Switch to Fulfilled by 3D Hubs announcement

[lord_daeloth]

Wow, and you took away our ability to contact our customers? So we have no way to continue our business relationships with those people who found us through 3DHubs? That is really messed up.

[bhudson]

While we allowed 3D Hubs to operate for its first several years, there have been several announcements that they would be working toward a business-to-business model. They just didn’t state clearly until now what impact that would have. I am not surprised they are eliminating as many contact methods as possible; it means they can continue business as normal without contacting customers, so the customers don’t know anything has changed, which is helpful for 3D Hubs.

I agree that it is a little underhanded and I have asked them for transparency on how things will happen moving forward and asked for a time where our Hubs stay active but unable to take orders so that we can answer any questions, but they have of course not responded. Makes me a little disappointed that I spend hours working on their knowledge base with no reimbursement.

I doubt they are monitoring these threads as they have no reason to do so.

[Richard_Beck]

No soup for you…you are not worthy.

Dinged for sleeping at night and for not printing unprintable orders, orders that can not possibly get done by deadline, and materials that do not exist.

[JDMusicLabs]

Don’t feel bad about it. There was no guarantee you wouldn’t be kicked out if you had better scores. I don’t trust any hub that has 5.0 scores, there’s no way that’s legit.

[bhudson]

@JDMusicLabs I have 409 reviews, everything but print quality is listed as 5.0, print quality is 4.9; my last 50 order average is 4.97.

My completion rating is 89.6% because I had to turn down weapons orders, because I had four users who stopped responding to questions about their orders, and because I had customers request a material that was inappropriate for the use, not to mention the users who expected me to somehow complete a 5 day print order in two days. Requests for review of my completion rating went ignored.

Clear opaque, seriously? Isn’t that just white?

[JDMusicLabs]

I meant with all scores being 5.0. You always get penalized on something, even if it’s just someone placing a duplicate order.

Clear opaque is like dry water.

[keebie81]

Is it really a loss though to be removed from the platform for you? Looking at your screen shot you have only had 3 reviews in last year, so maybe around 6 or so completed orders. Obviously 3dhubs wasn’t doing much for you.

[serpentes]

this is ridiculous…
3D Hubs doesn’t give any shit on the hubs which made their business even possible…
this list here is nuts, as no one would ever find it…
and: it’s way more complicated than the old system was…
no private user would ever use it, as there are no securitys…
neither for the hub nor the customer

[Richard_Beck]

No, it’s not a big loss and you’re wrong about your estimate of orders. I have been active with 3D hubs from the day they opened up Houston,TX and had a lot more orders in the past. They dropped off significantly this year and last as things changed on 3D Hubs end and, IMHO, as some hubs likely lowballed/tuned their pricing. I’ve been moving from counting on them as a significant and growing part of the business to seeing them as a declining source of marginal revenue.

But that is not the point is it?

They are free to change their business model and we are free to be pissed and to vent. That’s what we are doing here. It won’t change anything, but at least it lets us feel better. I am sure that is why 3dhubs set up this thread in the first place.

I do have one question. If an existing business with 50 or 100 or more printers or 2 or more large HP printers, wanted to participate, how would they qualify to be added? It seems like a catch22 looking ahead unless 3dhubs will be changing their process for adding partners.

[cobnut]

Ditto @bhudson, 5.0 on all scores apart from print quality at 4.9, and that’s almost entirely due to unreasonable expectations, average 4.98. it’s totally achievable, if you never send out substandard work, meet your deadlines and are always prepared to go the extra mile to make the customer happy.

I had one print quality of 3 that was totally absurd as I’d warned the customer about supported surfaces, they’d ok’d the warning AND I sent two copies of the print, trying to make the best of it. Contacted 3DHubs & they talked to the customer and they agreed to revise it as a 4 (though that was still unfair).

[bhudson]

Yeah, I had that also, multiple times. I am not eligible for the Fulfilled program because the quality of orders on Instant Order was so poor that it tanked my completion ratio. So I stopped using Instant Order and still can’t recover the completion ratio because of the stupid customer orders.

