Bricklink Prices

[Midlife-crisis]

Good evening,

is it just me, or are the Bricklink prices in Europe ridiculous? I think pricing was much better in the past.

Not only new parts, also many (common) used parts seems to be more expensive on bricklink sometimes up to 2 or 3 times higher, than new parts directly from Lego. I fear we will see this messange

more often in the near future:

did you make a similar observation?

regards

mc

 

[NathanR]

I think the bricklink prices have enormous variation, from dirt cheap to (occasionally) downright ridiculous. I don't usually see common parts going above the Bricks and Pieces price.   However, if you are very careful in choosing which stores to use, and if you know how to work the system, you can get very reasonable prices out of bricklink.

Firstly, you should check what brick variants you are trying to buy.  I uploaded an LDD file to bricklink, and the 1x1x5 bricks turned into 1x1x5 brick undetermined stud type.  The auto buy picked out a seller who had loads... for 9.00 EUR each.  After swapping to the more common version with solid stud, the price dropped to 0.06 EUR each.  

Secondly, the auto-buy feature tries to minimise the number of orders - you save on postage, but finding one or two sellers with everything you need means you'll likely pay a fortune per brick.  I typically set the "maximum price" field in the bricklink wanted lists  to the Bricks and Pieces price for each part - not always for every part, it can be enough to set one or two of the more expensive parts.  The auto buy will then be forced to pick more than three stores, and this will drive the price down.  For example, I uploaded a 4000 part WIP MOC to bricklink to guess the price, auto buy told me that it would be ~900 EUR done in three orders.  I tweaked the maximum price (e.g. 1x12 bricks to ~0.25EUR, 16x16 plates ~2.00 EUR), and then auto buy told me it would be 250EUR over about 12 orders.  

Of course then you can play about further, pay a tiny bit more for a brick at a different one of the selected stores, so you end up with fewer orders overall and then save on the postage.  Any bricks in the order which are the same price from "Bricks and Pieces", you of course order direct from lego (they have far cheaper global shipping than any bricklink seller I've seen, even in my home country).  And then you may be able to reduce the number of orders to bricklink still further.

 

Edited March 12, 2018 by NathanR

[Midlife-crisis]

We use the same techniques for buying bricks, so that´s not the problem. I´m ordering round about 3000pieces per month - there are shops with good prices sure, unfortunately their stocks shrink for the types of bricks/plates i use the most.

Often when i see the prices in the US i just have tears in my eyes.

The thing over the last half year is, if i order parts which are cheaper in a shop than from Bricks&Pieces the orders get smaller and smaller, not really worth ordering from a Bricklink shop because of the postage disadvantage (to austria) you already mentioned. Dare i ask, where do you come from?

 

[NathanR]

I'm in the UK, I order from UK/EU with a major project about once a year. I try and get domestic shipping whenever possible, even within the EU the postage is a nightmare.  

I guess the problem is that with everyone always buying the cheapest bricks, only the expensive ones get left.  And prices keep going up everywhere in general 

One possible solution, I have heard vague rumours that if you're in a Lego User Group (LUG) you can place bulk orders and get special discount prices.  Not sure how true that is or how hard it would be to get into such a scheme,  Given the number of parts you're ordering, it might be worth looking into.

[Robianco]

I'm amazed 'that' store in Portugal has any kind of ratings never mind the very high ratings they currently have. Not only do they have a ridiculous minimum order but their prices are extortionate for everything I've ever looked for.

[Midlife-crisis]

 

True, i have this store on my "disliked" list, it does not show up on my [easybuy] list.

But i discovered a few others which charge 2-3times the price from Bricks & Pieces for some "common" parts which are still in production.

 

[Giacinto Consiglio]

I have experienced the same increase in price on BK. Bricks & Pieces is excellent, but shipping is slow and sometimes parts get messed up (my last order has been a total disaster). Customer service guys told me to make small orders to avoid that

[MAB]

14 hours ago, Midlife-crisis said:

But i discovered a few others which charge 2-3times the price from Bricks & Pieces for some "common" parts which are still in production.

1

There will always be some stores like that, but presumably other sellers have the items in stock at prices closer to the B+P price.

Remember most stock on BL comes from parted out sets and any new parts will start off at a high price and gradually decline as the market finds the right price. Then if it is released via B+P at a lower price, the price will eventually fall as sellers buy stock on B+P to sell on BL. However, people that already listed it might take years to reduce their prices.

B+P is still relatively new and some people on BL still don't know of it. But many do. It used to be possible to purchase some new parts very cheap on B+P compared to BL and it was profitable to buy 200 at a time to resell. Now more people know of B+P, that becomes much harder. For example, it was possible to purchase heads for 19p and resell at £1 on BL. Any that hadn't been sold after six months could be sold to another seller at a cut price, still above what you paid at B+P. Now many buyers know about it, they shop on B+P. Now other sellers know of it, they also buy stock on B+P pushing BL prices down.

 

15 hours ago, Robianco said:

I'm amazed 'that' store in Portugal has any kind of ratings never mind the very high ratings they currently have. Not only do they have a ridiculous minimum order but their prices are extortionate for everything I've ever looked for.

Yes, I'm sure everyone has come across that store at least once!

[fred67]

I can't think of a more perfect example of a free market than Bricklink.  There are still places that try to screw you (abnormally high shipping/handling prices on top of cheap base prices), but overall if a price is expensive it's because the buyers say it is (with their wallets).

 

[Midlife-crisis]

A free market true, unfortunately the places where they "try to screw you" are more frequently in the last months. At least here in europe. If they overdo it, this could be dangerous for the whole bricklink platform.