BrickLink Question

[toystest]

I am new to Bricklink and I noticed that almost none of the 'stores' have upfront shipping costs listed. Do they just tag those on after you order and you have no choice but to pay?

[vynsane]

Yes, it's calculated after an order is submitted. Most stores will have their shipping policy on their 'store terms' page, so click that tab to check it out. Of the things that I've bought sometimes the shipping has been VERY reasonable, and other times it's been a bit disproportionate to the item. I paid more for shipping one time for a single hair piece than I did for the hair itself (it was still the best price by far for that piece, however!)

For the most part I've found shipping on BL to be more reasonable than ebay.

[toystest]

thanks for the answer :)
One more thing, if the shipping is unreasonable can you still cancel the order or are you stuck?
and ebay's shipping cost are completely out of control. A 5$ item with 12.00 S&H seems to be the norm. Add to that the 12% sellers fee and the 3-5% paypal fee... man it's almost an airline.

[legitimatealex]

thanks for the answer :)
One more thing, if the shipping is unreasonable can you still cancel the order or are you stuck?
and ebay's shipping cost are completely out of control. A 5$ item with 12.00 S&H seems to be the norm. Add to that the 12% sellers fee and the 3-5% paypal fee... man it's almost an airline.

You can cancel it. If the shipping comes back and you think it is unreasonable most people have posted on their shop page that they are willing to negotiate a better price, and will do so by removing the box for a set or maybe just sending it in an envelope. I've only gotten three pieces off of Bricklink on three different occasions and two of them I ended up looking for a different seller because the original seller was obviously yanking my chain on the shipping price.

$7 for a minifigure to be shipped? Toss it in an envelope and be done with it. The price of a postage stamp and an envelope plus your moment to drop it off at the post...Just no.

[vynsane]

Yeah, it definitely depends on the seller. I have to say, the store Ichiban is AWESOME. I got most of the pieces I needed for the Phoenix Fireball MOC from that store. As I get more into selling I'm going to pattern my shipping on this guy's policy page, since it's pretty solid.

[toystest]

I had been looking for a good one to base my shipping rates on, and that one looks very good (and not too expensive either)

[legohunter]

I am a newbie to bricklink, and I started shopping from them this year in January. For first few trans, it were smooth. However, recently I found that few of the sellers not getting as friendly/patient as before. One thing you should know about me, I was always being nice + friendly in all e-mails/messages.

I wonder how many lots and how many pieces of each lots did you usually ordered from bricklink?

One of the cases was that I tried to order many lots with not more than 4 to 5 pieces per lot. At the end, I found that I messed up the order. I informed the seller that it was totally my mistake and I apologized for it. I asked the seller if it was possible to remove all of the lots from my order, and let me start over from an empty lot. However, the seller was upset. He cancelled my order and put me in his store's blacklist. This was the second time I shop from him, now I could not access his store anymore.

Second case which happened recently, again this was the second time I shop from this seller. In my first order, I made an order of 50 lots with 291 items. The seller applied the shipping charge for a little more than $2. I got my package fast because he was not far from where I lived. I was very happy, so I decided that he would be one of my favourite seller. However, in second order, I ordered two rare mini-fig(low asking price) plus some items, the seller asked for $8 shipping charge. This order only contained 21 lots with total of 67 items. I requested the seller for explanation, and he told me that the second order was bulky. He said the mini-fig was bulky.

[vynsane]

I would say those are unusual occurrences, but I've only begun buying on BL four months ago, and only started selling a few weeks ago. Of the 11 orders I've placed, only one took longer to respond/ship than I felt comfortable with, but he was apologetic and I got the stuff. Others were invoicing me within a day or two (in a few cases, the same day) and shipping within another day of payment (or the same day, as is the case with one seller!)

Basically, same as ebay, everyone's only human. Some of the sellers are doing it almost for a living (some run independent brick and mortar stores, even) but if you catch someone on a bad day, you never know. For the most part, the benefit of BrickLink over ebay is that most sellers on BL are hobbyists themselves, whereas ebay sellers have a higher chance of not being so knowledgeable.

[funnypeople]

I am new to Bricklink and I noticed that almost none of the 'stores' have upfront shipping costs listed. Do they just tag those on after you order and you have no choice but to pay?

You can contact them first before adding it to your cart. Some sellers charges high amounts of shipping.

[vynsane]

Some sellers charges high amounts of shipping.

Yeah, I'm wary of sellers that have no shipping/handling policy on their Terms page. I didn't make any sales until I had my shipping terms outlined. I also didn't buy from anyone who had outlandish or non-existent shipping terms. Be aware of sellers who have really low prices and no outlined shipping charges - they're probably listing low to get visibility and looking to make up the difference in fees.