If I were to organize a replacement for 3D Hubs I would put a lot more emphasis on customer education at the start of the order instead of having it buried in the help files.

[cobnut]

@bhudson same here. The instant order feature was hopeless for me, just way too many unprintable orders (at least via FDM). I also turned off the student discount as it seemed a lot of student models were also unprintable.

[secliways]

. 3dhub is turning their back to the very people who made the business. Alright they build the website, and it is right to pay the fee on each order. Without the single hubs they would not exist. Customer come to 3dhub because they can find my, our hubs to get their part printed not because 3dhub prints it for customers. Based only on the latter their claim is false. For it to be really fulfilled by 3dhubs they should print the orders themselves, full stop. But that is not the case and by shutting down non qualifying hubs they are playing a dirty, unfair game, and I won’t be surprised if they were to lose the market in the future. They will never be like Shapeways, and others similar platform, unless they shut down everything and buy their own printers.

[cobnut]

@secliways you know Shapeways uses “manufacturing partners” as well, right?

3D Printing Service Online

“Fulfil” simply means “satisfy”, in the sense of a need or requirement, there’s no more to it than that. People want something 3D printed and 3DHubs (or Shapeways) makes that happen, they’re “fulfilling” that requirement. Where and how the part is actually produced is irrelevant in terms of that definition in exactly the same way that Amazon doesn’t need to own an electric toothbrush factory before they can “fulfil” your order of an electric toothbrush.

[secliways]

Partners network is an extra on Shapeways, their service does not rely on other people printing their orders. If all Hubs drop off 3DHub.com, they are finished. That’s my point, DUDE! They have made their name using somebody else hard work. And Amazon is a place where people can sell stuff. Always being that way. They have expanded and never kicked out the people who made it happened for them. And not all orders are marked “fulfilled by Amazon”. But it does not mean you cannot buy it anymore!

[cobnut]

@secliways not sure what you mean by “partners network is an extra”, do you know precisely how much printing is done by Shapeways’ own factories and how much is done by their partners? Does it matter? It’s still possible that a 3D print delivered by Shapeways was printed by a 3rd party, just the same way that 3DHubs prints are. DId you not read this part of the linked page?

“As a production partner, you are integrated into our materials offerings and ordering processes, and fulfill orders placed on Shapeways.”

Oh look, there’s that phrase “fulfil orders”. It’s spelled incorrectly, but I’ll let them off.

My example of Amazon was in respect of your definition of “fulfil”, not how they treat their sellers, but regardless, if you think all Amazon sellers are happy and satisfied with how they operate, you should browse through their seller forum sometime. Take a read of this, seems oddly familiar, doesn’t it?

Giving up -the towel is being thrown

ALL businesses have to make tough decisions from time to time, and occasionally those decisions impact the people that were there at the start. It’s not ideal, but often the only alternative is that the business fails totally and then everyone loses.

[secliways]

“Fulfilled, or not fulfilled That is your question”. And you are totally missing my point of view. Peace out!

[OLCE]

There is a new invitation link for the slack (valid for 30 days)
https://join.slack.com/t/3dfabhubs/shared_invite/enQtNDM4MjE5NDY2ODM0LTFjYmRhOTZlMWI2MmVmMDNiMDAwNTNjNzgxYjAyODViZGVhZjg0Njk4YmM3NjRmNWU2NzVjY2Q0ZGM2NmUzMzA

[AndreasDesmedt]

I felt this coming from soooo far away. When they were starting “Fulfilled by 3DHubs”, adding CNC, adding Metal 3D Printing,…

I began on my own next to 3DHubs by starting a website, Facebook page,… and I get more (and higher value) orders through that than I ever got through 3DHubs. I’ve had a lot of customers complaining about Shapeways prices, this is going to be the same with 3DHubs. Businesses will find other partners, other manufacturers.

This is an insane backstep to all the Hubs, and I’m convinced that they just signed their own death by making this move.

[Lembach3D]

Discord come and join me here