What is BrickSeek?
BrickSeek is a tool designed for checking inventory and stock in brick-and-mortar stores near you. It allows you to check the best available deals so that you can get your desired products at the lowest possible price. The company works only and only in the United States.
BrickSeek is in no way affiliated to the brick-and-mortar stores. This means that the information displayed on the website should not be considered as the gold standard, or in other words, there may be inaccuracies.
The good thing about BrickSeek is that they clearly mention that there can be inaccuracies in stocks and inventories because of several reasons. So, trusting them completely might not be a clever idea.
How BrickSeek Works?
BrickSeek positions itself as the price checker of the Internet. There was a time when BrickSeek used to give deals only for offline stores, but now it brings deals from online stores as well.
In simpler words, it works with some of the country’s largest retailers and finds their in-store deals. Once you find a deal, you can grab it by visiting a store manually and purchasing the item.
But here is one teeny-tiny problem – by the time you go to the store, the stock may no longer be available.
BrickSeek has a solution for that, too! They have an inventory checker that will allow you to check whether the stocks are still available or not.
BrickSeek works with several well-known brands like Office Depot, Lowe’s, Target, and Walmart. If you are looking for online deals, you can get that for Amazon, Walmart, and any other business that has eCommerce solutions available.
They have dedicated deals pages for trending and latest deals where you can find amazing, discounted products. For online deals, you can just follow the link and make the purchases from the respective platforms, provided, the products are still available.
As far as offline deals are concerned, you must keep in mind a few thing:
- Use your ZIP code to find the nearest stores with deals. That will save you a lot of trouble.
- You can find products using SKU, UPC, Item number and so on to find a product you want.
Finding a product using BrickSeek is as simple as searching by a product name on the search bar.
However, if you know other details like SKU number or UPC number, you can use them to find the products as well and check inventory in your nearby stores. Of course, you should combine such searches with your ZIP code.
Here is a sample search:
If you want, you can even use their SKU finder to get the SKU for any product (of course, not all retailers will have SKU. Some will have “Item Number.”
Here is how the SKU finder works:
Just click on the SKU finder link and a search box will appear. Type in any product and it will show the search result in the popup box along with the SKU.
You can now copy the SKU and go back to deal finder search, select the SKU option, enter the SKU, enter your ZIP code, and hit the Check Inventory button.
If the product you are looking for is available in any local store in your provided ZIP code, it will be displayed along with the available deals.
The same method works for just about any retailer you select. For instance, if you want to find something on Target, you can find it using DPCI. Alternatively, you can use the DPCI finder to find the DPCI number for the product you want. It works the same way as the SKU finder for Walmart.
The modus operandi of BrickSeek is quite simple. There is nothing complex about it. You can quickly get a hang of it in just less than 5 minutes.
The Markdown
You will come across a term called Markdown while browsing BrickSeek. In case you are not aware of what it means, here is a simple explanation:
Markdown simply means devaluation of any product. Devaluation happens when a product fails to be sold at the initially planned selling price. The seller might want to clear off the stock by devaluing it and lowering its price.
Now, BrickSeek can tell you about the markdowns at your local stores, but for that you will need a premium account with BrickSeek. The free account is not going to give you that information.
Pricing Plans of BrickSeek
BrickSeek has three tiers of pricing plans available, and they are:
Basic Membership
You do not need to pay anything for this plan. It is free – forever! This plan will give you only one local inventory alert. The alert gets updated only a few times a week. It will also allow you to check inventory in your local area.
You will not get markdowns by store.
Premium Membership
This plan will cost you $9.99 a month. You will get 5 local inventory alerts, and the alerts are updated every day. This will also allow you to access pricing records, up to 2x store results, and you can check inventory in your local area.
Additionally, you will get access to the members’ area where you will get 100 popular searches, 75 ‘Today’s Markdowns’ (that is, day-to-day markdowns), and you will get markdowns by store.
Moreover, you will get to browse an ad-free site, and you will have access to a premium dashboard and premium forums.
Extreme Membership
The Extreme plan costs $29.99 a month and provides 50 local inventory alerts updated twice daily. You will also get access to pricing records, 4x store results, and you can run inventory checks in your local area. You will get the ability to hide items from your feed, and you can add items to your shopping list.
The members area access will give you 200 popular searches, 150 ‘Today’s Markdowns,’ store-wise markdowns, local markdowns feed, and online markdowns.
Of course, you will have access to an ad-free site, and you will have access to a premium dashboard and various premium forums.
Conclusion
BrickSeek is a great platform if you are looking forward to saving some dollars. If you are a frequent buyer, you can save a lot, especially if you are using their paid memberships. The markdowns really make it worth spending on a premium plan.
BrickSeek comes in really handy specially during the holiday seasons where you can save big on gifts. Considering the fact that shopping is a natural habit of humans, using BrickSeek is always a wise choice.
If you are planning on purchasing a paid membership, I will suggest that you go for their Premium Membership first. If it works out great for you, you can always upgrade to the Extreme plan.
