Couple of site enhancements

 

  • Couple of site enhancements

    Posted by Huw, 06 Jan 2009 14:36. Filed under Brickset.

    In response to the outcry about the missing eBay links on the set details page, I've added a new feature that shows eBay items related to the set you're looking at or the search you've performed. You can show your support for Brickset for signing up for an eBay account if you don't already have one, and/or bidding on (and winning!) any lots you see.

    Update 9th Jan: I've included a similar feature for Amazon which should work for Amazon US, UK, France and Germany. If you're in France or Germany could you let me know if you're seeing the correct box? Thanks!

    Update 9th Jan: The eBay box should now detect which country you're in and show items from the appropriate eBay site. The following countries are supported: Australia, Belgium, Canada, Spain, France, Hong Kong, India, Italy, Netherlands, Singapore, United Kingdom and the USA. Sitting here in the UK it's difficult to test this functionality so I'd really appreciate it if you'd let me know if you're seeing the right box.

    Let me know what you think of these features, I hope you find them useful and not too intrusive.


    32 comments, latest one posted 52 months ago. (Commenting has ended on this article)
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Comments

Posted by just2good in United States, 06 Jan 2009 14:53

Great idea! I always use the ebay side bars! :)

Posted by Mark K in United States, 06 Jan 2009 14:53

I agree, those were much needed

Posted by LEGOfan2009 in United States, 06 Jan 2009 16:39

hmmm, interesting

Posted by kevin30 in United States, 06 Jan 2009 16:40

Ya I love it Thanks a LOT!!!!

Great job I'm glad you do this

Kevin30

Posted by dragon_teenager in United States, 06 Jan 2009 17:23

Love this! is it possible to make it so that the site will save the cloud/list theme display choice to your cookies? I prefer cloud, and I have to click it every time I view the page.

Posted by Huw in United Kingdom, 06 Jan 2009 17:33

@dragon_teenager, yes I plan to do that

Posted by Yoda 56 in United States, 06 Jan 2009 22:59

Great update!

Posted by BionicleBOOM in United States, 07 Jan 2009 14:28

Hey, Huw, what happened to the reviews??? I went to 8980-1 Gresh to see the reviews for him, and even though it says it has 3 reviews, there's nothing there! You can search for anything in the database and there's no reviews! What's happened?

Posted by Huw in United Kingdom, 07 Jan 2009 15:02

Sorry about that BionicleBOOM -- at 18:00 GMT the database server started having trouble with the query for reviews and was causing database timeouts on the set details page. I therefore removed them while I investigated. I've made a few tweaks and as fas as I can tell everything is OK again now.

Posted by longtowner in United Kingdom, 07 Jan 2009 15:36

A good idea if your looking for the set - but I hope ebay are paying you ;-)
Why does ebay get preference over a site like Bricklink by the way, which is occupied by like-minded people and perhaps therefore should have trade encouraged with them more?

Posted by Huw in United Kingdom, 07 Jan 2009 16:38

Bricklink don't offer an easy way to do this kind of thing and don't have an affiliate scheme. You'll still find links to Bricklink on the set details pages though, I have no intention of removing them.

Posted by littlelegoluke in United States, 07 Jan 2009 18:17

Thank you i like the ebay a lot!

Posted by kevin30 in United States, 07 Jan 2009 19:27

Ya, I like ebay and use it some so this is really helpful

Posted by hustla187 in United States, 07 Jan 2009 19:42

Awesome! This is what Brickset was missing!

Posted by Toa Of Justice in United States, 08 Jan 2009 15:28

Unfortunately, some eBay links seem quite irrelevant to the page I'm looking at. For example, I got listings for Webkinz toys on this page: http://www.brickset.com/detail/?Set=5712-1
Why is this so, and can something be done about it?
-Toa Of Justice
EDIT: A second visit to that page yielded listings for iPods.

Posted by chrisdog121411 in United States, 08 Jan 2009 15:45

huw can you just put if somoeones selling the sets we view

Posted by Huw in United Kingdom, 08 Jan 2009 16:30

Unfortunately the eBay control displays the best matches it has for the search term I provide.

If you go to http://www.brickset.com/detail/?Set=3833-1 for example the search term is 'LEGO 3833' The results are part 3833 (a hat) and the SpongeBob set. There are enough results to fill the control. When there are not enough eBay tends to make a best guess at what you might want to see and usually you get totally unrelated things.

In other words, there's not much I can do about it. Sorry. Look out for the Amazon results list coming right up!

Posted by Huw in United Kingdom, 08 Jan 2009 17:03

I have just noticed that the eBay box looks pretty awful when viewed in FireFox. In IE is looks great. The control is in beta so maybe that's something they'll fix in due course.

Posted by littlelegoluke in United States, 08 Jan 2009 18:46

I have noticed that too.

Posted by Carl Sagan in United States, 08 Jan 2009 21:27

AMEN!
attentive ebay members can usually save at least $10 on lego sets, a very useful addition to brickset indeed.
-Sagan

Posted by mars4life in United States, 09 Jan 2009 01:19

Huw, I tried to post a review but when I clicked submit, it said, "There seems to be a problem -- your userID cannot identified. Please try submitting again. If you see this error continually, please contact us." I was already logged in, so what happened?

Posted by Toa Of Justice in United States, 09 Jan 2009 09:20

I understand, Huw. At least the Amazon results list knows better than to display unrelated results -- it just says that it can't find anything. Since the eBay control is in beta, maybe it'll get an option in the future to disable the guessing feature, or that feature could be improved somehow. Can you send feedback to eBay asking for feature requests?
-Toa Of Justice

Posted by Captin Rex in United States, 09 Jan 2009 14:51

cool, good job huw

Posted by Trandoshan in Canada, 09 Jan 2009 21:03

Canada works fine.

Posted by Musikfreak in Germany, 10 Jan 2009 07:21

Just to let you know: The amazonbox works fine here in Germany.

Posted by Huw in United Kingdom, 10 Jan 2009 16:25

Thanks for the feedback...

Posted by l-space in Netherlands, 12 Jan 2009 12:48

The e-Bay link works for the Netherlands, thanks for that.

Posted by obiwantrav917 in United States, 12 Jan 2009 19:17

I love it! Great Idea

Posted by LastStand in Canada, 13 Jan 2009 01:20

No. I don't like the idea with eBay here. Please take it off as it makes loading a little bit slower and more laggy.
I hate advertisements on sites as they slow my computer down and anooys me.

Also, quite mention is that the lego star wars HOTH REBEL BASE is availble on lego shop at home. Why should we pay like $100 USD for that set when its only $50 USD at lego shop at home?

Seriously ! And the lego shop at home link isn't even there as well.... which means brickset is actually supporting eBay and ripping people off.... Sad.

Heres the link from lego shop at home. You should order now as its in high demand.

http://shop.lego.com/ByTheme/Product.aspx?p=7666&cn=240&d=322

Posted by Huw in United Kingdom, 13 Jan 2009 09:44

@LastStand, I'm sorry you don't like the eBay links. The consensus seems to be that they are useful, so they are here to stay. They shouldn't slow the page down too much because the content comes from the eBay server after the main part of the page has loaded.

The LEGOshop.com link isn't there for the Hoth base because it's not available in the USA or the UK.

Huw

Posted by Toa Of Justice in United States, 13 Jan 2009 16:20

Huw, the Hoth Rebel Base *is* available in the USA and Canada...check the link.
-Toa Of Justice

Posted by Perigrin in United States, 19 Jan 2009 18:39

Do one for Bricklink

Commenting has ended on this article.