Zero Work Coming Through Since HD Hubs

[stevec121]

I believe I’m not on my own when I say I have received ZERO work since implementation of the recent changes ie HD Hubs coming on line and the accounting changes. I’ve seen various similar reports from other Hub members - and responses from 3D Hubs spokespersons. I have to admit I’m not impressed or convinced by their (3D Hubs) response to members concerns - I think a little truth would go a long way. Lets face it the day of the small 3D print enthusiast offering a viable print service are long gone as far as 3D Hubs are concerned - we have served our purpose and are now surplus to their requirements. Can’t see much point being a member of this community anymore. Would appreciate other members comments.

[gabriela3d]

Hi @stevec121, thanks for the feedback! As much as we would like to ensure a steady order flow for all Hubs, unfortunately it’s not possible We’re trying to do our best to pass along all good tips we hear along the way on How to Hub though, so hope the followings will help boost your Hub activity in the near future.

Basically all tips below ultimately converge into one really important ‘marketing’ tool: word of mouth. So here are a few ways on how to translate that into your business:

1. Promote your Hub both offline and online to family, friends and co-workers, either through social media or by attending events, meetups, conferences, even at the local pub Albeit a bit time consuming, it is a sure way of getting your name and skills out there. Think about it, we put a lot of faith in the advice and recommendations of people we know, so next time someone in Birmingham will need a 3D print, make sure that one of your friends/ acquaintances will recommend you.
2. Next time you get an order, go above and beyond to create a memorable customer experience - these are the customers that will always come back to 3D print at your Hub and will also recommend you to their circles
3. Share cool prints/ projects here on Talk, we always share them on our social channels, giving credit of course. I can see you both have awesome prints featured on your page, so go ahead!

We’re currently working on a How to Hub Handbook and we’ll soon cover more ways on how to promote your Hub! In the mean time though, let us know if any other issues and we’ll be happy to help!

Maybe it’s the Talk fairy, but I see you already receive 2 enquiries today

Good luck with those and happy printing!

Cheers

[MB3D]

Hi Steve,

I mostly agree to your statement.

If you ask any stranger if he would like to have an item with any nameor the same product with a “+”, “HD” or anything that sounds better, I bet that person would pick the later.

The same is happening with 3dHubs (HD) in my opinion. Whilst the 99% of hubs that run FFF or SLA printers can produce really good products for a great price the “HD” version is still more appealing to unknown consumers.

I don’t think, that we (The FFF users) will completely vanish from 3dHubs, but it’s totally correct to say that the order amount will decrease when there’ll be more of a focus on those “HD” or instustrial purpose printers.

I think 3dHubs should promote the majority of hubs a bit more.

Why not say something like: HD is a service for parts that need outstanding surface quality (compared to average 3d prints), however FFF or SLA printers are often way cheaper, sometimes closer to the customer and (in the case of FFF) offer a lot of different materials that CAN (!) even outscale “HD” prints when you need something functional.

I think that 3d printing and maybe even 3dHubs will turn into a “do or die” for many hubs. The more advanced the 3d printing technology gets the least hubs can keep up with upgrading their printers or buying the newest one to supply the customers with outstanding prints. For most the decision will be between giving up 3dHubs (at least as a reliable source of income, if that was ever the case) or starting a business. Then again if everyone starts a business then there’s the same competition and the same problems, just on a higher level of costs.

I will go into more detail with my opinion and possible solutions to get the best experience, not only for customers, but also for hubs of any size, but for now I need to catch a bus to get to work

Have a nice day, I’ll get back to this ASAP, maybe you can comment on this even earlier to have a discussion rather then just two people saying their opinion.

Cheers,

Marius Breuer

[markembling]

I have to chime in here too as I agree with this. I’ve seen my hub activity drop to basically zero as well now. My last order was 5th November and that one was directly attributable to offline marketing I’d done. I’ve not seen a new customer since August!

I’ve been sure to try and make sure my hub is looking good and everything - the How to Hub series is great - but it just doesn’t seem to be working. It’s hard not to wonder what is going wrong, and feel a little helpless. I’ve said it before that I believe in the team at 3D Hubs, and I still do. But I do hope something changes about this.

