Order Volume, low or non existent...

[Joe_Harper]

Hi all, I am in the Atlanta HuB area and have lowered my price to the bottom of the heap just to see if price was the issue. After several weeks running at or near the lowest priced hub in Atlanta i have still not had a single order. Are any of the hubs in the Atlanta area getting orders or is it just a function of something i am not doing correctly?

[MB3D]

Hi Joe,

I’ve taken a quick look at your hub and you might want to extend your material portfolio. I made the experience, that people, that are new to 3d printing, show much interest in material composites (wood and metal). Also special-effect materials, like colorchanging, glow-in-the-dark or flexible materials gain popularity. Maybe this will help you.

Cheers,

Marius Breuer

[Filemon]

Good tips indeed! Also, Atlanta can still use some work on the customer side I’ve seen from our data. In communities where this is the case, old fashion marketing techniques, like Worth Of Mouth about your Hub to family and friends tend to work very well. Cheers!

[Vtsst]

Hey! Great tips @bgreenslade!

It’s great you showcase some 3D prints with pictures and what you can achieve with post-processing. I would recommend adding more details about what you can do with post processing in your Specialities and About description as you seem really good at it.

Cheers!

[gabriela3d]

What’s the vibe in Atlanta @toymaker2? Do you have any other advice for Joe? Cheers

[josh_stover]

Where are you located in Atlanta? With what @ stated it sounds like there isn’t a lot of 3DHubs activity in Atlanta yet at all, at least not to support all the Hubs. Perhaps if you are in a less-densely populated area there just aren’t customers in that area yet.

What is your goal for 3DHubs and 3D Printing? To pay off your printer, to generate decent second income, to make it your primary source of income, etc? If you want to take some time to discuss I’d be happy to consult further.

I think with any industry, a race to the bottom with pricing can sometimes increase revenue but that doesn’t mean it will increase income. It takes time and experience to handle a 3D print job professionally and at the lowest available rate allowed I question whether any profit can be gained on the small jobs after you consider the time it takes to set up a job and communicate with the customer, not to mention the cost when prints fail, etc.

Thanks,

Josh

[Joe_Harper]

Thanks for the tips! I have some of these filaments but would not consider myself an expert at printing with them so i did not list them. I feel like if someone is going to pay for a print they should get a very professional item, so i guess i need to practice laywood and laybrick printing more.

Also, perhaps i need to be investing in some unique filaments such as ninjaflex though i understand that to get good results with it you may need to modify your printer.

For those Hubs in Atlanta that are getting orders, would you say you get more prints for prototypes from businesses and inventors or general items/toys for consumer use?

[Joe_Harper]

I Live in the northern part of Gwinnett county which has over 1M residents. granted the part i live in is likely the least populated area however in a 15 mile radius of my hub you find no other hubs and a lot of people.

As to my goal, i just want to take on interesting projects. my own company utilizes the printer and i have written it off as a business expense so the printers cost os of no real concern for me. It would be great to do an order or 2 a week at least to keep the thing busy when it is not working for my company. In all i would be happy for 3D Printing to order to become another facet of my company however i do not have direct plans for it currently. I guess i am testing the waters to see if further investment in print as a service is worth my time, effort and resources (Buying different types of printers, hiring new staff, etc…) As of now it is definitely not.

The low ball pricing was to see if anyone was shopping for printing services in the area and to test if price was the issue which i am now pretty sure it was not. Protecting margins is something i am acutely aware of for my primary business so you can rest assured that i will not be the one leading the race to the bottom. It was simply a test to see if business could be had at any price with the product i had on offer in my hub’s page.

Never the less thank you all for the advice and help. lets keep this thread going and see if we can grow together.

Regards,

Joe

[josh_stover]

Joe,

It sounds like you have a good plan in place and it would be nice to utilize your printer to get some return on it during those down times. It could be that you just have to wait for the local market to develop. Please don’t think I was accusing you of racing the price to the bottom, price exploration is always something people try out. I was merely reflecting on the downside if everyone does that without regard to the cost of doing the production work, and in a market that simply hasn’t developed enough revenue for everyone yet.

