@Enza3D I totally agree with the ranking issue, but I also agree with @AndreasDesmedt that if a customer needs a fast turnaround, they should be able to find Hubs that can deliver it. As others have suggested, it would seem logical to provide sorting options - an additional “question” beyond layer height and material, asking for urgency.
Having said this, I think most people will want things as soon as possible, even if they don’t need them as soon as possible. I like using Amazon Prime because I get everything the next day, but in truth, many things I order sit in my office for days before I have the time to actually use them.
However, I do think that if there can be only one sorting order, it should be based upon reviews and number of orders, not speed. If a customer needs next day delivery, they can look through the suggested Hubs to find one that offers this, but their primary sort order should ignore turnaround time.
Thanks for the comments, some good ideas which I’ll feedback to the product team. I also understand the concerns, so allow me to quickly elaborate;
The shipping service update being discussed here is only about transit time, from shipping to delivery. So print quality in relation to overall turn-around is not part of this update.
The default sorting is “Best Match” which takes into account many different aspects of being a Hub (more here).
We do plan to allow customers to choose to sort by “Delivery” time as well, next to “Best match” and “Distance”. But we’re not replacing the Best Match ranking in the checkout. Sorting by price is also on the roadmap.
It’s true that some customers are not sensitive to turn-around time but more to price or service, they can keep using the “Best Match” sorting and later on sort by “Price”.
Finally, in order to keep 3D Hubs competitive and grow the platform, and driving more orders to Hubs, we have to keep adding new services. One heavily requested service by customers is fast shipping.
Hope that explains. Please let me know if any questions remain.
From a customer view point, “fast shipping” translates to fast printing. “I see you have 24hr shipping, here is my order… ‘response your print request will take 38hrs to print.’ What!?! It says 24hrs… OK do it…” Order is completed and rated down because it is not with in customers hands in 24hrs. Or they are not willing to pay $44+ for over night shipping. That is not even taking into account the poor designs or incomplete files. Or 2 hrs later oh I made a design change. I want this instead. I could go on, but seriously the system is not even close to being balanced at all.
About variability. I guess you can capture a lot of the distance variation with different specified shipping options (dedicated to regions). Weight is a bit more tricky. However, the majority of prints is below 1kg. For very big prints you should have a bit more margin to play with. If an order is really massive, I recon the customer will understand special shipping is needed. For me, that has worked so far.
You are correct and I think we’re on the same page here. My issues was never with speed being a sorting option (it should be) just with how it was implemented. The default sorting issue appears to have been corrected, and maybe it was just a bug as the update was rolled out. I just want customers to have the easiest time getting what they want, and Hubs to find a balance.
Why is it that “keeping XXX competitive” always means loosing sight of the main user ship in favor of more profitable options?!
Please take a page from Makerbots book. They had a fantastic user base who loved their product, they WERE dedicated to putting out the best product they could, and they did a great job with the rep 2 and 2x, then they lost sight of who there users were and started going after the more professional and high end pro-sumer markets because they thought it was more profitable. They completely alienated their main user base that they had established and were unable to penetrate the professional market. No professional shops use Makerbots because they are too small and not reliable enough, and they’ve alienated the maker community to the point where this year at the World Maker Fair just the mention of a Makerbot was scoffed at by everyone unanimously.
It feels as though 3D hubs is approaching a fork in the road, one side is makers and the other is professional prototypes. I don’t think you guys are even in the same stratosphere as professional prototyping shops, The company I work for does hundreds of thousands of dollars in prototypes per year, and we don’t, and never will, use 3d hubs. Cost is not a motivating factor, neither is speed. We want accountability and quality. I can call up my contact at protolabs or any other professional prototyping company and talk to the engineer that is going to be making my part. On hubs, its kind of a crap shoot to whether or not a hub is run by an engineer with some free time or just some person who bought a printer.
For most personal projects this distinction is not a big deal but for the professional world that is a show stopper. And to be frank its not worth my time to sift through the hubs to find and try one that looks professional, I would just rather pay the premium and not have to worry about it.
Please pick a user base and stick with it. You have a loving maker community that leans on you for low risk prototypes and personal projects. IF you seriously want to go up against the big boys of prototyping and professional work you need to up your game by several orders of magnitude.
While this appears to be the case now, I know yesterday (at least during the afternoon) default sorting was based on shipping speed. This was brought to my attention by a customer who was trying to place a repeat order and couldn’t find my Hub, as well as by another Hub. I’m happy that’s not the case anymore.
I also have to agree that if a customer sees overnight delivery, they will expect one day turnaround. You guys will have to make it explicitly clear to them that they are mutually exclusive and selecting overnight delivery does not guarantee one day turnaround.
Regarding shipping, its impossible to set a hard cost on overnight delivery, because it’s based on weight and distance. Is it ok to just offer it but not set a hard cost? Otherwise, I’m going to have to set it ridiculously high and that probably won’t be right for a lot of orders.
I suppose it can be handled on a case by case basis as well; a customer who lives in New York can get 1 day delivery from just USPS, which is much cheaper, whereas someone in California would need to use FedEx/UPS. I’ll have to play around with options, but it may be beneficial to notify customers when they upload a print to the main search page that quoted shipping rates (unless for flat rate) are subject to change.
