Bricklink needs to be improved

[WetWired]

I'm a fairly new user to Bricklink, I've only been using it for about a year now, but I think that's why my feedback is more relevant.

Now before I start don't get me wrong, Bricklink is a fantastic facility for people around the world to find missing pieces and buy Lego by piece or in bulk.

But Bricklink isn't what it could and should be. My main issue is accessibility, there is quite a learning curved barrier to purchasing anything in Bricklink, I thought at first that it was just the way it was and I just needed to learn how to use it. But now after introducing a friend to Bricklink and experiencing their frustration with using the system I think it's really highlighted the situation for me.

I'll break down what I think are some of the major failings of Bricklink and where it could use improvement.

1. Searching:
   The main problem myself and I think most people find is trying to the pieces you want in the least amount of stores possible. I know you can use your wanted list to search by store, but ideally it needs a feature where it searching through all stores for pieces on your wanted list and gives your a result that balances the cheapest price available via least amount of stores. While giving you the option seeing what difference in price it would make if you added more stores.
   
2. Purchasing and Quantities
   The feature of a wish list seems a bit useless when you cannot auto fill your cart with the correct quantities in a store. Having to manually go in and type in the quantity of each item in a cart with items already on your wanted list is time consuming and annoying. An auto-fill to wanted list would be greatly appreciated.
   
3. Shopping Cart
   Shopping Carts really need to be saved when you leave a store and accessible when you return, showing a list of what carts you have open in which stores.
   

I know most people will respond with "you're doing it wrong, you can do it by doing this", but that's kind of my point, Bricklink is not user friendly and making a simple purchase is a time consuming and labored procedure. It shouldn't be. I shouldn't need to spend time learning how to use what is basically a shopping cart like any other online store. Within minutes of discovering Bricklink I should be able to make a purchase without having to learn the best way of buying. It should be easy and painless. In its current state, you have to spend a considerable amount of time organizing your purchase.

I'm not doing this because I hate Bricklink, I'm doing it because I want it to improve. By having an easier and more intuitive interface and features I think sellers would see increased sales through simple ease of use.

[Shadows]

You might have better luck with that in the Bricklink forums, but hey, we're open for discussion. Maybe this can become the "things I dislike about Bricklink" thread, assuming it stays constructive and doesn't turn into a huge whinefest.

I'll field one of your suggestions.

#1. The key difficulty here is 'balance'. What is a good balance? How would the system know that you're perfectly happy with 10 of your 15 items at 12% above average price, as opposed to 9 of your 15 at 5% below average? Maybe it could find the minimum number of stores that have what you want, at the same time? Then you're left with the price issue again, because frequently, the larger stores have a lot of what you need, but charge 20% over average.

Bottom line, it's just not possible without a lot of fiddling around, putting in acceptable thresholds and most people aren't going to do that.

It sounds good, it just isn't realistic.

[CP5670]

These are some things I would like to see:

1: Allow stores to list items in other currencies, and update the exchange rates automatically from XE or some similar site. This should put an end to the exchange rate nonsense that has been going on there. The "lowest price first" search is currently useless when dealing with international stores, since you see a lot of apparently cheap entries come to the top when they are actually using bogus exchange rates to drive up the price.

2: Increase the activity period on the shopping cart's browser cookies. I sometimes place large orders (100-150 lots) and it can take me a few hours to go through my collection and determine exactly what I need. If I take a break at the end of the day and resume shopping the next morning, my whole shopping cart is often deleted because the cookie has expired. This can be quite infuriating and I've had it happen several times in the past, although it is avoidable if you watch out for it.

The main problem myself and I think most people find is trying to the pieces you want in the least amount of stores possible. I know you can use your wanted list to search by store, but ideally it needs a feature where it searching through all stores for pieces on your wanted list and gives your a result that balances the cheapest price available via least amount of stores. While giving you the option seeing what difference in price it would make if you added more stores.

I think it already allows this, if I understand you correctly. Copmike told me about it a while ago here.

However, it would be nice if you didn't have to fiddle with the wanted list at all (which is designed for a different purpose), and instead simply had a way to search for multiple text entries at once.

Edited January 14, 2009 by CP5670

[Kliq]

I haven't been on Bricklink for more than a few years, but for the most part found it easy to navigate when I first joined. I'm not even sure what the 'wanted list' is all about, as I've never used it. If I wanted a lot of parts, sets, and various minifigures all at the same time, I just searched for the best results for each, then took notes and tried to find which stores I could buy the most of the things that I was after to consolidate shipping that way. As for saving shopping carts, I've always just opened a new window.

I think that we all expect technology to constantly improve to make our lives better, and maybe Bricklink is still a little old school in that respect, but I'm sure they'll improve their format one day. I bet there is a way to contact them to deliver your problems directly, like through their own message board.

