13 Success Tips For Selling on Bricklink (& LEGO Part Out Guide)

If you have only brought Lego directly from the Lego shop, you may never have heard of BrickLink.

You will discover a gold mine on Bricklink where you can sell individual Lego bricks, a niche that Bricklink caters for in over 70 countries.

So if you are only just starting your Bricklink store or want to grow your current store on other platforms, here are 13 tips from our years of experience selling on the largest online Lego marketplace.

1. Get To Know The Bricklink Site 

If you have never used Bricklink before, familiarize yourself with the site. Take a look at the site’s favorite sellers and see how they run their stores. 

The best thing you can do to understand how the buying and selling process works on Bricklink is to make an order yourself. Experience the whole process from a buyer’s perspective to know what other buyers expect when using your store. 

Interacting and buying from other stores can give your profile positive feedback, which can help your profile to quickly build rapport before you’ve even listed your first lot. 

2. Don’t Invest Everything Straight Away 

You may be tempted to stock up a load of inventory before making your first sale, but this can damage your Bricklink success.

While BrickLink can be used to re-sell old Lego sets, most hobby sellers that use BrickLink part out Lego sets and sell individual pieces.

This is where you can make the most money. 

Parting out Lego sets is a very time-consuming task and can quickly get overwhelming if you’re new to parting out new sets. So, take your time to build your stock.

Only buy as much as you can manage at any given time. 

3. How To Avoid Over Investing In BrickLink

Figure out what you want to sell on BrickLink before you waste your money on Lego that you will be unmotivated to list. 

Only buy Lego from a reputable Lego retailer like Walmart, Target or from the official Lego shop that you can then resell for a profit.

The rule of thumb for selling individual bricks is buying a set you know you can part out for 3 times the original price. 

Wait until there are sales or clearance deals so you can make an even bigger profit. Doing so will limit your spending and ensure that you are not overwhelming your stock or yourself. 

4. Keep Your Space Organized

Once you have opened a store on BrickLink and have added some lots, it has the potential to grow very quickly. Get your store and inventory organized from the start. 

Every piece of Lego that you buy is an investment. By that logic, the more pieces a set has, the better profit you can make.

However, when Lego is selling sets including up to 11, 695 pieces, you will soon realize that keeping track of inventory and simply running your BrickLink store can be a nightmare if you don’t have a way to organize your bricks. 

Invest in things that will help your Lego reselling business growing.  Tools like storage containers, scanners, and labeling equipment to keep your Lego organized using a system that best works for you. 

Take a look at some of Reselling & Business Resources To Help you stay organized by clicking here.

5. What Organizational Systems Should You Use? 

Even if you’re not a typically organized person, it will pay to find an organizational system that you can follow to keep your BrickLink store functioning properly. 

The best Lego storage and sorting system to use is a number-based one. 

Separate each Lego brick type (e.g., a 2×2 type, stud type) and assign it a number. Then, for each variation of that piece, add a secondary number, e.g., 1.1, 1.2, 1.3. 

You should keep a tight track of your current stock to know how your business is doing. The best organizational system for doing this is creating a spreadsheet that you can easily update every time you make a sale. 

A simple excel spreadsheet with numbers correlating to your storage system number will work perfectly.

It may seem like a time-consuming task to initially set up, but once you have a spreadsheet up and running, it will make your inventory tracking far more efficient. 

6. Pricing Your Lots 

Due to there being more than 13400 BrickLink stores (as of 4/2022) registered on BrickLink, it is essential to figure out a pricing system for your lots that is both competitive and affordable. 

In this sense, knowledge is power. Take a look at other shops on the site and see how they price their lots. 

If you are opening your BrickLink store for the first time, your best bet is to look at the 6 month average selling price for an item and base your own pricing on this. 

Over time, as you acquire more stock, list more unique items, and build rapport, you will be able to increase the price of your lots. Specifically, lots that are individual bricks. 

This is because buyers will typically buy from shops in bulk to save on shipping costs. So long as you are a reliable seller and your shipping prices are not astronomical, you will be able to charge a little more for each lot. 

7. Bricklink Part Out Guide 

Until you have built that reputation on the site, use BrickLink’s part out guide and set resale guide. 

Figuring out the price for an individual brick can be difficult if you are new to parting out Lego sets. To make the task easier and provide a general price guide so sellers don’t overcharge new customers, BrickLink has provided a part out guide. 

Input the set you are parting out, what condition that set is in and what that set includes e.g., the original box, minifigures, etc. 

The guide will generate the average selling part out price for the last 6 months, the current average price, and how many stores are selling the parts for the set in the same condition as you. 

Remember, this is a guide.

It would be best to consider the range of other expenses like packing costs when pricing your lots and price accordingly. So long as you are making 3 x the original price of the set, then you are on the right track. 

