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TLG acquires Bricklink

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6 hours ago, MKJoshA said:

Yes! I want that goat! Lego, listen to this! And then give Bricklink back to us.

It would be really odd if Lego needed BL to learn that people want more animal molds. 

I think they know that and that's why we get so many small animals in the cmf series. Like recently the flamingo and dachshund (by the way, let me use this opportunity to beg our Anglo-American friends to stop confusing themselves with the age old controversy whether it's "dashound", "dachson" or "dockson". It's either dackel or teckel. That's pronounced "duckle" and "tackle" for you. Two simple names that you can spell with ease. Please help me spread the truth about this beautiful breed of canine and call it by its proper name. And yes I am a proud owner).

 

Edited by Jacob Nion

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11 hours ago, Itaria No Shintaku said:

I believe you missed the point. I can spoil a lot your business even with a smaller order than your whole shop. 
I mean. I have 156k pieces. Did I receive orders of 3/4k pieces? Yes I did.
Did they pay? Not always.
Was it clear that they weren't to pay? No, it wasn't.

Still, be happy that BL sellers don't have to perfect either.  Buyers like me are ok to take shit from BL sellers because we know they're mostly tiny family businesses, sometimes with orders filled by kids for their pocket money.

Because yeah, when we receive orders with missing parts (which is pretty much 3/4 of the time), dirty & chewed up parts, and we had to understand stupid rules of "add 1eur per every lot when the AVG lot value is below X" and had to accept fees for anything imaginable, we still give positive feedback, something I would totally not do for normal, bigger businesses.
I'm sure buyers aren't perfect either and sellers should be ok with that too. For real fraud, the rating/report system works fine IMHO.

Out of hundreds of orders, I've left a couple of neutral feedback when sellers were real megablocks (like you ask "are you sure you really have this rare part" before you buy, you ask again "please make sure you have this rare part before sending" after your purchase, and you get a message saying "we've shipped your order. Oh and sorry but we didn't have that rare part"), but only one negative feedback to a seller that wasn't replying and hadn't shipped anything after 1.5 month. Others did the same and his shop closed, that's a nicely working system.

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5 hours ago, anothergol said:

Still, be happy that BL sellers don't have to perfect either.  Buyers like me are ok to take shit from BL sellers because we know they're mostly tiny family businesses, sometimes with orders filled by kids for their pocket money.

Because yeah, when we receive orders with missing parts (which is pretty much 3/4 of the time), dirty & chewed up parts, and we had to understand stupid rules of "add 1eur per every lot when the AVG lot value is below X" and had to accept fees for anything imaginable, we still give positive feedback, something I would totally not do for normal, bigger businesses.
I'm sure buyers aren't perfect either and sellers should be ok with that too. For real fraud, the rating/report system works fine IMHO.

Out of hundreds of orders, I've left a couple of neutral feedback when sellers were real megablocks (like you ask "are you sure you really have this rare part" before you buy, you ask again "please make sure you have this rare part before sending" after your purchase, and you get a message saying "we've shipped your order. Oh and sorry but we didn't have that rare part"), but only one negative feedback to a seller that wasn't replying and hadn't shipped anything after 1.5 month. Others did the same and his shop closed, that's a nicely working system.

Plesae don't speak as "we". You do that.
I have had over 2000 feedbacks stuff like:

  • People choosing untracked service and asking me the tracking. Then doing paypal claim when items didn't arrive because I didn't give them tracking.
  • People giving neutral feedback for no reason
  • People giving negative on retaliation after they misbehaved
  • People telling me a piece wasn't in there asking me to send it again when I double checked it was in there
  • People sending me less money than I required then stating they sent the correct amount.
  • People wanting me to cancel their orders after weeks after keeping on adding stuff.
  • People continuing infringing my T&C.
  • Arrogant people.
  • Unpolite people.
  • People asking me if I did ship the same day they paid an order. At 18pm.

Most bricklink buyers under 200 feedbacks are a russian roulette. If you aren't lucky they don't read your terms (and mine are super easy) and they want to be treated as kings.


 

11 hours ago, MAB said:

At what point did you decide they were not going to pay? Presumably if they were doing this to wreck your shop, then they were doing it anonymously so using a new account. If 

[cut]

Of course it is the seller's responsibility to address correctly every zone for IC and every part in their shop with a correct weight.
I spend time doing it and every seller should do it. If a seller doesn't do that and he's least favourited by someone, he deserved that.
Plus, in shipping tables, you should remember to add a % of bricklink errors. You may want to say in your T&C that if you pay less shipping than the buyer actually paid, you'll refund them. 

I have experienced both paying more and less shipping very very seldom.
When I paid more than required, I shut up as it was my fault and carried myself the excess.
When I paid less than required I always refunded the buyer.

Probably these are reasons because I get many positives.

