Typical Bricklink Experience?

[Phoxtane]

Just curious what I should be expecting with Bricklink orders in terms of processing time. My first few orders that I made on Bricklink had invoices sent out almost immediately, and then packed that day and shipped the next after I paid, but now I'm starting to run into orders that take longer - much, much longer - to have invoices sent out and whatnot. I'm wondering now if I just had a lucky string of prompt sellers, or if it's normal for orders to be sent out almost immediately?

[rockethead26]

Most of muy orders were invoiced and shipped within a couple of days, but I've had a few that took a week to invoice and then another few days to ship. I've received all of my orders and just needed to exercise some patience.

[deraven]

Same here- most of the time I'm invoiced by the next day (depending on time of day the order was placed on both ends) and then shipped the next, barring weekends or holidays. There have been a few where the time from purchase to shipment was about a week total. Never had anything disappear, but as rockethead26 said, it does sometimes require unexpected patience.

[talos]

I have had the full spectrum. From ordering to in hand in 3 days, to weeks and weeks. You need to keep your favorites list, note which sellers are reliable, and utilize the 'Least Favorite' list for the really bad ones.

I run into the most delays and mistakes from the smaller sellers, with not as many orders under their belt. There is usually a reason! I have been needing a lot of older and rarer parts and those sellers seem to take a lot longer, dealing in used parts exclusively. There is no real way to know though, except to read the feedback and look at the numbers... There will be times when only one or two sellers have what you need, and you just have to bite the bullet and hope they come through, reasonably.

[62Bricks]

One of the improvements in the works at Bricklink is to display the average order fulfillment time alongside the seller's feedback. That way you'll have a better idea of how long it usually takes them to get your order out.

[obsidianheart]

Up until this year I nearly always had the "Invoiced the next (business) day, shipped within three" experience, but this year it's been a bit... spotty. Keep needing to contact sellers to receive invoices (even high positive feedback ones), have had problems with communication or order quantities, had one seller send me 30 pieces that were all the wrong colors, etc. My least favorite was the seller who didn't invoice me for a week, and then when I contacted them, they asked me to be patient, then they had a sale in their store, then invoiced me for all the original parts and could not understand why I thought I should be allowed to take advantage of the sale prices that were started well after my order had been initially placed.

Sorry.

Rant aside, it does seem like it is taking a little longer these days.

[bonox]

look at sellers feedback. It can be very revealing, even if all positive.

Most of them aren't a proper business. They're done around full time jobs, managing kids and forgetting to look at your email for a few days.

With a seller with thousands of feedback most saying fast post etc, you've got workable history. If not, it's pot luck, but it's a bit unfair to compare most BL sellers to amazon.

Ordering 4 bricks is also very different to a few thousand pieces in hundreds of lots.

[fred67]

Yeah... like what everyone is saying. Some sellers are faster than others; I've gotten slow sellers at good times and had my orders shipped right away, ordered from them again and it took a week for them to get in the mail.

I have an order I received today that I ordered five days AFTER another order that hasn't arrived yet.

But it's all according to BL policy, so I have left all positive feedback (except for one actual NSS).

I do tend to put slow shippers on my least favorites.

Edited July 28, 2015 by fred67

[peedeejay]

Did around 90 orders on BL so far. Longest I had was about 2 weeks, but in general it took 2-4 days until I received my package. 99% of my orders where coming from Germany though, so the shipping time is very fast.

As others said, manage your favourites. For myself I always keep cool and tell myself, that most of the sellers are doing this on a private basis and may not be able to check and send orders several times a day. So far I had absolutely no bad experience with BL. :)

[Deathleech]

Usually sellers will list something in their description if they take longer to process orders. Even if they don't explicitly state they have slower processing and shipping times, you can usually gather as much if they say it's just a side hobby or something they do for fun in their spare time. There are other things to take into consideration as others have said too like the size of the order, complexity, etc.

