Nice content. Looking at the 14% used sales, it may seem low at first glance, but they are actually seeming to perform better than new parts, at least in relation to your inventory's value, since it was only 4% of used inv. Also it would be great to see the color sales in relation to total inventory of same colour, to really understand which ones move faster. Cause obviously if you have 200 lots of red and only 50 of blue you are almost surely going to sell more red, doesn't mean that it is selling faster than blue (relative to total). Thanks man!
Thanks for watching and the comment - Brick Freedom doesn't give you any data on what colour in New vs Used sell - but I do know that the bulk of my used in the standard Star Wars stuff (as that's the sets it came from), so mainly LBG, DBG, Black and then other colours after that. But, yes, at 14% things performed well, although I feel it was mainly standard bricks and plates that really pushed that up.
Really interesting. Wonder if you track some more traditional financial metrics like inventory turns, ROIC, etc. I have been tracking individual set purchases that I resell, but it's hard to get an idea of how the margins are on the stuff added to inventory.
@@GrumpyOldBricks I don’t track specific ROIC as I see that as part of general cap ex which I do track but don’t share in the stats as it always brings a load of tax avoiding suggestions. I am trying to figure out a way to get some financial metrics into this.
@@YellowBrickRoadLego lol yeah everyone has their opinion on taxes. lots of the targets depends on your model. if you are trying to just get big then likely lots of volume vs lots of margin like a grocery store. if you are focusing on minis or complete sets then buy price and margin matters more. i have been trying both with and it's been mixed. then there is the opportunity cost of everything and the never ending amount of bins lol. sometimes i think it would be better to just buy a whole store outright to get scale. either way great stuff. i have a bit of a background in finance and am always willing to chat offline if you would like. i would even comp you for it.
Love all the data you are sharing here. Question: would you be interested to know the rank of your items in the sales page? I'm working on something to fetch this as I find it quite an important piece of data. Curious to hear from others too.
Thanks Lucas. As a bit of a data nerd I'm always interested in knowing detail - whether it proves useful over the long-term is another question as is the case with some if not most of my own monthly data - as Guy's comment says, you can have a good week and then drop like a stone for unknown reasons - but certainly interested to hear more.
would you consider adding how much you spend each month on product/inventory. I feel like you can have all this data but still make no profit if a seller spends a lot, I’m just curious if there is a profit margin. Just wondering!
The big expense no one thinks about is part depreciation. The race to the bottom on price means your inventory is losing value the longer it takes to sell it. The more parts you have the more it costs you in depreciation. People don't seem to think about this because they don't see the amount as an explicit transaction in their bank account (it's hidden in the form of lower income)
@@AlCor-s1i I am trying to work in some more specific costs/margin profit element so for the next update to give it a bit more of reality check - but if you have questions feel free to message me.
@@dang3304 of course you can argue that buying at the right price and not being concerned about 6 month averages and seeing parts as an investment that can and do increase offsets any lower pricing needed. That comes down to buying right and monitoring what a sale price is needed to break even and being willing to wait for that sale.
@@YellowBrickRoadLego The average part price depreciation of new parts on Bricklink is nearly 20% yoy. Imagine trying to pick winners in a stock market that's falling 20% a year. Maybe it's possible, but the odds are overwhelmingly against you. A good way to figure out what works is to look at the top 10 stores by revenue, they're almost all doing the same quick flip strategy of parting out sets, listing the parts, then discounting them more aggressively each month in order to turn the parts over fast. They don't want to hold onto the stock while it depreciates. Those parts look cheap compared to the 6 month average, but they aren't actually cheap, it's an illusion becuase the 6 month average is historical and it takes time to reset down to the new market price. If you're not careful you can end up catching a falling knife.
@@dang3304 would be interesting to see the data to back that up for sure. But again it depends if you are a store looking to match or better 6 month average that given local market.
Hi, it's me again (‾◡◝) Interesting as always seeing how you make so much effort in analyzing your store data. I still pretty much just wing it. Maybe notice a part here or there that seems popular or rare to try and add. Mostly just brute force as many sets to part out that I don't think will necessarily do well after retirement (plus some new high part out value sets) as I can before burning out:). It would be nice to have free child labor like most stores probably have. I had a strange two weeks in sales, last week I had more sales and bigger than ever (for me) then I had to take the week end off to dismantle a massive shed and foundation. ( I would normally work 7 days) Then this week my sales dropped to ten times less each day in value !. . . Another possible reason is another store last week made a really big purchase of parts that I think were on the more rare side, not sure if both contributed.ㄟ( ▔, ▔ )ㄏ
Thanks Guy, Child labour would be good - or a child genius that can make sense of collecting all the data!! HA!! Sales have been one week good, then a slower week for the last 4-6 weeks personally, perhaps it's the time of year or all the other things on at the moment in people's lives - but... one day the magic formula will appear - if I keep searching!!! Thanks as always for watching and contributing.
@@YellowBrickRoadLego ..haha.. true. I cursively have noticed medium sized stores tend to be family run.. And I underestimated how much time a store near our size takes to upkeep. I don't really mind as it interests me, but can't imagine how difficult it must be for some stores that do it purely as a job ＼(ﾟｰﾟ＼) .. Where I am it has gone from super cold to pretty hot, so I thought maybe people are going outside rather than making moc's etc...
