I really like this idea Josh, a kind of ‘Hub Insights’ to help you better run your Hub. Of course this data could be somewhat sensitive to competitors, but perhaps we can think of a way in which we share just the relevant info with the right people and not have it as public as the trend reports. In this way we could probably share more detailed information.
I’ll have a talk with @Paul_71 who organises our Trend reports and is currently working on the 3D Printer Buyers Guide.
“High ratio of orders received to succesfully completed”
Does this mean if someone starts an order and drops off the face of the earth it counts against me?
“Complete Hub profile (e.g. pictures of prints, reviews, description)”
If you guys think this is important than why did you remove the link for customers to see it?
Of course it can happen to any Hub that a customer loses interest, we don’t count that against you. Of course if you don’t respond or keep declining orders we will count it against you as it’s a poor customer experience, and the customer would be better off at another Hub.
Regarding the Hub profile all that information is used in the /3dprint checkout, and like we’ve mentioned already a few times, we’re doing research by running this A/B test in order to learn how we can improve the service more. It’s essential to test many different things quickly and learn which work and which don’t. This is how we got to where we are today, and how we can keep making the service better as we move forward.
Ya, I get some of the info would be a bit sensitive. I think maybe offering a monthly private “Hub Insight” that each user could view that showed just local data would help with that. That way even if a competitor made an account to collect data they would only be able to see a little bit of it. Main thing I would love to know is, in order:
1. How many people actually go to my hub?
What material types are most popular for orders?
Why someone didn’t order from me?
4. What printers are the most ordered from?
5. How many orders happen around me?
First two I think would be the easiest and least sensitive, at least in a private “Insight” page.
And I think I’ve seen this mentioned elsewhere but I definitely think either a overhaul of the Trends report or a whole new section like this is needed. The current trends info, well they look nice and might be fun to look at for new users, are not at all interesting to experienced users. I remember looking at it a bunch when I first started and was all excited. After a while I realized it was all kind of fluff, for lack of a better term at the moment.
A quick breakdown of what I mean as an experienced, well versed user (To clarify, I get these trends are usefully new hubs/customers but I am going to ignore those points to show the other side of things):
1. World Breakdown, now apparently World HD Breakdown- So I just noticed this, didn’t it use to show every hub? Now it just shows HD? Really, that’s a lot upsetting but moving on.
2. Highest Rated 3D printers- Ratings are for the most part biased. There is no way the Form 1 can actually rate higher than the Form 1+. Its just a fact. Last time I filled out a rating I gave my Zortrax on average I think a 4.8. Was it biased? Of course, I love this machine. And these don’t help hubs expand business because like I said they are partially biased and just because the Form 1+ is a good printer doesn’t mean people are ordering from it. Sorry Formlabs for calling you out twice, nothing personal just the first example I saw, I love your printers. Also maybe just because I gave the Zortrax high marks doesn’t mean those same reasons as the operator are as highly valued to the customer. Does the customer care that their slicer software is so easy my 5 year old brother already can operate it all on his own? Nope. Does the customer care that the average print set up is about 5 minutes from downloading the print to pressing start on the machine? Nope.
3. Trending Printers- Ok, so more people bought them this month. Does that mean they are better printers for selling prints? Maybe they just were on sale. Maybe they are a new launch and had some good marketing. Again, not to call out Formlabs but you list the Form 1+ as jumping 30 spots, but we know why that was. They dropped in price. Has it helped boost any hubs sales that bought one though?
4. Top Cities- Well I would sell a kidney or two to move to Amsterdam, Paris, Milan etc. I wont be doing that anytime soon (Though I have been to all those cities plus a few more and Amsterdam is by far the best, I do plan on moving back soon, looking to hire? haha) so that wont help me boost sales. Plus I already live in #8 city, Boston. Also this is just based of printers listed. What about sales trends in that city? Sure one city might have the most printers but that also might mean since everyone owns one no one is ordering.
5. Printer Distribution- See points #2 and #3 as same issues apply.
6. Manufacturer Distribution- See point #5.
7. Manufacturer By Region- Huh, who would have thought American printers would sell best in America and European printers best in Europe? Again though, see point #6.
8. Printer Listing- Well I love to see that 3DHubs as a company is growing in listings, it doesn’t really show anything important. Maybe this is actually a sign that 3DHubs is failing. With too many printers listed there is now to much overhead with people hubs and photos and information. Too many people own printers and no one actually has to order prints since they already own the machine. How about how many sales you have total? Because just because people are listing things doesn’t mean people are buying, and lets be honest, that’s whats important.