[stevec121]

Thanks for your response. I fully understand the need to promote and advertise - I run a successful watch sales/repair/refurb company so marketing is no strange concept. Truth is there seems to be an epidemic of members all saying the same thing - the works drying up - simple as that. And it seems less than coincidental that this change has been noticed since the HD option coming online.

I did receive 2 inquiries - one did not convert (think he was just after some free advice) and the other was another member asking to meet-up (not an order). The Talk Fairy needs to get a revamp on the wand - could print her one but she would probably go down the HD route.

[gabriela3d]

Hi guys, apologies for the late reply. This past week was a bit hectic with the 3DP Day and all and I wanted to take the time in replying. As far as HD goes, I believe Filemon, Brian and Bram have covered, well, everything. We’re really striving to make 3D Hubs the go to platform for 3D printing, so when we noticed more and more Hubs declining orders and referring customers to 3rd party platforms, it was clear we wanted to take a synergetic approach and incorporate HD into the mix.

There’s been a lot of talking about this, so what I’m trying to say now is we’re really sorry for the trouble caused and we are committed in doing whatever it takes to overcome it.

The How to Hub Handbook and organizing the Global 3D Printing Day to raise local awareness for your Hub are only 2 examples of things meant to help, but if you have more ideas on how we can improve the situation, do pass them on! Feel free to reach out either on Talk or via email gabriela@3dhubs.com. You know your business & understand your local area better than anyone, so if you have any suggestions, we’d love to hear them. Anything from discounts for returning customers, to introducing your Hubs to local universities, or attending local Star Wars-themed meetups for example.

Again, we are here to help you through this. Shoot me an email if you want to look into ways on boosting your Hub or anything else for that matter. Cheers!

[MB3D]

Absolutely agree to this *thumbs up* !

Since when was 3dHubs HD online ? It must have been months ago and a discount that started in the summer or whenever and lasts within the next year is like telling every possible customer: “Hey, whatever you do please order 3dHubs HD prints”

This promotion phase has been longer then any other advertisement campaign I’ve seed thus far.

Another thing that bothers me (beside the fact that the discount is advertised so heavily below each thread) is that 3dHubs’ twitter account seems to be all about HD too. I’ve seen so incredibly many tweets from them with nice graphics that explain the “HD” printing processes and what to watch out for to make a printable design.

3dHubs consists mostly of hobby 3d printer users, not companies. I don’t want 3dHubs to turn into the next Shapeways which does only offer industrial printing service and according prices.

3dHubs is about local 3d printing, making the product right where it’s needed. Of course someone that needs a top quality prototype for presentations and such should use 3dHubs HD, but in most cases the projects don’t have such requirements.

I would love to see 3dHubs advertising any other printing method (which doesn’t happen at all, except when an admin or the twitter account respond to nice FFF prints posted by hubs). Why wouldnt 3dHubs release graphics that explain how to design SLA or FFF prints ? That’s, what would help most hubs as for example I got a lot of customers that order functional models that don’t have to have a certain optic, but rather should be extremly strong. I do allways have to change the models to archieve such strength with layer-based printing. This already annoys the customers as they sometimes payed a professional engineer to design their parts and the only thing I can tell is that he based the design on the wrong production method (or non at all).

If 3dHubs wants to go the way of including seperations (normal 3dHubs vs 3dHubs HD) then they might even do this to support the thousands of FFF or SLA hubs and they could release “3dHubs Originals” which is focussing on what 3dHubs was when it started.

Promote private hubs that are operated by hobby users, advertise social events, such as meetings, livestreams (to discuss tips and tricks world wide), host (or help with hosting) workshop events so that customers can see a printer in action. Participate in voluntary services such as “enable” and most of all stop advertising 3dHubs HD so much. HD can and should still be promoted of course, but those advertisements have to be set in relation to how big 3dHubs really is.

As said above 3dHubs was about locally helping out each other with prints, 3dHubs isn’t (and hopefully wont become) a service that shall only be run by companies and can only be afforded by people with the budget of companies.