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Ok, can you keep on topic? We (the forum users) are here to discuss the acquisition of Bricklink by TLG. Not your ranting and rambling about issues you have encountered on Bricklink. By all means take your topic into a new thread and I will happily move your posts related to the matter there. However, it is super frustrating for myself and probably other users, to have to wade through a lot of posts about something right off topic.

5 hours ago, Itaria No Shintaku said:
  • Arrogant people.
  • Unpolite people.

Welcome to business! I may have mentioned elsewhere, but I work for a company that fulfills FREE deliveries of medical equipment to people and the amount of crap I take on the phone from people for no actual reason (Especially as this is helpful and free equipment designed to make their life easier) or because we can't pinpoint the exact minute for drop-off time, etc and etc (the list goes on). Then you have the people who think they are the only service user so we need to drop everything for them and them alone (Rinse and repeat). I believe there are whole sites dedicated to stories like this "Not Always Right" springs to mind.

 

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10 hours ago, Itaria No Shintaku said:

People telling me a piece wasn't in there asking me to send it again when I double checked it was in there 

Yeah but again, even if you were right & they weren't, you have to be fine with that because buyers have to be as well. As I wrote, missing parts are in 3/4 of BL orders, it's just the norm. (well to be fair: it's also often the wrong parts that you get, so the seller often loses too, but by his own fault)

2000 from how many orders?

IMHO it has to be much worse for "normal" sellers/retailers, because those make a lot less mistake (only because it's their main job), while customers don't change & are probably as bad for them.
In short, I'm sure BL customers suck, but not more than everywhere else, while BL sellers do suck more (because it's just a side job, so that's excusable, but still..).


Also, remember to make everything clear & succint in your shop's terms. We have to deal with totally different rules in every shop, we have to hunt for every fine print, deal with tables that differ between term & splash pages..
And it's too often that my final bill doesn't match the terms. Of course unsurprisingly, always higher.

Edited by anothergol

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12 hours ago, Peppermint_M said:

Ok, can you keep on topic? We (the forum users) are here to discuss the acquisition of Bricklink by TLG. Not your ranting and rambling about issues you have encountered on Bricklink. By all means take your topic into a new thread and I will happily move your posts related to the matter there. However, it is super frustrating for myself and probably other users, to have to wade through a lot of posts about something right off topic.

It is not a rant or issues I have encountered myself, but known issues.
I didn't think it was off topic, I just wanted to point out that since TLG bought bricklink they can finally fix problems they have since years.
But that's ok, you're a moderator, I'll cut this now on. If someone needs to discuss about this, PM me.

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I too don't think it's off-topic to talk about BL itself & its problems, in a thread explaining why it's gonna change in a near future.

If you wanted to talk about everything you are allowed to know about the acquisition itself, this thread would be 1 post long.

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Since it's the end of the world...err bricklink as we know it... Had to place some orders before the lights go out.

In case Lego brings back pirates next year and wants to make sure they are the only game in town. ??

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On 11/29/2019 at 4:32 AM, Clone OPatra said:

If the outcome of this sale is that LEGO finally rereleases that stupid freaking goat, I am so in. I don't care what else happens. :sarcasm:

:head_back:

On 11/29/2019 at 4:20 PM, MKJoshA said:

Yes! I want that goat! Lego, listen to this! And then give Bricklink back to us.

:grin:

On 11/29/2019 at 11:00 PM, Jacob Nion said:

It would be really odd if Lego needed BL to learn that people want more animal molds. 

I think they know that and that's why we get so many small animals in the cmf series. Like recently the flamingo and dachshund (by the way, let me use this opportunity to beg our Anglo-American friends to stop confusing themselves with the age old controversy whether it's "dashound", "dachson" or "dockson". It's either dackel or teckel. That's pronounced "duckle" and "tackle" for you. Two simple names that you can spell with ease. Please help me spread the truth about this beautiful breed of canine and call it by its proper name. And yes I am a proud owner).

 

I invite you all to discuss goats, dachshund (Norwegian name, I am also a proud owner) and other animals in the thread in my signature :shark:

No I do not think Lego needs BL to find out that we want more animals in general, but they may use it to find out how bad we want the different ones etc..
I just used goats since it was a obvious example, when Lego owns BL they have access to every order ever made, every search we have done etc.
With ideas they get some information since a set needs 10000 votes, but the 10000 that voted do not necessarily end up buying the set if it is made. Now Lego will know exactly how much and how many are willing to pay for every part ever made and how it varies over time. Do not tell my that is not worth more that the 3% (?) they get of every sale!

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16 hours ago, Masked Mini said:

In case Lego brings back pirates next year and wants to make sure they are the only game in town. ??

