I have been buying from Bricklink for about 20 years now. I used to buy from all over the planet but these days I buy from my own country only (USA) to save on shipping. Rather than heading to the search bar immediately, I go into “Parts” and select some part that is a bit pricy and search for someone that has the best price and quantity and go from there. Another really useful tool is sorting in the store by color. Often I am creating a MOC and need a variety of parts in one or two specific colors. I have made hundreds of purchases so, I also bookmark a store as a “Favorite” … or bookmark it in the other direction if they are a terrible store. One thing I despise is “minimum lot value”! Any store with that, i automatically block!
Trying to slowly get back into small things after roughly 15+ years, and BrickLink looking pretty tough at first, your video really helped me find my way through it. Thanks a lot, man :]
@@firebirdbricks Just made my first order and haven't been excited like this in a while 😄 Total cost is about what i remember paying back in the days for a set this size, unlike ridiculous prices nowadays and thanks to your tips. Bonus point for Seller proximity, haha. I'll say it again, thanks a lot 🙏
One major correction: 6:10 the Auto-select button *DOES NOT* necessarily give you the optimal price for minimum of stores. It is an approximation algorithm that tries to give you the best option it can quickly find, but it doesn't scan all possible combinations to give you the best one. Programmers will recognize that finding the minimal cost is an NP-Complete problem, so to this day it was not solved with an efficient algorithm they can run fast enough for you. Sometimes the Auto-select button can be great, sometime it can be quite wasteful with it's store selection. Buyers should be aware of that, since sometimes you can pay less by doing some manual shopping.
Yes but buying manuelly is really only a option when you buy few different types of bricks in large quantity, as for when you need 50-100 different types of parts in low quantity something like the auto select is kinda the only option :/
@@blop6817 Yeah, but I wanted to point out that it is not the minimal price like said in the video. Sometimes a bit of additional manual work can save you a lot of money.
Definitly helped me I just bought minifigs from 5 different stores and shipping was expensive for what i bought but still worth it lol but now i know thanks to you and ill save and be able to buy more
Dude thank you so much for doing this video. I wanted to order a bunch of pieces that I was missing for a set but was having a hard time trying to find all the pieces. Did what you did in the video and bamm. Easy Peezy. Again thank you so much.
Knew about Bricklink for years now but never had money to buy from it and for me the website was more intimidating than ebay. (to think about the hundreds of Rebels and Clone Trooper figs I could've gotten at 10) Now I use it weekly to buy minifigure pieces and parts to make my Lego Alien universe come to life. I'm so glad they have a US only list because I really don't like converting USD to other currencies when buying stuff from over seas.
Seller I bought from (DD Bricks located in Tailand & sells on both Brick Owl & Bricklink) at least a year or more ago fumbled with a piece of pieces Gave me a coupon I never used it till like this year Coupon was still good So yes, sellers will have your back, & sometimes you don't even have to report it to the seller, sometimes they can realize their error & compensate you before you even get your package BL & Brick Owl are definitely worth your time & there are some genuinely amazing sellers there. Play well y'all & have a good day ✌️
Helpful. Only I’ve found the price guide not-so-great in practice, as it’s a world-wide reference (like you stated). I’m usually going to the BUY option and filtering by country to get an idea of the real price range.
Thanks for this tutorial I’m brand new to buying from bricklink and Iearned some new things this will be good for some Mocs and customs I’m making thanks 😄
As someone who just purchased for the first time from bricklink a couple days ago, this was extremely useful and helpful video. At first glance the site can be a bit overwhelming and definitely isn’t very mobile friendly. I’ll keep this video in mind next time I look to make a purchase!
the ultimate guide it is not, would call it basics, what is interesting is when you select stores yourself you can avoid 10 shipping fees, also look for bulk sellers that want to sell you 100-1000 bricks at a time but charge extra per lot if lot is smaller than 1$ (got order that was 20$, yet shipping and handling was 50$ so watch for those), than simply add those stores to your disliked ones so auto feature will not propose them when you tick exclude disliked shops. Also you can pick manually 1 favourite shop that has let's say 90% of your order than press auto select button for last 10%. Last but not least add stores you liked in the past to favourite lists that let's you put them on search in first and see right away when they have parts you need
how do i know what parts i’m missing from a big want list because only one buyer has all of them but they are verryyy inflated and i missing one piece but don’t know which one
With the mini figures does is the price for each one or is it a lot price? Because 10 dollars for one fig rather than a lot of eight seems a little strange.