[Medievalego]

Bricklink, for as frustrating as it may be at times (especially for new users unfamiliar with the system), is a vast improvement over what was available only ten years ago (rec.toys.lego).

I am so happy about where the growth of the internet and spread of access and better speeds have taken collecting LEGO.

Things are pretty good right now :)

~Medievalego~

[dhaas06]

Yeah, I just stayed up all night about a week ago figuring out the best way to spread a couple hundred pieces over as few sellers as possible. I ended up narrowing it down to 7 orders, which was quite a feat, considering the various kinds of parts that I needed and the rarity of some.

Now I know this is going to sound ridiculous, but maybe I'm not the only one who thinks this way:

I love the challenges of using Bricklink.

Lego is my hobby and my passion, and I'm willing to put forth the effort to pursue it. If everything was too easy, getting the parts or sets you need would be like refueling your car. Consistency and convenience are great, but it can take all of the satisfaction out of successfully accomplishing a task. What I'm saying is that I love the thrill of the hunt, like driving around town in search of a particular set. I don't have this kind of attitude toward anything else, just Lego, and that's what makes it special.

I have no problem with tweaking Bricklink and improving the service, but at least it does function well, and any gripes we may have are just convenience issues.

Maybe I'm crazy, but for me, finally getting to build my very own Black Seas Barracuda would provide only a fraction of the joy if I could just grab what I needed at the local store. Something about spending hours figuring out orders from around the world really sets this model up to be one of the most special ones I own... once everything arrives that is .

[Shadows]

Now I know this is going to sound ridiculous, but maybe I'm not the only one who thinks this way:

I love the challenges of using Bricklink.

Absurd! Insane! I agree completely! I really do. I love the hunt sometimes as much as the having.

I swear, I was going to say that before I read this...

What I'm saying is that I love the thrill of the hunt, like driving around town in search of a particular set. I don't have this kind of attitude toward anything else, just Lego, and that's what makes it special.

Exactly! I wish I'd said it first, but I meant to.

Maybe I'm crazy, but for me, finally getting to build my very own Black Seas Barracuda would provide only a fraction of the joy if I could just grab what I needed at the local store. Something about spending hours figuring out orders from around the world really sets this model up to be one of the most special ones I own... once everything arrives that is .

Not crazy at all. I hope you'll come back and start a topic about the whole experience from inventory to order to build to that moment when you sit back and just stare at it. Less a review of the set, more a review of the whole process of building a piece of the past.

That's something everyone needs to try sometime.

Great post, dhaas06!

[Admiral Blockbeard]

Absurd! Insane! I agree completely! I really do. I love the hunt sometimes as much as the having.

I swear, I was going to say that before I read this...

Exactly! I wish I'd said it first, but I meant to.

Not crazy at all. I hope you'll come back and start a topic about the whole experience from inventory to order to build to that moment when you sit back and just stare at it. Less a review of the set, more a review of the whole process of building a piece of the past.

That's something everyone needs to try sometime.

Great post, dhaas06!

If this does not confirm your crazy IS, nothing will (I actually understand your logic and feelings)

I have never used Bricklink, as I am in Australia and fear A) the exchange rate and B) P & H

If any body has an easy way around these, i would be glad to hear it...

Do we have a tutorial on the sight on how top use bricklink? perhaps we should!

Regards, Cpt. PB

[CP5670]

Lego is my hobby and my passion, and I'm willing to put forth the effort to pursue it. If everything was too easy, getting the parts or sets you need would be like refueling your car. Consistency and convenience are great, but it can take all of the satisfaction out of successfully accomplishing a task. What I'm saying is that I love the thrill of the hunt, like driving around town in search of a particular set. I don't have this kind of attitude toward anything else, just Lego, and that's what makes it special.

Well, to each his own. I would rather maximize the amount of time I actually spend building instead of doing things like that.

[dhaas06]

Well, to each his own. I would rather maximize the amount of time I actually spend building instead of doing things like that.

Hmm... well I can't argue with that!

[WetWired]

I understand what you mean about the achievement and challenge of placing an order but really it comes down to time, I work full time and I'm married so what free time I do have I want to spend actually making things and not wasting literally 8 hours my time in front of a computer (I do enough of that at work) placing an order on bricklink.

[SuvieD]

I would suggest something on Bricklink itself. But keep in mind, Bricklink in general and the stores it features are trying to generate revenue. Anything that cuts revenue may not be implemented.

Remember, Bricklink isn't a store. It is a site for stores. If you want to find a store that sells everything you need in one stop them you must understand the price will be higher. Just like a convience store on any corner, they will make things easier for you but it will come at a cost. If you want better prices you need to be willing to bargain hunt at multiple stores.

