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Jun 2016

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.

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.

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.

Would it be possible to update the customer’s shipping if they select the wrong option? I offer three shipping options listed on my hub page; Standard shipping if the order fits within a 5" x 3" x 3" dimension and under 13 oz, Priority Mail for orders under 13 oz and any dimension, and Priority Mail for orders over 14 oz and any dimension. So shipping prices can vary from $3.80 to $13.45 depending on weight.

Though what 3d Hubs is proposing for shipping profiles is fine by me as I only offer 3 options, my main concern would be updating shipping for the customer if needed. Is this going to be doable on my end or would I have to contact 3dhubs to update the order? Since there is no weight calculation on 3dhubs for the order, how is the customer suppose to know what shipping option of mine to select? What is to stop the customer from automatically choosing my $3.80 option no matter the size and weight for the order? After reviewing a order is when I know the exact weight of the to be printed design(s) as Simplify3d outputs a weight calculation when it slices the design(s). The software has been very accurate about weight of the final printed order and I this is what I use to determine best shipping for customers on and off 3dhubs before printing.

Hey Perry,

Thanks for explaining your process and details of US shipping systems, in response we’ve just released another update to the shipping feature. Which allows you to continue to use the old ‘per order’ pricing in combination with the new options. So we’re no longer requiring you to set Flat Rate shipping.

Let me know what you think of the latest version.

Brian

Yes, this looks perfect. Thanks for listening!!! Now I don’t have to ask the customer every time if they need overnight shipping, and I can charge the customer the exact price, without overcharging the customer or losing margin.

Thanks so much!!!

@Luuk For some reason, I can’t fill in the form. It doesn’t recognise the country

Hey, what country are you trying to list? Some countries we unfortunately cannot ship to/do business with.

Just Belgium,

Its weird, cause i would expect when i enter “B” the posibilities show up.

Hey, i’ve set up a test shipping option that listed Belgium for you. Can you check if it shows for you?

Hey, and what about any other country? Can you list those? Perhaps you could try using a different browser? I use Google Chrome. I also see the shipping I listed on your account. See attachment.

@Luuk

Actually, I can’t see your entry, Also I cannot list other countries and nether in a different browser. Tested chrome,firefox and internet explorer. Weird. I do not have special settings of anything I am aware of that can cause any troubles

Let’s take the discussion offline. I’ll email you.

I have the exact same problem with ‘France’ or ‘Europe’. I also tried to fill in with North-america and does not get listing either. The form does not allow me to save anything. Please Help!

Note: I tried with Chrome and Firefox and deactivated all adaware plugins.

8 days later

I set up my shipping with the “per order” option, and I stopped showing shipping as an option. I switched it back to the legacy option, and I still don’t show as offering shipping.

I just switched it back to legacy. Perhaps there was a propagation delay for the setting. Thank you for checking for me.

Previously I had set up the new style shipping as soon as we were notified. This morning it still wasn’t showing that I offered shipping.

Hi Shaun,

We’ve seen this happen some times when the back-end call to save the options gets interrupted, it talks to the old part of our website so it takes a bit longer.

Glad to see you managed to figure it out, I just checked and you showed up for shipping.

Brian

Hello everyone,

i think the new delivery options are great!

After my first few deliveries, i figured out a standard pricing system anyway, in order to quickly tell the customer what the total cost will be.

This way my customer will get this information right away in the order process.

In the end it always has to be some kind of estimate. If you aim to low, you wont make profit. If you aim too high the customer will feel tricked.

This way the customer knows up front what to expect. I think it makes things easier and especially faster. In this business time is Money.

best regards

Anreas

8 days later

Just from experience, Canada post wanted 9$ for a particular part and box to be shipped to the US but it was just before the potential strike so my usual postal lady advised I go elsewhere. I ended up shopping UPS who wanted 96$ for next day shipping, 87$ for two day and 68$ for three day. The cheapest I got was 32$ for seven day. Mind you this was a 200g part in a 12CMx12CMx12CM box. Shipping rates are all over the place anymore. A flat rate in my opinion is an awful idea.

A tip: I’ve read that padded envelopes are sometimes better to ship in than a small box, as they take less of a beating due to how they are handled.

Your box was on the larger end, but keep that in mind for the future.

Also: Purolator was a bit less than UPS, last I looked. Did you check them out?

No that day purolator was closed and they were my only option. Also, that box was by no means large, it literally fit in the palm of your hands. I can understand if the box was like a foot by a foot and weighed 10lbs that they would charge that much. But something as small as that was outrageously priced

The part was about 9cm tall, it was too much for a padded envelope. I’ve used them before for smaller prints, it’s a good alternative and depending on the part I normally won’t have to worry about it damaging as its naturally strong enough.