Which, well. you know,... may happen...:pir-wink:

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On 11/29/2019 at 2:32 PM, Clone OPatra said:

Personally, I'm puzzled by LEGO's positioning of Bricklink as a fan community first, as if the marketplace was kind of a side note. I suppose in corporate speak Bricklink is too many things to neatly categorise, but I always viewed it as a really great fan-created and maintained reference catelogue, and a platform to buy and sell what we're all here for. The community aspects like the MOC system and forums, and the design software, seemed to me to be secondary fluff that's not really Bricklink's core function.

The AFOL design program, while cool, also didn't make much sense to me, since it turned Bricklink into an entity in itself, and not just a platform for individuals to sell things. It's as if a flea market started selling you Flea-Market branded goods from corporate Flea-Market headquarters.

Ultimately I hope LEGO doesn't get the wrong idea about what makes Bricklink important to AFOLs (though I suspect they will), and I hope they leave the marketplace and catalogue intact. If they don't, yes another platform out there will become the primary one, but the countless hours put into Bricklink's catalogue won't be easily or quickly redone.

I don't use it much these days in my second dark age but BL has always been perceived by me to be a pretty good catalogue of Lego parts, sets & minifigs, and a marketplace to purchase those things used or as new from other Lego enthusiasts. Anything else belongs elsewhere.

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We all are good english speakers. At least you are. 
But... what if TLG was really interested in doubling or quadrupling the users of BL? What should they do that bricklink never actually did?

Well, if they added just 10 languages of multi-language support (like, Japanese, Mandarin Chinese, Arabic, Hindi, Spanish, German, French, Italian, Dutch, Portuguese) which would lead in dozens new users and a lot of new transactions that would give them also more data for their market analysis.

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1 hour ago, Itaria No Shintaku said:

We all are good english speakers. At least you are. 
But... what if TLG was really interested in doubling or quadrupling the users of BL? What should they do that bricklink never actually did?

Well, if they added just 10 languages of multi-language support (like, Japanese, Mandarin Chinese, Arabic, Hindi, Spanish, German, French, Italian, Dutch, Portuguese) which would lead in dozens new users and a lot of new transactions that would give them also more data for their market analysis.

They did try to add some form of Chinese, and some of the help pages got translated. I don't read it, so I cannot say if it is any good.

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8 minutes ago, MAB said:

They did try to add some form of Chinese, and some of the help pages got translated. I don't read it, so I cannot say if it is any good.

Yeah but they have to do the entire site. 
You know, probably native english speakers will never understand this. You are very lucky. You speak the language nearly everything is written in. I may understand it's a difficult abstraction to figure out how it would be to live in a world where your language is rarely spoken, but that's the case of a lot of people. Not every person is given the mental flexibility to learn a second language. For me, for example, english is my third language, but I think I was pretty lucky because I learnt two languages when I was a kid by having two different based parents. I can easily understand, living in a country in which this happens, the problems many people have in learning a second language when they've been speaking only one for maybe 20 30 40 years. There are a horde of people ready to join bricklink but blocked by the language barrier. Should they remove it, they would make game set match, because their users would double or triplicate and the sellers would be so happy that they would forget all those paranoias about TLG acquiiring BL.

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@Itaria No Shintaku That really is a great idea; you should suggest it once the lay of the land becomes clear and clear lines of communication with TLG are established in regard to Bricklink.

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4 hours ago, Itaria No Shintaku said:

Yeah but they have to do the entire site. 
You know, probably native english speakers will never understand this. You are very lucky. You speak the language nearly everything is written in. I may understand it's a difficult abstraction to figure out how it would be to live in a world where your language is rarely spoken, but that's the case of a lot of people. Not every person is given the mental flexibility to learn a second language. For me, for example, english is my third language, but I think I was pretty lucky because I learnt two languages when I was a kid by having two different based parents. I can easily understand, living in a country in which this happens, the problems many people have in learning a second language when they've been speaking only one for maybe 20 30 40 years. There are a horde of people ready to join bricklink but blocked by the language barrier. Should they remove it, they would make game set match, because their users would double or triplicate and the sellers would be so happy that they would forget all those paranoias about TLG acquiiring BL.

Yes, it would be good to add other languages but even that can add problems too. BL is essentially a venue for individual sellers and buyers. While some orders are possible without any communication, I find often some communication is necessary for many, even if that is in a description of condition or similar. The problem then is which language should be used? If the buyer was presented the items in their own language at the time of purchase, should the seller have to communicate in the buyer's language? Or should the seller be allowed to state which language(s) they can communicate in and then it is up to the buyer to decide whether this is important or not before buying?

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It is not "hard" to develop code so that sellers can specific what languages they work in. Buyers can specify what languages they want. The software can be written to match them up. The sellers would have to create their store terms in the languages they support.

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Hmmm. Have monitored sentiments on severals forums and been holding back my own comment on this so far. Interestingly, most fans happen to have some ressentiments against this deal.

