Day 7. On day 6, no response from 3dhubs at all in this thread on this abomination. They do not understand the depth and breadth of what they have done, and how it affects our marketplace, not just on 3dhubs, but with all or our customers. They are vastly underestimating the anger out here.
They continue attempt to redefine FDM printing as low quality prototyping. They continue to have contempt for those hubs who have spoken up here, by ignoring responses and answering questions incompletely or with pure misdirection.
I encourage all hubs who are aware of this, (which is not very many, because most hubs don’t read talk or have tried to create an order…) to PLEASE continue to discuss this here. It is important that 3dhubs is aware of the issue. Also, they are probably praying for this hub to slip past the front page or TALK.
@Filemon Could you also let me know why when a customer is searching for hubs from Leicester they get hubs from other parts of the UK and even one from Belgium?
Position 4 is a hub from London which is 140km away
Position 9 is a hub from BELGIUM which is another country 370km away!!!
Also I just noticed my listing says I respond in 13m on average but my dashboard says that both my accept/decline time and order comment times are 2m. Is it me or is this full of errors?
I’m starting to lose confidence that 3D Hubs will be great again.
This is ridiculous on so many levels. Not sure how 3dhubs could have screwed this up worse.
I find it hard to believe that so many of those customers went on to print at SLA or SLP printers. I think it is likely they were simply scared off 3dhubs by the new wording, and either decided not to part with their money for what was perceived as low quality, or that they looked around and found some non-3dhub site with a better description of FDM to place the orders.
3dhubs has gone into hiding on this issue.
No doubt, 3D Hubs will come back with some figures to show that order levels were unchanged. This is a nightmare for me and they don’t seem to care.
If they continue to push customers away from FDM, I imagine the result will be a competing website full of FDM printers.
@Filemon @Perry_1 Whilst we are going though all the anti FDM processes on here I thought I’d go through the material selector wizard to show how difficult it is to get an FDM result. I will post a tree displaying the results when I get chance but in the meantime check out the attachment. For my first try I thought I would try one that MUST be FDM…
I selected "Function, then “Form and fit”, then for accuracy chose “LOW” (this must be rough arsed FDM right?)… then the result still gives one last ditch effort to take you to SLS!!! WOW, just WOW!
Yes, I have been saying this for a week. This is my repeat customer getting that dialogue “can I help you choose a material”.
Then everything there has the solid intent of harvesting my customer…
Its not JUST that the subjective terminology is bad, its that it was shown automatically to a customer I earned. Repeat customer, customer from facebook, customer from my business card, customer from my ads…
The statement that customers only choose FDM because of price is my favorite.
Plus, the material selector is so subjective. Just what does form and fit mean, anyway? Where are the advantages of FDM listed?
The whole massive thing was done with the sole intent of moving customers from FDM to higher $.
They will say they are focusing on a more “professional” market now. That’s what Makerbot said just before they lost their market.
But focusing on professional customers translates to “lets take FDM customers and try to convince them to spend more money.” That is not focusing on professional customers. That’s harvesting already happy FDM customers.
Instead of going for the positive, they reversed it. They went negative.
I am not sure I can find a case where a company cannibalized their vendors and their end customers so harshly.
But they don’t say which hubs.
“a competing website full of FDM printers”
Yes, this is what I fear most, a split in the marketplace as a result of "opening the door to competition."
This is classic “voice of the customer” training for anyone in marketing. Keep your base happy. Show EXTREME loyalty. Do not show any disloyalty. That’s how competitors get a foothold.
Particularly with 3dhubs business model, which is to match a growing “COMMODITY”(vendors) with a growing customer base (end users). 3dhubs will likely not want a full press split in the market, and I absolutely don’t want that either.
How they did not work to protect existing hubs and customers on this was just amazing. That would have been step one. Marketing 101. Whatever you do, improve your base first.
Don’t expect any figures. I am not sure you should even expect them to come back to this thread.
"The data so far seems to indicate it’s working, no fewer FDM orders, but increasing print quality ratings "
" Success means high conversion numbers, for a variety of materials, without decline in terms of absolute numbers."