It comes down to what is most important to you. If you value a bargain and the thrill of the hunt you will not have any problem searching multiple stores. If you value time and efficiency more than the bigger stores with tons of stock will be more appealing, yet expensive. If you can't be happy with either then do what many Bricklink users do, buy the LEGO sets that contain the pieces you want, part them out and sell the ones you don't want in an effort to break even or possible turn a little profit. Oh and in case you are wondering, the third option is infinitely more time consuming and you may end up with a lot of parts you never wanted in the first place.

If you really need the parts cheaper it never hurts to ask for a coupon, especially on higher $ orders. Most stores are willing to give 5-10% coupons easily.

Besides, if Bricklink was cheaper and easier to buy from, do you honestly think there would be anything within your price range left to buy? I personally have sold multiple $100+ dollar orders to a person who has 500+ buying only feedback. There are collectors, or should I call them hoarders, out there that would are already driving the average prices up because the demand for many parts exceeds all common sense in pricing.

I am also married and am going to school full time with an average of 19 credits per semester plus working part time. It can take time to get exactly what you want, but the alternatives are buying full sets for just a few parts or buying cheaper bulk amounts on ebay and hoping you get some parts you want. Either way is moe expensive and you are stuck with parts you don't need. Bricklink is already a time saver; you must pay for that or be willing to invest the time to save a few dollars.

Good luck in your buying.

[KimT]

I have never used Bricklink, as I am in Australia and fear A) the exchange rate and B) P & H

If any body has an easy way around these, i would be glad to hear it...

Regards, Cpt. PB

How about just using the Australian stores then?

Aussie Stores

[Badsneaker]

I also find it annoying that your shopping cart cannot be saved. Sometimes I'll go back after a few hours and my shopping cart is gone. This is really annoying when you have a few hundred pieces in your shopping cart and it took you an hour to build the cart. If they could fix that it would make my day!

[WetWired]

Yeah I understand you're going to need to weigh up priorities of price vs the number of stores you're ordering from, but a faster way of comparing that would be nice, say for example you say, find me these pieces, in the least amount of stores possible. It comes back with a result of say 3 stores for $34, now you have a pull down menu where you can say add another 1 or 2 stores and what price will that give me?

if you understand what I mean?

[Yeow]

If you have the patience to enter each item you want into your Wanted List, Bricklink does have a feature that searches all stores for items on your list. You can then filter it by the number of unique lots, which is much better than the alternative. Searching by lowest price isn't an option though.

[puddleglum]

First, one thing to keep in mind is this:

Bricklink - eBay fee comparison

BL has very low fees and I think everyone likes it that way.

But Bricklink isn't what it could and should be. My main issue is accessibility, there is quite a learning curved barrier to purchasing anything in Bricklink, I thought at first that it was just the way it was and I just needed to learn how to use it. But now after introducing a friend to Bricklink and experiencing their frustration with using the system I think it's really highlighted the situation for me.

I am in general agreement that the BL user experience could be improved. It took me quite a bit of fiddling and poking around to figure out how wanted lists worked, how to search by shop, etc.

Searching:

The main problem myself and I think most people find is trying to the pieces you want in the least amount of stores possible. I know you can use your wanted list to search by store, but ideally it needs a feature where it searching through all stores for pieces on your wanted list and gives your a result that balances the cheapest price available via least amount of stores. While giving you the option seeing what difference in price it would make if you added more stores.

Yes, it would be amazing if that sort of thing existed, but I want to help you understand that it would require a very large amount of work by the BL developers, and a very large amount of processing power by their servers. Right now, just for the basic wanted list "by shop" feature, every time you hit that button, BL has to go through every single store, and check for every single item on your list to get the info you want. So if you have a large wanted list, say 50 lots, it has to go through all 2000 stores and check for each of those 50 items. I don't know if you've noticed, but even this feature by itself can take a few seconds for BL to process and return a result.

Now, for the feature you want. It might start with just finding the fewest number of stores, reguardless of price. The simplest way would probably be to start with the store with the most lots. Then, go through every single other store that has any of your wanted items, see how many missing lots that store has. Whichever has the most, add it. Continue until all lots are accounted for. So maybe your 50 lots can be bought from 5 stores. Calculating the price for that particular combination would be easy, but we want to compare the price to other 5-store combinations. So it needs to find every single possible 5-store combination from which your parts can be bought. This is where it gets ugly. Let's say only 200 stores have items on your wanted list. That means there are 200!/(5!*195!) = roughly 2.5 billion 5-store combinations to be processed. For each of those combinations, BL must go through each item on your list, determine which of the five stores has the lowest price (or if none have it), add everything up, and save the total price for that set of stores (assuming that set has all your wanted parts). Now, assuming it could process 1 million of these combinations in a second (I'll go out on a limb and say it couldn't), the whole process would take 40 minutes. And all you would have is the cheapest possible 5-store combination, never mind what price you might be able to get out of a 6 or 7 store combination. More stores means exponentially more processing time. Now imagine several hundred BL users hammering the BL servers with these requests all at once.