8. Establishing Shipping Costs 

Shipping costs are listed separately from the lot costs on BrickLink. It is entirely up to you how much you charge & what shipping methods you use.

Creating a transparent postage policy is the best way to ensure that your shipping charges are not off-putting to buyers but affordable for you as a business. 

This will allow extra weight charges to be covered when you ship the items to customers compared to if you charged a flat shipping rate which would mean dipping into your own pocket. 

Decide which postal service you will be using to ship to your buyers and base your postal policy on the service’s own scale.

You can always charge a little extra considering you will also have to accommodate for packaging, shipping label costs and fuel prices, but be reasonable in your pricing and there will be few complaints. 

9. Unique Lego Parts 

Every piece of Lego is a unique part. Even if you have the same brick but in a different color, they will be two unique parts.

Like in your typical retail store, the more varied stock a shop has, the more potential buyers can be accommodated for. 

In order to make your store known, you should first focus on the number of unique parts you have rather than the quantity of items you have in stock. 

Though it may seem like it at first, you will not have to go out of your way or pay extra money to ensure that you have a variety of unique parts you can sell. 

Lego sets are already full of unique parts – it’s what makes building Lego so fun! Some sets will have more variety in their Lego bricks than others. 

For example, as of December 2021, the Lego Ninjago City Gardens was the number 1 set in terms of part variety with 1,125 unique bricks even though it only had 5,685 pieces. 

When you are buying new Lego sets to part out, do some research into how many unique pieces you will be able to get from the set and determine if it will be worth your time and effort to part out. 

What Is A Unique Part? 

The name itself can be misleading, but a unique part is not necessarily a rare part. They can be a popular part from popular sets too. 

A unique part is a part that is distinguishable from another in either shape, color, etc. Keep this in mind when it comes to organizing and listing your stock on BrickLink.

Each unique part needs to be listed as its own lot and so your organizing system should reflect this. 

10. Create A Brand

Like any store, creating a brand and personality for your own BrickLink store will make sure that customers remember you. 

Build a personality before and after you have set up your store.  

There is only so much you can do to make your store stand out visually on BrickLink, but how you interact with customers, the types of items you sell, and how you package your goods can help make your store stand out from the 10,000 others registered on BrickLink. 

You might even go as far as starting a YouTube channel or build a strong presence on social media.

How to Create A Brand On BrickLink

You don’t need a million followers to be successful. You should start wit the basics first.

Setting up a seller account on BrickLink is easy enough so long as you have thought of a few key points beforehand: 

• Your store name 
• Logo (profile picture) 
• Background color
• Header  

BrickLink doesn’t offer too much in terms of store customization, but the above can be altered to build your store’s unique brand. 

You can then follow the step by step process to get the account up and running, ready to make your first listing. 

11. Be An Active Lego Community Member 

BrickLink is as much a community of sellers as it is an online marketplace. Your store will struggle to grow if all you do is sell your bricks and ignore the rest of the site. 

This isn’t to say that you have to spend money and buy from other buyers to be part of the community. Instead, take a shot at networking. 

There are a few Brick Link seller forums on BrickLink itself where sellers can get to know each other and offer each other advice. 

Making yourself known in the community not just as a username but as a person will make you more accessible as a store and may make you seem more trustworthy to potential customers. 

12. Keep Customers Happy 

A bad customer experience will reflect poorly on your store regardless of what type of store you are running, but BrickLink’s buying community is especially persuaded by the customer rating of each store. 

You must work hard at building up this rating by working hard to please potential buyers. This will not always mean replying to customer complaints or problems – though this is a big part of keeping your customers happy!

You can also build your store rating simply by being approachable and pleasant to talk to. 

13. Set Your Store Terms And Conditions From Day One

Having a clear set of terms and conditions that you abide by from the first day of operating your BrickLink store will allow buyers to know what to expect when buying from your shop.

Having your standards set and easily accessible via your store will also help avoid confusion if an issue arises with your store. 

Some policies to have displayed on your store could include: 

• Shipping policy 
• Condition expectancy 
• Accepted payment methods 
• Return and cancellation policies 

You may also want to outline some FAQs to help enforce these policies on your BrickLink store page. 

Final Thoughts

Selling on BrickLink is not as complicated as it seems, which is why so many people try to do it. However, many people fail to build rapport or understand how much effort it takes to run a BrickLink store. 

You can use many tips and tricks to grow your own BrickLink store successfully, but the best way to do so is to think of your store not as an image on a screen but as a brick and mortar store. 

Engaging with customers and other sellers, keeping stock organized, and building your own brand will all help you grow your BrickLink store into a profitable hobby or even business. 

Related Questions

How much does it cost to sell on BrickLink?

Like most online marketplaces, Bricklink does have seller fees which can be found here. 

Is it easy to sell on BrickLink?

In short, yes. Once you’ve set up your own store and can navigate the selling listing process, selling on BrickLink is very easy. The hard part is keeping organized.