New Shipping Options

[Brian]

Thanks @PeterMake3D and @JATMN will check those out coming days!

[Lucika29]

Hi, I’m quite surprised at how violent this thread turned out to be. As I see it, the new update is not an insult but a step forward to a clear pricing in which the client is in control and knows from the beginning what to expect from each Hub. For certain countries like Spain (my own), this system is very useful since our national service Correos, priced by the gram, is shamefully unreliable and big international companies like UPS, FedEX and DHL are too expensive. My choice here is a small company that offers semi flat rates depending on the overall size of the package and urgency of the client, so I can make good use of this method. I’m tired of offering my clients all the options everytime, when they could have known from the beginning.

Peace out,

Lucía

[Tixhyl]

Hi,

For me as well, pretty much all my orders ship at €5 locally. Size doesn’t matter and weight is from 0 to 2KG. So optimal for me to show the customers how much i will charge for shipping. It would be nice though, to include that the size and weight of the print could increase the nominal shipping rate.

Otherwise nice feature, 3DHubs!

Christophe

[Brian]

Hi Pete,

Indeed the biggest challenges seem to be in the US. We’re adding States to the regions right now, so at least you’ll be able to set a estimated price per state so a bit more granular than just on country level.

You can also use the description field to manage the customer expectation, I think that will be very useful in preventing disappointed customers, we’ll make sure to show it to customers in the checkout.

At the same time we’re looking at estimating weight for prints, but that might take some time as we have hundreds of materials in the DB and we would have to estimate packaging materials somehow as well. At the same time predicting parcel size based on print dimensions is going to be tricky and fairly inaccurate as well. If you have time tomorrow it would be great if you can join the call with Jatmn so we can discuss these challenges, I’ll send you the invite so I can hear your ideas.

Brian

[PeterMake]

Hi Christophe and others,

Not angry, but frustrated, frustrated that no one at 3D hubs consulted with any of us first before bring on these changes.

I run a hub for profit, it is not a hobby to me.

I have an inpectable reputation with my customers.

I have a profitable hub with many satisfied customers.

I offer a good service and produce excellent 3D printed parts and models.

I try to keep my prices just and fair.

I pay my share of profits to 3D Hubs.

I do all of this with my own hard work.

I will not apologize that I am a frustrated that 3D Hubs is putting a burden on my business with new shipping methods without what I believe, is a full understanding how shipping works where I operate my hub.

The United States and Canada are large countries and trying to determine shipping cost by location is a nightmare.

Most of this is due to the fact that package size, package weight and destination MUST be all determined in order to ship.

The shipping costs could vary greatly because something might weight an ounce more, or the package is a ½ inch wider or even if a package is going to a different zip code within the same city.

It is so difficult to calculate shipping costs that even most APIs used in eCommerce don’t often get it right. It is one of the largest complaints that online stores have with their shopping cart providers, that real time shipping estimates are either not offered or not accurate. Take Shopify for instance, they only offer real time rates if you pay a premium, however, they don’t include the package size as one of the parameters so it is useless because every rate they quote is incorrect so most Shopify store use a third party API instead.

The other issue is that Americans have become very sensitive about shipping costs. The shipping rates in this country keep on going up and up to the point where smaller stores cannot compete with a company like Amazon with it’s vast resources and customer base because they are able to negotiate lower rates with their shippers such at FedEx, UPS and even the USPS. Also they have their own delivery people in large metro areas.

If real time rates are not available most online merchants will try to come up with an average shipping rate perhaps based on region.

This means that you will be losing money on some shipments and over charging customers on others. Brian has said that you could always adjust the shipping costs afterwards, but again, it has been my experience that if a customer thinks that you are trying to inflate shipping costs they will perceive you as a dishonest merchant and won’t even give you the chance to make the adjustment and shop elsewhere.

And most merchants will agree that Flat Rate Shipping or Shipping by Region is a LAST RESORT.

In fact there have been studies done that say customers would rather pay higher product prices than pay for shipping. This is all well and good but this type of pricing model will not work with the services that we sell on 3D Hubs and keep in mine that what we do sell is a service not products per say.

I envy you that you have a much simpler shipping costs approach and still maintain profitability.

What do you do if a $6.00 printed part could cost anywhere from $1.00 to $12.00 to ship depending on location?

Brian said that perhaps we could offer Free Shipping. Free Shipping would only work if you inflate the prices to the extreme for your services and than only if other the hubs also up their prices. You have to be very careful or all your hard work in the past building up your business could go down the drain very quickly.

3D Hubs was designed for the Euro Market and understandable so.

I understand and respect that.

However, there are now so many hubs in North America that perhaps 3D Hubs should think a North American version of the 3D Hubs more in tune with the way business is done in North America.

