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Subject: 
Re: Automated Inventory Ordering through Bricklink
Newsgroups: 
lugnet.inv, lugnet.cad.dev, lugnet.cad.mlcad, lugnet.market.brickshops
Date: 
Fri, 14 Jan 2005 22:46:14 GMT
Viewed: 
17894 times
  
I wrote a utility, for my own use, about two years ago that
takes a .dat file and attempts to find "best" way to buy the parts
via BrickLink.  I'd planned to produce custom sets and source the
parts for them this way.  It was working well when last I looked at it,
but I was having a hard time finding a model that I could offer at a
resonable markup that wasn't too expensive for customers think about
buying, so it's not gotten much attention since then...

I could maybe be convinced to dig it up again : )

-JSM

Dave Hurley wrote:
<SNIP>
I'll get to the point now: is there currently or in-the-works someone writing a
program/applet that can take a tag-delimited parts list (such as a Peeron,
LUGNET, MS Excel spreadsheet, etc.) cross reference it with Bricklink's engine
(or another) and automatically spit out a batch-order for either one or all
stores that get hits from the user's list?

In other words, let's say that I have a parts list containing 60 line items.  I
can get 45 of them from Used Brick Liquidators (my favorite) and the other 15
from three other stores.  If I had to start from scratch, I would have to enter
each part manually into the storefront of UBL and the three other stores, after
I individually located them using Bricklink's search engine. This could take a
few days if I was crunched for time.  But if I had this new feature/application,
I could input my specially-formatted  parts list (generated from MLCad, Peeron,
or MS Excel, or whatever) and it would crunch through all the data in a
batch-processing style and display an editable shopping cart-style order form
for each store.

These stores could be selected from a list, or from the user's profile, or after
the search engine found the hits and displayed the options next to each part.  I
believe this way of ordering could save a lot of time.  If I'm lucky, it may be
already done.  But I'm afraid something like this might be too ambitious for our
community to tackle, or a lack of interest/will to integrate this into the
Bricklink engine.

If anyone has thoughts on this, let me know.  I know this post sounds
complicated, but I tried to capture some of the technical/developer aspects into
the problem description in order to stimulate some ideas.  If I were to try and
do this myself, I'd probably never finish it due to my weak programming skills,
plus, I'd need the Bricklink people's permission, without which could render
this a stillborn idea.

Dave H.



Message has 1 Reply:
  Re: Automated Inventory Ordering through Bricklink
 
(...) I beleive that this is the hardest part of the automated 'from-CAD-to-shop' process. There are so many variables, obviously element avaialability but also price and geographical location. Also when using the By Shop sorting feature in (...) (19 years ago, 17-Jan-05, to lugnet.inv, lugnet.cad.dev, lugnet.cad.mlcad, lugnet.market.brickshops)

Message is in Reply To:
  Automated Inventory Ordering through Bricklink
 
Greetings all, I was discussing some time-saving MOC parts ideas and I came up with an idea for a software utility that could significantly reduce the amount of time spent digging around for loose parts. Currently, to the best of my knowledge, when (...) (19 years ago, 14-Jan-05, to lugnet.inv, lugnet.cad.dev, lugnet.cad.mlcad, lugnet.market.brickshops)

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