Reading the actual feedback is a good way to find out info about the seller. I noticed a lot of people will leave positive feedback nowadays just because they don't want negative left for themselves in retaliation. They will state the seller sucked or list any problems in the feedback description. Just looking at the number of positive feedback isn't always the best way to judge a seller or buyer.

Another thing to note is if you order from a different country it can dramatically increase the time it takes to get an order. Customs can hold packages up on top of the longer travel distance. I have had a few orders from Europe or Canada take nearly a month to get to me because in large part due to customs.

I think it's important to keep expectations realistic and look at more than just the best price or high/positive feedback score. So often people buy the cheapest priced item they can find, but don't bother doing any research on the seller. I had one guy who took several days to invoice me and then another week and a half to send out my items. I knew full well going in this was going to happen though because he clearly stated he had a full time job, was going to school, and had a wife and kids to take care of on top of all of it so his shipping times were slow.

Edited July 28, 2015 by Deathleech

[Nantucketdink]

There's at least one USA seller out there with good prices who routinely takes a month to get their orders to me, but almost everybody else takes just a few days. International shipments take a little longer. Most sellers list their expected shipping times on their sites.

[AmperZand]

It's important to distinguish between invoicing and sending times on the one hand and delivery times on the other. The former are down to the seller but the latter are due to the shipping organisation(s) and sometimes customs.

It once took five weeks for an order to reach me in the UK from the Netherlands, but that was due to the postal system, not the seller so I still left positive feedback. I'm currently waiting for an order I placed a month ago to reach me from the US. The seller has already reimbursed me on the assumption it will never arrive. I'm still hoping it will at which point I'll repay the seller.

[CptMugwash]

. Make note of any postal & transportation strikes happening from where you're ordering from.

. Beware of used parts, especially special pieces, if they're cheaper than normal there's probably a reason, but usually most stores say in the description.

. Be patient, don't expect an order to arrive within a week, If an order is more than two weeks then contact the seller but be pleasant letting them know you haven't received it yet and ask about if it could be delayed by postal strikes or traffic problems that might be happening and wait a little bit longer, after a month consider a refund or an alternative.

Most of my orders have been fine, I've had one that took a month to reach me through no fault of the seller it was just delayed because of strikes, I've had an order where a head was badly damaged but not as described, I left neutral feedback as I could still use it but they left me negative, my first one :(

...I'm currently waiting for an order I placed a month ago to reach me from the US. The seller has already reimbursed me on the assumption it will never arrive. I'm still hoping it will at which point I'll repay the seller.

From countries outside of the EU anything over £15 inc P&P as far as I'm aware are usually kept aside due to some sort of tax thing, I once had to pay the same amount as it cost me to buy the order, therefore paying double. If your order was more than this then it may be held up in customs, you'll probably get a ticket in the post saying you'll have to fork out a small fortune to get your stuff but a month is a long time and you should have heard something by now if it was held in customs, mind you there has been a number of delays all over the place with strikes and traffic problems, hopefully it will arrive though, nothing worse than waiting that long, can't help but be worried.

[notaromantic]

Having a few good orders, followed by a few bad orders: Yea, that's a typical BrickLink experience.

And actually, if all they have been so far is just tardy, you've been pretty lucky. Since Lego became "trendy" again, I've seen so many new sellers want to operate a store, and yet, so many of them fail to become familiar with the catalog, i.e. parts, and especially colors, that becasue of inaccurate listings, my few bad orders every now and then have turned into a very regular experience.

Missing parts, wrong parts, other buyers' parts included in my order, parts listed that aren't there it turns out, and by Crom, if you happen to be a rare color collector, new sellers seem not to know the differences between them - and they don't really seem to be too concerned after the fact, that you may have needed Trans-Green or Trans-Neon Green, versus Trans-Bright Green, or that you wanted Mearsk Blue, not Medium Blue, or that Glow In The Dark Trans is not the same as Glow In The Dark Opaque, or that Lime is not Light Green, or that there is definitely a difference between shades of Pink...