Certainly eBay does this, they have different eBays for different parts of the world and there is a reason for this.

After all we don’t have VAT here and 3D hubs has not may it easy for our State by State, County by County, Zip Code by Zip Code Sales Tax system that we have to use. In fact we have to do our own calculations for sales tax and add it to the order as an after thought. And certainly hubs in other parts of the world do not understand and could care less about the U.S sales tax system as I personally do not understand the VAT system.

So I say this to all my friends in the European Market, please have a little apathy for us here in the States.

We fear that our hubs might be in jeopardy due to a change that was never talked about until a few weeks prior to implementation.
We are concerned that we will lose profit and have to abandon our hubs and we do not want to do that.

I am sure that 3D Hubs will do their best to try to accommodate hubs in places where shipping has a vast number of variables like in the U.S. so I will no longer speak about this topic again unless 3D hubs has any questions they might want to ask of me.

If I have cause anyone to feel hurt or insulted then I do sincerely apologize, please this was not my intent, it was just the frustration coming out from the fear of the impact on my hub.

Sincerely,

Peter Zacarelli

[JATMN]

Shipping per state does not do anything but make even more headache… I’m not going to sit here and figure out 1000 shipping rates to cover all the region’s of every state…which is still subjective to size and weight. I would advise 3dhubs to not waste the hours paying devs to do this as it’s a waste of even 3dhubs time

[SOC3D]

We have shipping zones (9-10 of them) adding states is a waste of time. Ours and yours.

[Brian]

Hi Pete,

Just wanted to let you know that we’re working on a fix that will allow you to choose between ‘Flat rate’ and ‘Price per Order’. We’ll try to get it built tomorrow, that should allow us to still launch this early July, and learn from customers and Hubs working with the new service. In this way customers can see what shipping services you offer, without you having to predict the price beforehand.

I would still like to chat with you tomorrow, if you’ve got time as I think we indeed have rushed this shipping feature with too little US focus and learning from your experiences will help us make it better.

Best,

Brian

ps. no harm done on my side, better to speak up and be heard than let a issue linger on… hope we’re on track to fixing it with the above change

[Brian]

Hi Perry,

We’re going to add a 3rd option tomorrow that allow you to “Price per Order”, instead of the flat rate or free shipping. That basically allows all Hubs in the US to keep using the ‘legacy’ shipping but still provide more info about what shipping services/delivery times they offer.

Hope that is helpful, as this thread hopefully shows we do listen (although we should have consulted more US hubs upfront) and will make rapid iterations to the feature before it goes live.

Best,

Brian

[SOC3D]

The impression I’m getting from 3D hubs responses thus far is that because they are not an American company and the shipping issue for some reason primarily affects the US, they don’t seem to care at this point.

There is around 10K worth of development work required to build a P2P 3D printing service which would care about and cater to US based hubs. It would really take under 100K up front to get netfabb, cura or simplify, real time shipping, per hub profiles for material type, pricing that makes sense and advertising. If you didn’t waste money on full time lazy devs you could hit 10-20K a month in expenses for the first year.

Making a more sensible pricing model which offers per print fees or monthly volume fees would also draw in more customers who don’t like the massive flat rate surcharge.

I won’t be at all surprised when one of the Anti-US forced options causes new competitors to spring up to fill the void US hubs and customers now have.

I also wouldn’t be surprised to see several US states ban or file suit against 3D hubs over the whole “we collect VAT but not sales tax” issue that could be looming out there.

Hubs are volunteering their time, knowledge, expertise and advice on how to not turn this for profit system into a disaster. So far just looking through this and a few other threads there is a lot of insults and undermining of those hubs from 3D hubs support and admins.

All of this may come off as offensive or direct. I see no reason to beat around the bush here.

Many of us have managed, run, developed or created much larger platforms without running into these issues and many would charge consulting fees in the 5-6 figure range monthly for the kind of free advice being offered to 3D hubs for free and not being well received.

[Perry_1]

This is a terrible idea for US customers, and completely unworkable.

Right now, I calculate the weight and package size, and that is what the customer pays.

It is impossible to offer a standard rate. Impossible by region, zip code, state. Just impossible.

A 4 oz print is a different shipping price than a 5 oz print. A print sent to a house a few blocks from another house can be a different price.

There is no way to do this fairly to the customer or the hub.

This leaves two options

1.free shipping, which means changing the pricing of my hub, which is perfectly honed, and I do not want to do, and screws with my margin in a possibly terrible way.

2. flat rate shipping, which is unfair to me and the customer. Flat rate shipping caclulations in the US ALWAYS is more expensive than calculated shipping based on package and pricing.

This is truly a horrible idea to put forth in the US. Now not only am I trying to offer profitable services in a competitive market, I now have to start dealing with shipping charges on quoting, NONE OF WHICH will be correct when quoted.

