[Erland]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Trivial Psychic

snip...

Truth be told, if you "found" something because of brickseek, the numbers game just happened to be in your favor that day, not because the site could actually figure out what was sitting in a particular store's inventory. It's this promise though that keeps people coming back. A placebo for your shopping instincts if you will. I'm pretty sure that user traffic is how they make their money.

Let me explain how Brickseek works.

when you put in the UPC/SKU/DPCI number or whatever, Breekseek does a query to the site itself. As in, Brickseek, attempts to make an order for X figure at Walmarts website using the pickup in store option. It then attempts to order say 1000 of whatever UPC/SKU/DCPI number you put in. Whatever the site allows it to order is the amount in stock for that store.

Places like Target have blocked them from finding out how many are at a store because too many people have come in using Brickseek as a reference and Target didn't have the inventory on hand due to whatever excuse they had, street dates, waiting on a revamp of the department, lazy stockers, using the same number for multiple waves (think old and new spidey waves using same number) whatever excuse it was. They got tired of it and found a way to block Brickseek.

Now, the numbers the Brickseek gets only works or is accurate at 1 time a day. That is right after the end of business day or should I say when the computers finish running "EOD" for that particular store and then it updates the websites "on hand stock".

This means, that EOD could be done at midnight. Numbers updated to 0 on shelf. Then at 2am, they get a shipment in and put them on the shelves. Well, these figures won't get into inventory until the following nights EOD. So, by the time you see them show up in inventory, they can already be sold.

On the other hand, some stores run their inventory right before they open up so their inventory would be up to date by the time they open. Which would include all figures that they received by truck that night.

On top of that, Brickseek has no way to tell if the store is holding the figures until after a reset or for a street date or they just haven't got around to bringing them out for whatever reason like being short a man or 2 on stocking so the store didn't get to the toys yet so you would have to wait until they get around to pulling them out. It also doesn't take in account for orders that are pick up orders and the customer just hasn't picked it up yet. Until that order gets picked up, it's still counted in inventory, lol.

Basically, every store is different, the more you watch Brickseek and compare it to the actual in store stock (as in go there in person), the more you start to understand how the stores in your area work and you'll start to get more "successful" at getting your figures from brick and mortar stores.

Ultimately Brickseek is just a random crap shoot but it does have a seed of reality in there and it can be helpful but, not always.

Over the next few days/weeks check Brickseek before and after midnight, like at 11:50 and then again at 1am, then do it again around 7am.and see if there are any changes. If so, you know the store has them in and it's just a matter of getting lucky and hoping you find them once they get them on the shelf.