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Hi guys,

I’m in a bit of a predicament. I’ve been a Hubber for a long time now and I’m having a bit of trouble understanding the Best Match system. I have had a ton of orders in my county that I’m located in, yet fail to show up in the “Best Match”. Averaging a 4.9 rating, repeating customers, multiple selections of machines, quick response time, and strive for best customer service, I’m still at a standstill pickle.

Am I being penalized for declining orders in some fashion or another? If so, that really sucks. I’m dedicated to my craft. I’ve had to decline things for a varitey of reasons including but unlimited to:

1. There are certain instances where things are just not 3D printable and customers don’t understand why.

2. I have had requests in the past where there were malicious orders with someone trying to intentionally sabotage my rating for their personal gain. While this is incredibly uncommon it has happened.

3. I have had a Medical device order request (feel free to check). I’m based in the United States, and I am not certified in my state to manufacture any medical related devices that will be in a laboratory. This can be considered a federal crime.

Other Things:

4. Upon accepting an order, the customer themselves have requested to cancel. I’ve noticed that sometimes this appears as “Cancelled” or “Customer Cancelled”. I feel like this is two different systems, and either way I’m somehow being penalized for Cancellations.

5. I’ve had the occasional instance of where my bot literally caught on fire. It was an emergency situation and I had to cancel. Please don’t tell me to “maintain my bot” better. My machines go through deep cleaning at the beginning and end of everyday. Shit happens, and these bots most people have on this site are not Professional Dimension machines.

6. I’ve had one person who was not happy with a print, and I offered them a full refund AND full reprint until they were satisfied. They declined the reprint and took the refund while still keeping the part; so I’m unsure where this would even fall.

Under the rare circumstances I do not have the machine capable printing (which I have a variety of, check my hub. The only one I don’t have is a professional SLS Nylon) – I don’t just flat out decline them, I always fill out the form and forward it to the next hub with much needed information.

What am I doing wrong? Is there something else us Hubbers should be doing to rectify this situation? If you could please clarify it would be much better understanding. I love this site and service, but the politics behind it being secretive need to be announced so that we can be a better Hub 3D Hubs expects from their users.

Manufacturers such as Shapeways, iMaterialise, and any other big name brand Decline Orders because of the same reasons above. I don’t think think it’s fair to downrank a user because of these issues if this is what is actually happening. If its not, it certainly feels like it.

Thanks for reading, looking forward to some responses.

Cotterpin

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It is a serious matter where a transparent answer is in order

So 3Dhub react please.

I had two subsequent declinations in a row myself , which wher not my fualt . I think best match rating can be manipulated. It is one of the usps of 3dhubs to find a hub nearby and not 20 k further as “best match” . idea: Why not to decrease distance of " best match criteria and define this per country, because the Netherlands is different then US compared with the 3d printer density!

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I have the same problem,

if I look for hubs in my neighbourhood I get hubs located km’s far away being higher in the list then my own hub,

even being more cheap and have a faster response time doesn’t matter.

I never thought about being down ranked because of cancelling orders,

I had a few that were unprintable, or the customer wasn’t willing to pay the extra cost for massive support and removal needed for the print.

3D hubs told me there are several factors that account for how high up in the list you are, but won’t exactly tell me what these factors are :slight_smile:

[edit] I forgot to add, that also 3Dhubs customers place several orders for the same object, at the same time, just to see who is cheaper.

and ignore any questions about the part or about the order, and results in a canceled order :frowning:

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Bump… this thread needs to be addressed, please.

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The ranking algorithm in the print page takes several aspects into account to define the order that hubs are shown. A while ago we wrote a talk post on how to improve your hub ranking, here is what we wrote on declining orders:

Declined orders also influence your ranking. Not all decline reasons are created equal though. The impact depends on the reason for declining, which will always be checked and confirmed by the support team. If outside your zone of control, rest assured it won’t impact your ranking.

So yes, declining orders do impact the ranking, but we strive to always take the reason into account. In this post you can see some ideas on how to keep the number of declined orders low, and other tips to improve your ranking.

Finally, some communities are very competitive, including Los Angeles, so even good hubs might not appear in the 1st page.