I want to print things, charge for the printing, and have the customer pay for the shipping.

Now, I am dealing with how to price shipping into a quote. Ridiculous.

I understand you have received input from customers. But what customers? I run the hub, I am your customer.

You are confused if you think the person ordering the print is your customer. They are my customer.

You say “Finally, we would like to stress that this is by no means the final shipping feature, but the starting point to make ordering a 3D Print a better experience, by creating more clarity about what a customer can expect from different Hubs that are available.”

I recommend you do not put it up, until it is the final version, a version that works for all your countries.

“Hi, I’m quite surprised at how violent this thread turned out to be. As I see it, the new update is not an insult but a step forward to a clear pricing in which the client is in control and knows from the beginning what to expect from each Hub.”— In the US, the pricing for shipping that is quoted will not be the price the customer ends up paying, unless I either overcharge the customer for their shipping based on the quoted shipping, or take a bite out of my thin margin when the shipping is quoted and is less than what it ultimately costs.

If you don’t set up shipping options your Hub will not be shown to non-local customers. — Please define non-local.

[Perry_1]

Thanks, it does show that.

[garthvh]

What shipping service are you using? I don’t get how you can have a $6 part with shipping ranging from $1-12. I use first class mail for 90% of my orders and postage is less than $3 to almost anywhere in the country for items less than $20.

[Brian]

Thanks!

[PeterMake]

You must be printing parts that fit in an envelop and are under 13 oz.

I usually ship priority mail.

But all this is a mote point as you yourself said that your shipping could be as high as $20.00.

[PeterMake]

Brian, if I were you I would not bother with putting in states or regions, etc.

It does not solve the issues.

Perhaps a warning to the customer that the shipping quote is that, only a estimated quote and the hub may lower or raise the shipping quote based on actual shipping costs.

I sincerely believe this would be the only solution at this time.

Peter

[garthvh]

How big can this $6 part be The only order I have ever shipped with $20 shipping was going to Canada where 1oz costs $10. My highest shipping cost in the US after more than a hundred shipped orders was $12 for priority mail and that was a $600 order that used an entire spool of filament. I charge $3 for most orders and fanatically track everything and am generally a few cents in the black on shipping costs (postage, padded envelope and thermal label) overall.

One of the big benefits of selling 3D printed parts is that they are light and you can offer low priced shipping to overcome the objections US consumers have to paying for shipping. You are also the manufacturer and can self insure pretty easily. Buy more sizes of padded envelopes, most parts go in the 6x9, but I have two larger sizes for other stuff that does not fit in the smaller one. At 25-35 cents each in low quantities they really cut down your shipping costs compared to boxes unless you are shipping truly massive volumes (You have a 40% or greater UPS discount).

You probably need to look at lower price postage options like first class for $6 prints, you are wasting a lot of money using priority mail for inexpensive items to maybe get it to the customer a single day faster. I can ship you an 8oz part from Seattle to Miami for $3.40, I can’t think of a part under $30 I couldn’t ship in a padded envelope first class.

[keebie81]

I would never mail a part in a padded envelope. I use small boxes from uline. Most fit in a 4x4x4 box. Part of my shipping cost is also to pay for the box, bubblewrap, and the label.

Most items can ship first class. But once in a while it needs to be priority or ups due to size of the parts or padding needed.

[garthvh]

Don’t be afraid of the padded envelope there is really no safety advantage to the box, in many automated facilities they are treated more harshly. I worked in logistics for almost 10 years and we tracked it, the only reason to use a box if you have a choice is to comply with insurance rules for dead space which a 4x4x4 is not going to meet anyways. Packing boxes is also much more labor intensive.

[Perry_1]

I have a hub close to me that sells only on price. The prints are not so good, but they sell on price alone. They also do not do the standard 20% infill.

This keeps my pricing low, because I have to be competitive. So I sometimes do parts where my margin is a buck or two.

If I have to eat a half a dollar or a dollar because of a flat rate shipping situation, that hurts. So yeah, I am really not interested in offering a flat price for shipping. It will hurt my profits.

Also, this competitor charges $2.50 for shipping on all items. My average shipping cost is over $3.00.

So with the new proposed model, I am now competing on shipping costs as well as price of the model, further eroding my margins. In countries where shipping is standard pricing, I see how it would work. Or if an API determines the pricing, then yea, it would work.

But, if a prospective customer looks at the price, and now the shipping, in the quote, I am now really getting squeezed. Not only by the bad competitor, but by 3dhubs shipping mechanism.

I just ran some simple tests on stamps.com, which is where I get postage quotes. A change in a few ounces and two zip codes over changes the price of a package sometimes pretty noticeably! Try it out.