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In lugnet.announce, Dan Jezek writes:
> Folks,
>
> I've been working on a more sophisticated version of what you see here:
> http://www.aloha.net/~danjezek/lego_sale.html
Ooooh...
> A search box will be located on the main page that will search the whole site
> for the parts you need and list that for example John has it for $0.05 cents a
> piece and Joe for $0.10.
As a buyer, I would like to be able in put in a list of parts, not just one at
a time, and have it return a list of who can satisfy my demand. Vendors who
have them all, could appear first.
> * Easy way to buy parts through a shopping cart
As an offshoot of what Larry said, if I could put muliple vendors' product into
my shopping cart and then make one payment for all of it that would be wildly
more attractive from the buyer's perspective, not just the sellers which was
Larry's focus.
> For the sellers:
> * View/update/delete items in your inventory and adjust the quantity/price for
> each item.
Can I run scripts that cause price fluctuation based on whatever? (e.g. based
on: other vendor prices, quantity remaining, quantity at other vendors', etc?)
Can I input negative quantities indicating that I'm looking for, and willing to
pay the price per? That would be handy too.
> Basically you'll be able to buy/sell anything there that's Lego-related
> including parts, complete sets or custom kits. The system is now about 95%
> completed. What I'd like to know is how many people who sell parts/sets (or
> would want to sell parts/sets) would be interested in selling there?
I am. I'm interested in getting out of my quarterly auction cycle and having
an ongoing straight sale/trade site. This would be perfect if the price is
right.
> Thanks for reading this.
Thanks for writing it!
Chris
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In lugnet.market.shopping, Christopher L. Weeks writes:
> > I've been working on a more sophisticated version of what you see here:
> > http://www.aloha.net/~danjezek/lego_sale.html
>
> Ooooh...
Looks good, doesn't it? :)
> As a buyer, I would like to be able in put in a list of parts, not just one at
> a time, and have it return a list of who can satisfy my demand. Vendors who
> have them all, could appear first.
Not only that, I think the functionality of being able to create your own
wants-list, like Larry and Tom have now, and have the system store those and
then e-mail you when those parts do become available.
And maybe on the sellers' side, when I enter an inventory (which could maybe
someday mean entering in a set number and the number of copies I have of it),
the system could identify buyers who have those items on their wants lists.
> As an offshoot of what Larry said, if I could put muliple vendors' product
> into
> my shopping cart and then make one payment for all of it that would be wildly
> more attractive from the buyer's perspective, not just the sellers which was
> Larry's focus.
Ah, that would be easy (depending on how you look at it) for the buyers but it
could also be a nightmare. Assuming you could submit a single payment (maybe
to someone who could then disperse it to the individual sellers, and only via
something like Paypal or X.com (I can say that as a seller I am this close ->
<- to only accepting electronic payment - too many trips to the bank to
deposit $5 here, $11 there), there would have to be some sort of added fee for
that (nobody's time is free). But think of the potential shipping costs. You
buy from 4 sellers, maybe only $2.00 worth from each, so an $8 order. You
could, conceivably, end up paying as much or more total to have those 4 people
ship items to you...
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In lugnet.market.shopping, Mike Stanley writes:
<auto inventory creation>
Ya. and...
When I tell it I have a set, present me with the contents so I can say "keeping
these, keeping these, keeping 1/2 of these" instead of assuming I am parting
the whole thing out...
> Ah, that would be easy (depending on how you look at it) for the buyers but it
> could also be a nightmare. Assuming you could submit a single payment (maybe
> to someone who could then disperse it to the individual sellers, and only via
> something like Paypal or X.com (I can say that as a seller I am this close ->
> <- to only accepting electronic payment - too many trips to the bank to
> deposit $5 here, $11 there), there would have to be some sort of added fee for
> that (nobody's time is free). But think of the potential shipping costs. You
> buy from 4 sellers, maybe only $2.00 worth from each, so an $8 order. You
> could, conceivably, end up paying as much or more total to have those 4 people
> ship items to you...
Good point. Just make sure that the site presents the information to the buyer
early on in the order construction process (here is where frames are good, show
me the order as it is being built in one frame while I build it in another) so
the buyer realises that 4 shipping charges are being paid (one flat 3.20, one
based on weight for first class, one based on dollar value starting from the
prio base rate, and the final one based on weight AND dollar because that's
what the sellers each individually chose for their shipping algorithms when
they were uploading) and let the buyer maybe pay 15 cents apiece for the blue
frombles instead of 14 so that he gets to pay only *3* shipping charges. All of
a sudden that extra 1 cent per part gets to be a bargain instead of an extra
cost.
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In lugnet.market.shopping, Larry Pieniazek wrote:
> In lugnet.market.shopping, Mike Stanley writes:
>
> <auto inventory creation>
>
> Ya. and...
>
> When I tell it I have a set, present me with the contents so I can say "keeping
> these, keeping these, keeping 1/2 of these" instead of assuming I am parting
> the whole thing out...
And to verify that the set-contents stored in the innards of Brickbay.com
actually match what you picked up from the store. Stuff happens, and
sometimes set-contents vary. The seller's got to be able to modify the
selling list, or he's going to get stuck with unhappy campers when they try
to buy things he auto-listed, and doesn't actually have to sell.
> Good point. Just make sure that the site presents the information to the buyer
> early on in the order construction process (here is where frames are good, show
> me the order as it is being built in one frame while I build it in another) so
> the buyer realises that 4 shipping charges are being paid (one flat 3.20, one
> based on weight for first class, one based on dollar value starting from the
> prio base rate, and the final one based on weight AND dollar because that's
> what the sellers each individually chose for their shipping algorithms when
> they were uploading) and let the buyer maybe pay 15 cents apiece for the blue
> frombles instead of 14 so that he gets to pay only *3* shipping charges. All of
> a sudden that extra 1 cent per part gets to be a bargain instead of an extra
> cost.