Nice content. Looking at the 14% used sales, it may seem low at first glance, but they are actually seeming to perform better than new parts, at least in relation to your inventory's value, since it was only 4% of used inv. Also it would be great to see the color sales in relation to total inventory of same colour, to really understand which ones move faster. Cause obviously if you have 200 lots of red and only 50 of blue you are almost surely going to sell more red, doesn't mean that it is selling faster than blue (relative to total). Thanks man!
Thanks for watching and the comment - Brick Freedom doesn't give you any data on what colour in New vs Used sell - but I do know that the bulk of my used in the standard Star Wars stuff (as that's the sets it came from), so mainly LBG, DBG, Black and then other colours after that. But, yes, at 14% things performed well, although I feel it was mainly standard bricks and plates that really pushed that up.
Really interesting. Wonder if you track some more traditional financial metrics like inventory turns, ROIC, etc.
I have been tracking individual set purchases that I resell, but it's hard to get an idea of how the margins are on the stuff added to inventory.
@@GrumpyOldBricks I don’t track specific ROIC as I see that as part of general cap ex which I do track but don’t share in the stats as it always brings a load of tax avoiding suggestions. I am trying to figure out a way to get some financial metrics into this.
@@YellowBrickRoadLego lol yeah everyone has their opinion on taxes. lots of the targets depends on your model. if you are trying to just get big then likely lots of volume vs lots of margin like a grocery store. if you are focusing on minis or complete sets then buy price and margin matters more. i have been trying both with and it's been mixed. then there is the opportunity cost of everything and the never ending amount of bins lol. sometimes i think it would be better to just buy a whole store outright to get scale. either way great stuff. i have a bit of a background in finance and am always willing to chat offline if you would like. i would even comp you for it.
@@GrumpyOldBricks would love too chat. And yes, buying a store was a major step change for the store as it pushed us from one level to the next.
Love all the data you are sharing here. Question: would you be interested to know the rank of your items in the sales page?
I'm working on something to fetch this as I find it quite an important piece of data. Curious to hear from others too.
Thanks Lucas. As a bit of a data nerd I'm always interested in knowing detail - whether it proves useful over the long-term is another question as is the case with some if not most of my own monthly data - as Guy's comment says, you can have a good week and then drop like a stone for unknown reasons - but certainly interested to hear more.
Are all these graphs from brickfreedom? Im a bl seller canada and enjoy your content alot!
There's a few from BrickFreedom - the pie charts and inventory/lots graph, but otherwise I create them myself from their number data.
@@YellowBrickRoadLego awesome great job.
would you consider adding how much you spend each month on product/inventory. I feel like you can have all this data but still make no profit if a seller spends a lot, I’m just curious if there is a profit margin. Just wondering!
The big expense no one thinks about is part depreciation. The race to the bottom on price means your inventory is losing value the longer it takes to sell it. The more parts you have the more it costs you in depreciation. People don't seem to think about this because they don't see the amount as an explicit transaction in their bank account (it's hidden in the form of lower income)
@@AlCor-s1i I am trying to work in some more specific costs/margin profit element so for the next update to give it a bit more of reality check - but if you have questions feel free to message me.
@@dang3304 of course you can argue that buying at the right price and not being concerned about 6 month averages and seeing parts as an investment that can and do increase offsets any lower pricing needed. That comes down to buying right and monitoring what a sale price is needed to break even and being willing to wait for that sale.
@@YellowBrickRoadLego The average part price depreciation of new parts on Bricklink is nearly 20% yoy. Imagine trying to pick winners in a stock market that's falling 20% a year. Maybe it's possible, but the odds are overwhelmingly against you. A good way to figure out what works is to look at the top 10 stores by revenue, they're almost all doing the same quick flip strategy of parting out sets, listing the parts, then discounting them more aggressively each month in order to turn the parts over fast. They don't want to hold onto the stock while it depreciates. Those parts look cheap compared to the 6 month average, but they aren't actually cheap, it's an illusion becuase the 6 month average is historical and it takes time to reset down to the new market price. If you're not careful you can end up catching a falling knife.
@@dang3304 would be interesting to see the data to back that up for sure. But again it depends if you are a store looking to match or better 6 month average that given local market.
Hi, it's me again (‾◡◝)
Interesting as always seeing how you make so much effort in analyzing your store data. I still pretty much just wing it. Maybe notice a part here or there that seems popular or rare to try and add.
Mostly just brute force as many sets to part out that I don't think will necessarily do well after retirement (plus some new high part out value sets) as I can before burning out:). It would be nice to have free child labor like most stores probably have.
I had a strange two weeks in sales, last week I had more sales and bigger than ever (for me) then I had to take the week end off to dismantle a massive shed and foundation. ( I would normally work 7 days) Then this week my sales dropped to ten times less each day in value !. . . Another possible reason is another store last week made a really big purchase of parts that I think were on the more rare side, not sure if both contributed.ㄟ( ▔, ▔ )ㄏ
Thanks Guy, Child labour would be good - or a child genius that can make sense of collecting all the data!! HA!! Sales have been one week good, then a slower week for the last 4-6 weeks personally, perhaps it's the time of year or all the other things on at the moment in people's lives - but... one day the magic formula will appear - if I keep searching!!! Thanks as always for watching and contributing.
@@YellowBrickRoadLego ..haha.. true. I cursively have noticed medium sized stores tend to be family run.. And I underestimated how much time a store near our size takes to upkeep. I don't really mind as it interests me, but can't imagine how difficult it must be for some stores that do it purely as a job ＼(ﾟｰﾟ＼) .. Where I am it has gone from super cold to pretty hot, so I thought maybe people are going outside rather than making moc's etc...