Call if you ever want to discuss more or get together. 404-964-6357

Thanks,

Josh

[labtopia]

we had our printer listed last fall and got maybe 6 orders totaling about 250$ worth of sales. it was more trouble than it was worth to generate income. models were always incorrect dimension or not designed well for printing (thin walls/way to many overhangs) we turned off our service and use it for our own developmental use. takes a lot of 20$ prints at 2-4hrs print time to even bother. race to the bottom on price is never the way to go in any service based business- you will never win.

also i just dont think there were too many people needing prints, the ones we got were mostly people kicking the tires to see if they should buy a printer, or to test the prints our’s could produce.

dave

[RedbeardPete]

I got an email suggesting this topic might be pertinent to me. I saw the suggestion from 3D Hubs to lower the startup cost and lower rates a few weeks ago and decided I want no part of that. It is enough trouble to get a new part set up and printed out well, I don’t think our rates are unreasonable at all! …especially for prototypers who need a proof of concept, fitment prototype, etc., this is WAY cheaper than calling on a machine shop. Perhaps many of the people who need those kind of prototypes have their own 3D printers? I’ve gotten a handful, but have not gotten a steady stream of jobs. I guess the demand just isn’t there.

[Joe_Harper]

That was kind of what I was thinking, It appears that demand is just not really there (yet?). For a business like mine that needs to create prototypes quickly to test concepts, the cost of a printer is almost nothing (less than the cost of a single prototype, in the case of the prototype that brought us to buy a printer in the first place). For a home user that is tinkering around with cad, finding 3Dhubs.com may not happen unless they are very actively looking.

I guess it is either going to take a while for the interest level in this service increases. To a business, a prototype in hand TODAY can be worth thousands and thousands of dollars regardless of the amount of plastic that goes into printing it. However, to a consumer looking to an iPhone case featuring their new catch phrase embossed on the cover 3D Printing is worth far less.

Is there anywhere on 3D hubs that you can see order volume by hub? How many orders/day is the Atlanta Hub processing? Perhaps that data is not available outside of the organization.

Not giving up, just ponderous of the business model and future of the 3Dhubs.com service.

As for the race to the bottom, we may not do it here but with soo many 3D Printer companies coming on the scene and driving printer prices down, we are by proxy on a race to the bottom as more potential customers may just buy a printer of their own and make it themselves as I did a few years ago.

Granted, there is a value to an operator that knows what they are doing and there is a reason I let someone else change my car’s oil and cut my homes yard. It is because I value their skill and my time more than the value of doing those things myself. Perhaps this is the place that the 3Dhubs.com service will find their arena once the wave breaks on people buying 3D Printers.

[3Dscaleworks]

Joe, its true about the pricing, do not go to low. Normal prototyping costs lots more.

It is still a market in devopement. New innovations in scanning and user frindly CAd programms should increase it the coming years.

succes

John

[tylersztuka]

Coming from the manufacturing school at Georgia Tech, I can tell you the main issue with Atlanta based customers is the lack of demand resulting from a lack of understanding. Few people you meet will truly understand what 3D printing is and an even fewer percentage will understand how it can be used.

The trick is going to be converting those individuals who have an idea on paper to paying prototyping customers. There is this sort of “unknown” gap from, “hey! I have an idea but I don’t know what to do” to the “hey! I have an STL file for a prototype I’m working on, can you print it for me?”

We need to educate creators, innovators, and thinkers first about the technology and then we will expect exponential growth in the additive manufacturing industry.

To answer your question, it is not you. Atlanta is dead right now.

[Joe_Harper]

Just a quick update: I have seen my first order and several more to go with it. I have averaged about an order a week for the past 4 weeks. Not “keep the lights on” money, but then that was never my intention. This is mostly about helping others as i am not a part of a hacker space and also about helping folks with challenges to expand my skills.

Cheers!

-Joe