Yah, man.
If the 'buyer wants' data is included in the site, Dan could have a reall
LEGO parts exchange on his hands.
Steve
Steve
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In lugnet.market.shopping, Mike Stanley writes:
> In lugnet.market.shopping, Christopher L. Weeks writes:
> > > I've been working on a more sophisticated version of what you see here:
> > > http://www.aloha.net/~danjezek/lego_sale.html
> >
> > Ooooh...
>
> Looks good, doesn't it? :)
>
> > As a buyer, I would like to be able in put in a list of parts, not just one • at
> > a time, and have it return a list of who can satisfy my demand. Vendors who
> > have them all, could appear first.
>
> Not only that, I think the functionality of being able to create your own
> wants-list, like Larry and Tom have now, and have the system store those and
> then e-mail you when those parts do become available.
>
> And maybe on the sellers' side, when I enter an inventory (which could maybe
> someday mean entering in a set number and the number of copies I have of it),
> the system could identify buyers who have those items on their wants lists.
>
> > As an offshoot of what Larry said, if I could put muliple vendors' product
> > into
> > my shopping cart and then make one payment for all of it that would be wildly
> > more attractive from the buyer's perspective, not just the sellers which was
> > Larry's focus.
>
> Ah, that would be easy (depending on how you look at it) for the buyers but it
> could also be a nightmare. Assuming you could submit a single payment (maybe
> to someone who could then disperse it to the individual sellers, and only via
> something like Paypal or X.com (I can say that as a seller I am this close ->
> <- to only accepting electronic payment - too many trips to the bank to
> deposit $5 here, $11 there), there would have to be some sort of added fee for
> that (nobody's time is free). But think of the potential shipping costs. You
> buy from 4 sellers, maybe only $2.00 worth from each, so an $8 order. You
> could, conceivably, end up paying as much or more total to have those 4 people
> ship items to you...
I'm really leaning towards the solution that you couldn't buy from more
multiple sellers at a time. You'll have to checkout at each individual store
first before buying from the next one. Just like in a real life shopping
mall, you either pay for the items you buy before leaving the store, return
the items back where you got them from or just leave them and let the store
empoyees clean them up. Brickbay should function just like that.
I've also given a lot of thought to this:
When you add items to your cart, it will not be subtracted from the inventory
until you checkout. This means that if someone else adds the same items to
their cart and checks out first (while you have them in your cart), your
portion will not be processed when YOU checkout.
If the items were subtracted from inventory right when you add them to your
cart and the buyer just left the site without checking out and without
emptying their cart, the items would just sit in the cart possiby forever and
things could get really messy.
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In lugnet.market.shopping, Dan Jezek writes:
> I'm really leaning towards the solution that you couldn't buy from more
> multiple sellers at a time. You'll have to checkout at each individual store
> first before buying from the next one. Just like in a real life shopping
> mall, you either pay for the items you buy before leaving the store, return
> the items back where you got them from or just leave them and let the store
> empoyees clean them up. Brickbay should function just like that.
I think this would be best for a number of reasons. One is that if your
system stores each transaction as a separate entity, it would probably be
easier to have each transaction contain a single buyer and seller, as opposed
to a single buyer and three sellers. That way a buyer who made purchases from
three different sellers could check in on the status of them (I think you
mentioned the seller could update the status - maybe noting a shipping date or
something) individually. I know it could be done with multiple sellers, but
it would seem to be easier with one seller and one buyer per transaction.
> I've also given a lot of thought to this:
> When you add items to your cart, it will not be subtracted from the inventory
> until you checkout. This means that if someone else adds the same items to
> their cart and checks out first (while you have them in your cart), your
> portion will not be processed when YOU checkout.
> If the items were subtracted from inventory right when you add them to your
> cart and the buyer just left the site without checking out and without
> emptying their cart, the items would just sit in the cart possiby forever and
> things could get really messy.
Sounds good - maybe when the checkout is processed and the system discovers
the items you wanted were just bought by someone else a warning of some kind
could pop up, giving the buyer the ability to reconsider the (now) smaller
purchase?
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> In lugnet.market.shopping, Dan Jezek writes:
> > I'm really leaning towards the solution that you couldn't buy from more
> > multiple sellers at a time. You'll have to checkout at each individual store
> > first before buying from the next one. Just like in a real life shopping
> > mall, you either pay for the items you buy before leaving the store, return
> > the items back where you got them from or just leave them and let the store
> > empoyees clean them up. Brickbay should function just like that.
I agree separate checkout for each store is a good idea but it would be cool
if each buyer could have more than one shopping cart open at a time.
In a mall you go to one store and look for everything on your list, then go to
another store and repeat the process. At your site buyers have the option to
look for one piece at every store, then look for the next piece at every
store. Sure, you could track your findings by hand then run through each store
individually to make your purchases but putting items in separate carts as you
go would be a lot more efficient.
Or maybe it's all in one cart that's displayed broken down by store but when
you're ready to buy you cycle through purchase finalization steps multiple
times. I haven't seen anything like this in action but as long as you make it
clear that each separate store in a cart means another checkout (and another
shipping charge) I'd think users would glom onto the workings pretty quickly.
I don't see this as a make-or-break option though, at least on start-up. Maybe
a cool future enhancement.
Doug
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