cheaper to buy it complete at 20% off before it retires.
    FizyxMinifigInSpace
  • bandit778bandit778 Member Posts: 2,398
    FireFox31 said:

    From now on, I won't expect to part together sets for an average of $0.10/piece.  If there's a set I don't want all of, I'll consider the time required to part it together and that I might pay $0.20/piece for it. 

    A lot can depend on the size of the build.

    Smaller builds often work out more expensive on a price per part ratio just because there are significantly less parts to offset the price of large plates and bricks.

    Larger builds that use a lot of greebling can generally work out cheaper on the ppp ratio just because for every large plate in the build, there can be a lot of smaller parts that are way less than the magic $0.10 per piece so it evens out.
    MinifigInSpaceFireFox31
  • FireFox31FireFox31 Member Posts: 305
    FollowsClosely posted a good basic procedure for buying a parted out set.
    To only buy part of a set (like the red Mini Cooper mentioned above), I started a thread asking if there are Stud.io files for official sets.

    When using Auto-Select, is there a way to automatically minimize the number of stores to save shipping charges even if parts prices are slightly higher?

    When using Auto-Select, I'd like to prioritize purchasing the most parts from sellers who offer rare parts on my list and/or have expensive parts at a good price.  Is there a way to give a specific seller priority during Auto-Select?
    I tried to identify which stores had the rare/under-priced parts by viewing the list of stores on individual parts' sale pages, trying to determine which are major stores (which might have a majority of my order) based on high feedback or large quantity of that part.  Then I'd go from my Wish List to Buy All and browse the list of stores for ones from the individual part pages.  Clicking a store added everything they had from my list.  Then I could click Auto-Select to get the remaining common, inexpensive parts from sellers with lots of common parts.
    Manually adding a store before running Auto-Select seemed to drastically change the results of Auto-Select.  A few times, I think I got it to give me a better price or fewer sellers.  But this process is tedious.

    Maybe it's worth it to pay a few more $8 shipping charges.  I just get irritated when I pay a seller more in shipping than I did for the parts.
  • BobflipBobflip Member Posts: 728
    FireFox31 said:
    FollowsClosely posted a good basic procedure for buying a parted out set.
    To only buy part of a set (like the red Mini Cooper mentioned above), I started a thread asking if there are Stud.io files for official sets.

    When using Auto-Select, is there a way to automatically minimize the number of stores to save shipping charges even if parts prices are slightly higher?

    When using Auto-Select, I'd like to prioritize purchasing the most parts from sellers who offer rare parts on my list and/or have expensive parts at a good price.  Is there a way to give a specific seller priority during Auto-Select?
    I tried to identify which stores had the rare/under-priced parts by viewing the list of stores on individual parts' sale pages, trying to determine which are major stores (which might have a majority of my order) based on high feedback or large quantity of that part.  Then I'd go from my Wish List to Buy All and browse the list of stores for ones from the individual part pages.  Clicking a store added everything they had from my list.  Then I could click Auto-Select to get the remaining common, inexpensive parts from sellers with lots of common parts.
    Manually adding a store before running Auto-Select seemed to drastically change the results of Auto-Select.  A few times, I think I got it to give me a better price or fewer sellers.  But this process is tedious.

    Maybe it's worth it to pay a few more $8 shipping charges.  I just get irritated when I pay a seller more in shipping than I did for the parts.
    I tend to put rarer parts in a list named 'PRIORITY', and search for sellers with the most of those. It's not fully efficient, but I figure the common parts will arrive along the way anyway. Just set the max prices of all the parts to the average of past sales to make sure you don't get caught out by one of those shops that has loads of parts but all the prices appear to have had a 7x multiplier applied.
    FireFox31
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