My advice - If you are in need of a very certain key part, in a very certain color, and in a very certain quantity, contact the seller to confirm things before you flush out the order in order to meet a minimum buy, or before you add too many needed items to the initial item. I've spent hours shopping in certain stores, adding items for a project or two, after finding a rare or HTF item listed, only to find out afterward that that item was listed wrongly, or that it was mistakingly still listed after it had been sold to another buyer, or that it just wasn't the actual part to begin with. And sometimes, I didn't find that out until after I had received the order.

And some sellers will lay out a garish amount of stipulations in order to purchase from their store, while leaving you, the buyer, none in return.

Not to be a downer, but the last year, for me, has been full of incidences like this. Before that, not many at all... Send an e-mail to each seller before you order - the good ones will return it right away, will be helpful, and will accommodate you. If someone doesn't even check and return their messages, its a pretty good indication of what kind of experience an actual order with them will be like.

[rollermonkey]

Mostly positive. Some 99% of all feedback is positive, but I'm not sure how NSS and NPB factor into feedback.

Usually I get too many as opposed to too few, but when the count was under, the seller always made it right by either shipping the missing parts at no additional cost, or refunding my PayPal immediately. I've had one occasion where the part received wasn't what I ordered, and I'm waiting to see how she resolves that. Finally, I've had one occasion where an order was lost in shipment. That is being worked out right now, too.

I've used BL to make Green Grocer, upgrade 42009 to the Juergen's Ultimate version and most recently, I've amassed all of the parts for the 10179 UCS Millennium Falcon; together, that's more than 50 orders and @ 7000 parts? 2 problems in all of that isn't too bad, considering these are people selling parts out of their homes.

[fred67]

Missing parts, wrong parts, other buyers' parts included in my order, parts listed that aren't there it turns out, and by Crom, if you happen to be a rare color collector, new sellers seem not to know the differences between them - and they don't really seem to be too concerned after the fact, that you may have needed Trans-Green or Trans-Neon Green, versus Trans-Bright Green, or that you wanted Mearsk Blue, not Medium Blue, or that Glow In The Dark Trans is not the same as Glow In The Dark Opaque, or that Lime is not Light Green, or that there is definitely a difference between shades of Pink...

Me, too... I usually don't make a big deal out of a couple of cheap pieces, but I always let the seller know if I didn't get them. It's not been the case (yet) that what was missing was what I was primarily interested in anyway, usually just filler.

Lately, though, these people just don't know colors - and I'm talking about several sellers with feedback in the thousands. I'm making a 2x4 color chart. When I'm trying to bulk up an order, I'll go through my chart to see what's missing, and see if the seller has any bricks in that color (if they had a 2x4 in that color, it would show up in the wanted list). So I can take two 2x2 or 1x4, or four 1x2, for example, just to fill in until I get the 2x4 brick. I've had THREE unsuccessful attempts to get what BL calls "pink." Every single time I get "bright pink," and have to argue with the sellers.

In the last case, I did get two 2x4 bricks. If they were actually pink, they would have been a bargain at "only" $0.53 each (used). Unfortunately, I got two used bright pinks.... worth about $0.05 each. I sent pictures showing those parts next to real pink parts; the seller has not responded.

[VintageLegoEra]

Some of my orders get delayed and the reason , the seller has some circumstances.

Other than that they dont take longer than 3-5

[AmperZand]

From countries outside of the EU anything over £15 inc P&P as far as I'm aware are usually kept aside due to some sort of tax thing, I once had to pay the same amount as it cost me to buy the order, therefore paying double.

They won't always keep orders over £15, but they can. And if they do, you'll get charged a fortune - as you know. I always keep orders under that threshold except for a few Kickstarter projects where the minimum is over that amount.

You do need to keep an eye on the rules though. Periodically, they change them to include or exclude P&P.