All that being said, I'm not saying that something *like* what you want couldn't be done. I'm just saying it would certainly require a lot of development time, and a lot of processing power, both of which would mean BL would need to raise fees. And in the end it would have to take shortcuts, meaning you wouldn't really get the for-sure-cheapest-way, just the cheapest way that was easy to find.

Purchasing and Quantities

The feature of a wish list seems a bit useless when you cannot auto fill your cart with the correct quantities in a store. Having to manually go in and type in the quantity of each item in a cart with items already on your wanted list is time consuming and annoying. An auto-fill to wanted list would be greatly appreciated.

I'm not sure what you mean - BL has this exact feature. When you're looking at the list of items in a store that are on your list, click "Auto-Fill Cart Min" and it will enter your wanted amount. But I will admit it could be labled better, like "Auto-Fill Cart Wanted Amt"

Shopping Cart

Shopping Carts really need to be saved when you leave a store and accessible when you return, showing a list of what carts you have open in which stores.

I agree that there should at least be an option to save a cart before leaving a store, even if it doesn't happen by default.

I know most people will respond with "you're doing it wrong, you can do it by doing this", but that's kind of my point, Bricklink is not user friendly and making a simple purchase is a time consuming and labored procedure. It shouldn't be. I shouldn't need to spend time learning how to use what is basically a shopping cart like any other online store. Within minutes of discovering Bricklink I should be able to make a purchase without having to learn the best way of buying. It should be easy and painless. In its current state, you have to spend a considerable amount of time organizing your purchase.

I think for "simple" purchases of a few lots, BL is straightforward, and it's quite easy to find what you're looking for. But creating a list of parts in specific quantities and colors, and coordinating the purchase of those parts from multiple sellers is an inherently complicated task, and I think it's unreasonable to expect BL to make the process dead-simple.

[CP5670]

Let's say only 200 stores have items on your wanted list. That means there are 200!/(5!*195!) = roughly 2.5 billion 5-store combinations to be processed.

You don't need to compute anything close to all possible combinations if the data is indexed properly. This is an example of an integer optimization problem, and there are various methods known for solving them. (although you are right that it wouldn't be practical for the server to take such requests on an internet search engine)

BL does at least let you search for several parts at once. It won't find optimal combinations of stores but it can give you a list of all the stores that carry them (which is good enough in many cases). Now the funny thing is that I placed several orders last summer and I distinctly remember having it show me the results sorted by price, but I can't figure out how to do this now. I just played around with the wanted list for 10 minutes but the sorting and filtering options seem to be different than what I remember, or I may be doing something wrong. Just goes to show that the procedure is needlessly convoluted though.

[puddleglum]

You don't need to compute anything close to all possible combinations if the data is indexed properly.

Care to explain this a little more? I'm sure there are optimizations over what I described, as I was just trying to give an idea of the difficultly of the problem. But it seems like the kind of "proper" indexing that would be needed to speed up this process would be crazy - wouldn't every single part have to have a sort of price-to-store and quantity-to-store index? And even then it seems like it would be hard to eliminate "most" 5-store combinations based on that data. I'm very willing to learn here because I'm by no means an expert on this stuff.

[CP5670]

Care to explain this a little more? I'm sure there are optimizations over what I described, as I was just trying to give an idea of the difficultly of the problem. But it seems like the kind of "proper" indexing that would be needed to speed up this process would be crazy - wouldn't every single part have to have a sort of price-to-store and quantity-to-store index? And even then it seems like it would be hard to eliminate "most" 5-store combinations based on that data. I'm very willing to learn here because I'm by no means an expert on this stuff.

I don't actually know much about the indexing aspect of it either. This sort of thing is a basic feature in commercial database software though.

In any case, what makes this problem difficult is not really the data storage, but the fact that the solutions have to be integers (you can't buy half a brick or buy from half a store). You may want to look into branch and bound methods, which are the standard way to do this. They basically try to split up the problem into many smaller, continuous linear optimization problems, which are fairly easy to solve. This definitely takes a lot of time and computation, but it's still much less work than working out all possible combinations, which would be totally hopeless in a situation like this.

[Norro]

Searching:

The main problem myself and I think most people find is trying to the pieces you want in the least amount of stores possible. I know you can use your wanted list to search by store, but ideally it needs a feature where it searching through all stores for pieces on your wanted list and gives your a result that balances the cheapest price available via least amount of stores. While giving you the option seeing what difference in price it would make if you added more stores.

That would take all the fun out of it !

Hands up who preferred Brickbay?

God Bless,

Nathan