Also, if you are a Lego purist, don’t read my comment: Sometimes it doesn’t make sense to buy Lego bricks when you can get those brick from other companies with good quality. Especially talking about transclear pieces. I’ve yet to get one single piece from Lego without scratches. Marumne and a lot of other stores have a similar quality, but are usually cheaper and you can always get a bunch of them (they don’t offer everything ofc). There are also European companies to choose from, if you are interested in those. Bloxx has nice basic bricks for example (they are producing those in Italy). Some companies offer stronger clip power so that’s also a + if you want a bit of more sturdiness in some builds. Pick a brick in Lego stores can be really cheap, but you might not have one near you.
I was thinking the exact same thing. I think for some asian countries there is a risk they are using 'fake' lego parts. Usually if a deal is too good to be true, that is a sign there might be something wrong. If you try it, please post here about your results.
This depends on the store. In Europe, they offer direct bank transfers often, which is free of charge. Usually with paypal you pay a 5% fee, as there are costs involved for the store. On every store page, there is a 'Terms' section where you can usually find the payment methods they accept.
14:27 do you use PayPal’s goods and services option? I know it puts a small fee on the seller, but I also want the peace of mind that I’m not sending $80 away and might not get anything.
Really appreciate the information. Dug out my 30 year old bin of legos to play with my son and finding a few my old favorite sets are missing pieces. Completing these sets looks much more doable now. Thanks!
Sounds fun, you can simply type in the set number and press on the inventory for the set to see which parts are in the set, a lot easier to find which ones you are missing. Ofcourse you can build according to the instructions if you still have those, but it will reduce the enjoyment of building the set if you are constantly missing certain parts.
I use "long island bricks" because they even have shock absorbers which is basically suspension on a car which will definetly help with my lego Airbus A220.
I am still kind of confused about this but it still helped to know what to do you live in Michigan cool you live kind of close to me then and again that vid helped a lot thx so muck
I think it is based on trust, you can check a store's history to see how well they are rated by their customers. If a store has a huge amount of postiive ratings from other people, usually it should be safe. Don't buy anything really expensive if it is a smaller store from a country that is questionable. Try to stick to places that are in your area, it will reduce shipping costs as well. So far I haven't had any issues, all the stores I've used are really friendly and helpful. There might be some protection from Bricklink itself, where they guarantee your money until the item is delivered, but I haven't seen or used that yet.
Minifigures are overpriced regardless, but for popular themes, like Star Wars, Lord of the Rings and Castle, they are drastically more expensive. A lot of this comes down to people 'armybuilding', where they simply stack a shelve full of soldiers. This drives the prices up a lot, as an armybuilder can use up to 100 figures for a single army or more. (I"ve seen people with thousands of figures even) Your best bet is to buy them from the Pick a Brick function on the Lego store if any parts of them are available. If not, sometimes buying sets that include those figures at a discount is cheaper as well. I feel your pain though, even just having enough figures to make my castle feel alive almost costs me more than the castle itself. (and it is pretty big already)
some of the items on brick link such as the turbo tank is like 12 dollars when i know it’s worth wayyyy more, am i gonna get scammed if i buy it? and is it a legit offer?
Make sure you check the listing notes to see if it comes without figures. Sets can be listed as incomplete and the seller usually makes a note on the listing to explain the price if it doesn’t come with certain things.
You you guys have been there sitting for hours searching for specific parts and then buy them for tons of dollars? Hell no i ain't doing that especially for a really complex lego technic moc.
This is not for people that have very little time to spend and just want to build an enjoyable set. This is for people that enjoy collecting figures, or for people that like to piece sets together and mostly for people that design and build their own MOCs. That last group specifically knows exactly what they need in large quantities and just build up an inventory over time, which needs to be restocked. Bricklink is (for almost all parts) the cheapest way to do this. Still, apart from building your own design, which can be really fun (and challenging), there is no substitute for simply buying a full lego set from the store and building that according to instructions. I have yet to come upon a set that is missing any piece and the build process is overall extremely enjoyable. As someone who enjoys technic sets, I can imagine this is even more true, as designing that is a little beyond my capability as a LEGO builder.