“Also, to be clear, 3D Hubs cannot benefit from any change if it does not benefit our Hubs”
This is a classic misdirection, but you can certainly read between the lines on those statements.
Yes, well, we know which hubs these changes are meant to benefit, don’t we? Its such an amateurish mistake companies make during growth phases, when they hit the death valley of the cost of customers vrs. the revenues of each customer.
This is like makerbot, back when they owned the market, saying they were focusing their market on more educational and industrial markets, because there was untapped money there. They then tried to show how bad their old printers were, in all their marketing, and tried to show how well their new printers were better. They also cut off all their support for their old printers, in the hopes the customers would move to better printers. They even deleted their old forum postings.
They tried to redefine the market.
They are now 1/3 of the company they were (at least as a division), and Flashforge stepped right in and stole their market, with A COPY of Makerbot’s old printer. I can give 20 other examples just off the top of my head, where companies who owned the market began to belittle (or complicate the messaging of) the actual market they were in charge of, to upsell their customers, and lost a TON of money, created competitors, or simply vanished. Makerbot was supposed to be the next Apple…
This is so scary to me. The lack of loyalty. I do not really want to see a 3dhubs competitor chip away at their market. But as my wife said- if she went to a competitor, (such as the printer farms that are popping up here in the states) and they described FDM as quick, inexpensive, and HIGH QUALITY, she would order from them over 3dhubs that defines the prints as low quality prototypes printed with prototyping materials.
It is all so sad to watch. This is just step 1 of “How to walk off a cliff.”
For me personally it is just disappointment. I’ve enjoyed telling people I am part of 3D Hubs and explaining how it works. Now I just feel FDM was a stepping stone for them and not looking after the people why got them there.
FDM is not a stepping stone for them, if they just fix some things in the correct way. The materials, qualities, etc., can all live together well. But they have just not been smart about how to go about it. They should listen to us.
Hi @Steelmans,
I’m happy to schedule a separate call later this week. That would allow to dive in on your own Hub as well, as I’ve noticed that some comments are more directed towards that. I’ll just go ahead and schedule something. Lmk if that works for you.
The rest of you I’ll speak to later today!
Best,
Filemon
Hi Simon, I’m available at 3h Amsterdam time today but only for 20min. Alternatively I’ve send you an invite for another option. Let me know what you prefer. Cheers
I would like to be on the call as well. Today at 12? How do I get on?
Mark
@Steelmans correct
@imagine3dps I’ll send you an invite
I’ll try to make it.
My apologies. I found out about this just now. Didn’t have email notifications on anymore after my inbox literally had 50+ emails related to it. Will there be any way to receive a summary of the topics discussed? As well was there any other date possible for the discussion? Thanks again, -Parker Drouillard
Thanks for the summary Perry.
if I’m honest, the only wording I’m actually upset about is the misleading statement that 'FDM Hubs can only guarantee XXX Tolerances" When in reality, this is not FDM printers that are guaranteeing those standards, it’s 3D Hubs. IMO the wording should be “3D Hubs can only guarantee XXX Tolerances, as these are the general guidelines enforced by us on hubs. If additional tolerances are needed it is advised that you contact a hub/professional for more information on the subject”
Just something more constructive to be said in case customers are in fact looking for higher tolerances or even better surface finishes.
I just posted a summary, and my expectations of possible outcomes at the top of the thread…
Can you get any of those folks who emailed you to come on here?
I have a ton of emails on this issue. I am having difficulty getting those folks to come on here, for various reasons I would rather not say at this time…
@filemon is willing to discuss further. However, so little time was allotted and he is very busy. I encourage you to push for a direct discussion with him, but really feel the real way to get results is still going to be open daylight discussions about the issues and motivations here.
Also, if you reply to the thread directly under the featured thread, your messages will rise above the old ones…
Here is my take away from the phone conference today with 3dhubs @filemon and several hubs.
@Filemon took input from a few hub owners, mostly those that were vocal here. This was a scheduled 1 hour meeting, which he was kind enough to actually let run over, even though he had previously said he had a hard stop. I thank him for that.