9. Print Categories and average value. Kind of good to know I guess. But there is nothing we can do with this info. So scale models is the most expensive average order. What can I do with that info. Maybe post a few photos of small models to show off our printer? But its not like I can tailor my page to bring that in. Maybe I could get a Form 2 (again with Formlabs, almost like I got them on my mind) because they can generally do tiny models a little better than FDM. That would also account for why the average order is more expensive. But things that I wish I knew related to this are: Whats the most common printer chosen for “Scale Models” and how frequently are their “Scale Model” orders? Maybe its the most expensive because that is the fewest orders and the few that do happen are just expensive. If buying the Form to get those orders would help would it even be worth it if I only get one scale model print a month?
10. Popular Print Categories- Well I guess I should have really reviewed all the graphs before writing them as I partially answered point #9 with this graph. So as I brought up in point #9, Scale models is the 3rd least popular category meaning if I wanted to get into that for the expensive orders it doesn’t seem worth it since prototyping is over 4 times more popular and the average order is 17% less. But again I just had to kind of piece that together. I might be completely wrong. Maybe adding a Form 2 to my hub will bring in more customers, even if in the end they only actually needed an FDM print.
11. Color Distribution- The one useful thing as a Hub operator that is here. Because of this I didn’t have to go out and buy every color right away to do process of elimination to know what to stock. I already had white and black to start, I figured blue and red would be next, but I never would have though transparent would be next, or that grey would be so little. To add to this though, like I’ve mentioned, would be what type of material is popular? Because my machine currently cant print PLA or things like Ninjaflex and I feel that might be an issue but I really have no evidence to justify purchasing another machine or modifying my machine to do that.
12. 3D Printing World Map- Oh, wait, there it is. Well that makes me a little more upset. Why does all reliant data get grouped together but this? People already feel like you are pushing the small hub out of the way to make room for the big, bad HD hubs. Now you have literally pushed the entire world that made 3D hubs what it is to the very bottom of a very long page. Hmm, if I were to overthink this I would take it as some sort of subliminal message about 3Dhubs plan for us.
So take away: Almost half the trends are user biased. The remaining don’t promote any useful knowledge that anyone who is really into 3D printing didn’t already know. Some of them are fun to look at to start but once you really break it down there isn’t anything there but a good UX designer.
On the first statement about customer experience and declined orders; the changes made of only seemed to increase the opportunity for both of these to happen.
By allowing customers to only upload and submit an order, we as a hub only have to option to decline it if the part is not printable or the turn around time is not sufficient. Before customers could maybe look at our previous work and get an idea for what our printer could do. Or what use to happen often would be they would contact us with an idea or a link to something and wonder if it was printable, if it could be done soon enough, and what it might cost. And if it couldn’t be done I had a list of other hubs I had prior contact with that operated different machines and I would tell the customer exactly why I couldn’t print it, what could print it and who to go to.
Now once I decline an order I loose all contact with that person, it counts against me apparently and I am out a potential future customer. Sure I could leave the pending order open for the 24 hours to further communicate with them but its also my understanding that leaving orders open is bad for the hub. Really a loose loose situation.
Hello Brian,
I’m a little concerned because yesterday I archived two “Enquiries”. One customer sent me two duplicate messages, so I got rid of one. For the other, the customer started an order (which was successfully completed) independent of the “enquiry” and was no longer needed. When you “archive”, it warns that you are “rejecting an order” and afterwards I noticed that my ranking dropped a couple points. Does archiving an enquiry lower your ranking?
-Jesse
I have this concern too. A customer messaged me thanking me for the print and to say how his project is going. I archived it and I think it had a detrimental effect.
Ok, so changing my password kind of fixed the issue. Before both accounts shared the same password to keep things simple. Now that they have different passwords I can now log into the proper account with the right username. Issue still arises with logging in through Facebook. Even though I know I never linked my second account, WickedxJosh to FB it still logs me into WickedxJosh if I click the FB button.
A quick screen capture would be great, indeed it could be a caching I issue, we’ll try to check it out this Friday and see if there is a fix for it dependant on the reproducibility of course.
Now that I have changed my password I can no longer replicate the issue myself. Figures. I even changed my password back to the same on both accounts and it logs me in properly now.
So to test it I guess try having account 1 with:
Username_1
Password_a
Linked to Facebook
Then make:
Username_2
Password_a
Not linked to Facebook
Maybe you will get it to happen again on your end. Also I did just notice it allows you to link both accounts to the same Facebook. Kind of an issue I guess but more of just an annoyance.
Hi Josh,
I couldn’t replicate it either so happy to hear that it solved itself on your end
I’ll look into the Facebook linking to two accounts though, doesn’t it disconnect from the first when it connects to the second?