First, I'm neither a fanboy nor a gruntling clone-bricks-buyer. I'm an avid collector, and sometimes I have fun building stuff with my little one (or on my own... hehe). So, when I think about the possible changes coming in the future (and there WILL be changes, that's for sure), I mainly think about it from the perspective of someone who buys old sets, old instructions and old parts mostly out of nostalgia. And I don't think what I do on BL will be affected on short or even long term.

However, I can see the possible downsides to this too. Lots of cons to this deal have been posted here, I agree with some but will not repeat any here. I do sincerely hope that BL happens to stay the way it is: A great place to buy and sell used or new LEGO, wherever it may come from / which lorry it dropped off *cough*, and an awesome database to support this.

 

I am not interested in buying from LEGO directly anymore, the sheer mass of promo items and, of course, regular sets is overwhelming. No sense in collecting here, at least not if you aim for a half-way completeness. I am no Bill Gates, sorry LEGO.

That's what has driven me to flea markets, whether online or physical, and to BL. There are lots of sets out there from the past, some haven't even been released in my country back then. And sometimes I just go and browse the database for some hours, just for fun. Lot's of sets to be had for pocket money. No need to wait for any promotion or Black Friday Deal... So, if LEGO screws up BL there will definitely be other places to fullfill my needs. No need to panic.

 

One last note:

I do not know how big a factor like nostalgia drives people to buy on BL or elsewhere. But it sure would be nice to get some "Legends" sets again, as happened in the past with the Metroliner or the Guarded Inn. I think there are lots of niches like that one that need to get filled. And now that LEGO has relevant sales data from a second-hand market, LEGO will know whether or not this is backed up by data...

Edited by Capparezza

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10 hours ago, Capparezza said:

I do not know how big a factor like nostalgia drives people to buy on BL or elsewhere. But it sure would be nice to get some "Legends" sets again, as happened in the past with the Metroliner or the Guarded Inn. I think there are lots of niches like that one that need to get filled. And now that LEGO has relevant sales data from a second-hand market, LEGO will know whether or not this is backed up by data...

This has very very very little to absolute zero chance happen, tending to absolute zero.
They changed brown, light gray, pink and dark gray. These colors do not exist any more.
Plus, when released, the LEGENDS sets were an absolute disaster, though they were limited edition.
Plus, the Benny Space Squad had very poor sales records.
So, though I would welcome them wholeheartedly, I reckon there is zero chance they make re-edition of old sets.

 

Quote

Yes, it would be good to add other languages but even that can add problems too. BL is essentially a venue for individual sellers and buyers. While some orders are possible without any communication, I find often some communication is necessary for many, even if that is in a description of condition or similar.

Not a problem again.
You can add a field as much as Accepted Currencies, Accepted Languages then is up on the seller, if they want to spread their market, to allow several different spoken languages.
And up on the buyer, a warning "This seller doesn't speak your language do you want to proceed?"
Actually, a lot of german or dutch sellers do not speak english, but this has been no problem til now.
 

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1 hour ago, Itaria No Shintaku said:


Plus, the Benny Space Squad had very poor sales records.

I got the impression that this sold very well, but being the smallest of the sets there were loads made. I think just about every AFOL and most LEGO-loving families I know has at least one copy of the set.

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Just now, MAB said:

I got the impression that this sold very well, but being the smallest of the sets there were loads made. I think just about every AFOL and most LEGO-loving families I know has at least one copy of the set.

Found it at 50% this summer in every French "Jouet" store. Now it's discounted on the shop.
To me, that didn't sell well, compared to the fact you got 5 minifigures and a vehicle for ten bucks.
That's a set that even in the golden age would have costed more.

Edited by Itaria No Shintaku

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Just now, Itaria No Shintaku said:

Found it at 50% this summer in every French "Jouet" store. Now it's discounted on the shop.
To me, that didn't sell well, compared to the fact you got 5 minifigures and a vehicle for ten bucks.

Yes, now the movie is gone from cinemas, most TLM2 sets are discounted. Does clearly the remaining stock mean it sold poorly?

If it does, the HP advent calendars also sold badly - I just picked some up at 60% off.

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3 hours ago, Itaria No Shintaku said:

Plus, when released, the LEGENDS sets were an absolute disaster, though they were limited edition.

How do you know that? Did you get sales data from the time they were released or something? I wouldn't be surprised if LEGO themselves didn't have that data anymore...

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30 minutes ago, Lego David said:

How do you know that? Did you get sales data from the time they were released or something? I wouldn't be surprised if LEGO themselves didn't have that data anymore...

I have talked about that with LEGO Community Managers when asking for more nostalgia stuff.
In two different occasions and different people (whose names I won't reveal in order not to get them in trouble) they said their sales were extra poor and that's a reason why they have never been released again.

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