Obviously, 1 hour was not enough to get into all that needed to be discussed, but it was a start.
The bulk of the discussion was around the FDM guidelines, and how that is worded. There is some likelyhood that wording will get massaged.
Additionally, the dialogue that pushes a customer away from a hub was discussed. This is likely to get changed, I got the impression it was not going over well.
I THINK.
I think that the Prototyping and Prototyping Materials language is still cast in stone. The only way that is going to get changed is if there is enough pushback from FDM hubs. Even though this is “only a test” it was pretty clear to me it is going to be policy.
The only way to change this is if enough hubs speak up. (Most do not know about it, as most do not place orders, and most do not read this forum.)
BUT FOR THOSE OF YOU WHO ARE AWARE PLEASE, if you read this forum, even if you have posted in this thread before, please keep pushing back. Or it will be the way it is. Its not about finding an alternative, or taking your hub down, its about getting the message to 3dhubs that this is a bad, bad mistake for them to be making.
I DO BELIEVE that enough pressure on 3dhubs will get them to see how this is denigrating to the FDM hubs who do good work.
PLEASE POST A REPLY TO THIS MESSAGE, so your message is not lost below. Feel free to reiterate your concerns, so this thread does not get lost on the talk page. I really do not want to have to start another thread!
@Filemon Quick question for you, howcome 3D Hubs doesn’t push customers to make inquiries more often? I know I’ve only ever gotten a few, and I myself actually have no clue how to place one. They’re an awesome way for customers to seek more information about any given field of 3D Printing, and what to expect. As well, it (From my experience) Has always increased customer satisfaction having someone walking them through the process insuring they get exactly what they need for their specific project.
This also takes away from the issue of hub’s rankings dropping when customers come to them with unreasonable expectations. Nobody likes letting anybody down, but sometimes customers just don’t know what to expect, or what is required for the process. Inquiries really help this issue and give customers a much superior experience.
I just feel instead of adding more and more ‘guidelines’ and ‘suggestions’ automatically provided by the site, more one on one contact with an actual person from an actual hub would help customers to get exactly what they need. Also avoids all these issues people have about interpretation of wording throughout the site.
The takeaway from this about my suggestion; Educate potential customers about how to use the inquiry process. Show them more that it is a possibility for them to get quick advice from practically any hub on the site! It’s an awesome tool and I hate to see it going so unused.
@PepCo_Parker Not to answer for them, I will tell you that 3dhubs in the past found that uploading a model to start the process had much more stickiness than enquiries, so that may explain why they de-empahsized that method of contact to the point it is hard to find.
Yes, that is terrible wording. I think they may be willing to change that.
There was discussion about adding some copy around “if additional tolerances are needed…”
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I can’t imagine, after looking at your hub, why you would be fine with your hub being called Prototyping Only and your plastics as being called Prototyping Materials. Make no mistake, all these changes were made en masse as part of a holistic marketing image to denigrate FDM printing, to emphasize the SLS and SLA hubs. I would think you would object to all of it.
Here’s a feature suggestion (which I will also post over at the user voice page) https://3dhubs.uservoice.com how about you also let hubs access a widget like the “order print” button that let’s us also put “send enquiry” or along those lines. I would put this on my personal website as i do the 3D Print Order widget already, which is front and centre. How about that to encourage more enquiries through 3D Hubs which as hub owners we could then get more conversion over time by welcoming these enquiries and explaining and answering any questions potential customers have, which means they are more likely to then place an order. I often get questions sent direct to my email address but I would happily replace my contact form with a 3D Hubs enquiry button.
Definitely agree that there needs to be some change in the wording here. If I were a customer who knew nothing about 3D printing, I would most likely not choose this option.
@Perry_1 Sorry I had to leave the meeting. I honestly thought it would be done in 30 mins. I didn’t realise we would be discussing so much stuff. The bit I most wanted to change was the “Prototyping” wording. I still believe that “General Purpose Plastics” title and “Fast and Affordable parts” would be way more accurate. What was the outcome with this?