Cheers,

Marius Breuer

[Filemon]

Hi guys,

A lot of fair points. Allow me to shed some light on some of them. Please ask me specific questions if you feel information is lacking, it’s hard to tackle all of the comments at once with one specific answer.

Re: 3D Hubs HD. It’s true we’re running a campaign here that is very present, so I understand the concern. What is maybe not communicated well is that the current HD campaign focusses on Polyjet printers only. Although, from a branding perspective, the Polyjet campaign is very visual throughout the site, this is a totally different service offering than FDM. For example; Polyjet is ±5x as expensive as FDM. If a potential customer comes to 3D Hubs with a budget of, say $100, he/she will not switch from FDM to Polyjet (in this example $500).

The goal for us is to expand 3D Hubs into a high-end market next to FDM. What we’ve learned from our customer is that they use 3D Hubs for the first few iterations of their designs and then move to a 'high-end" service. It’s this potential we would like to see on 3D Hubs as well. Again, it’s an expansion of the current offering. What’s an interesting fact is that since we launched the HD campaign, FDM prints on 3D Hubs has grown significantly (not necessarily correlated, but for sure FDM does not decline in any way). I cannot generally answer situations in which a specific Hub has been receiving less orders, but the platform as a whole is growing steadily.

It’s also true that we’ve been promoting HD on Social Media a lot as well. It’s a fundamental part of our expansion strategy into this market. However, recent successful campaigns around Pip-Boy, Star Wars, Christmas Gift Guides, and Raspberry Pi cases, were all FDM only.

I hope this explains a bit. If you do have problems with orders recently, please shoot an email to support@3dhubs.com and we can asses each specific case and see what’s needed to make it work.

Cheers,

Filemon

[Filemon]

Please shoot an email to support@3dhubs.com so we can look into what’s causing the decline. Cheers, Filemon

[NoNaym]

Figured I would bump this post up to say that I’m feeling your pain. I noticed the same thing where I have received ZERO orders over the past 22 days to month or so, after what seemed like I was getting a new order (or two, or three even!) every night.

I also wonder if this issue can be more attributed to the 30% discount 3D Hubs is offering on HD print orders for the next 40+ days, or if the HD hubs really are just taking over…

Either way, I too am a bit annoyed at how this is all going down, but am hopeful that more orders will come in once their (absurdly long) HD print promotion is over.

[stevec121]

The fact still remains - supported by lots of feedback from members - that the work stream has dropped off to ZERO for many many hubs since the start of the HD campaign. Seems like proof positive that this campaign has done nothing for the vast majority of members.

What would be interesting - but Im guessing 3D Hubs wont do it - is a straight comparison of jobs completed (ordered and paid for) by the general FDM community before the campaign and since the start of the campaign say, over a 1 month period. That way we can see the effect of the campaign.

3D Hubs please take note - your FDM members are not raising these genuine concerns for nothing - we have experienced a genuine drop (plummet) in business since the start of the HD campaign so please do not try to placate with corporate rhetoric.

[NoNaym]

So I totally just called your bluff, and sent an email to you in reference to this issue (and this forum thread). Here is the worthless, canned response that I received in return (from Ferkan):

I’m sorry to hear that you didn’t get any jobs yet.

Although I have to admit that Gabriela already provided you with some tips.

So; beautiful pictures and a good description on your hub page is the half work. After that you could promote online and offline to friends and family.

I’ve seen multiple times that hubs couldn’t get started, but once some orders get in… new orders keep coming in.

I would also suggest to try not to decline an order, always ask the customer what he is aiming for and what you could provide.

Some customers might have a difficult model, but maybe if you ask them you could slice/adjust it to make it printable on your printer.

Hoping to have provided you with sufficient information.

If you need any help, don’t hesitate to contact me.

[NoNaym]

Agreed Steve! Now how do we get our message through the head of the monster that is 3D Hubs? I found it pretty crazy when @Filemon responded to my first post in this thread offering to “look into what’s causing the decline,” only to actually receive a completely worthless canned response from @ferkan (See the response I received in full above). Really shows how little they actually care about this issue.

They really do seem like they think we are making this issue up. We’re not!! Like @stevec121 has been saying: This is a genuine problem, and we want genuine answers (and ultimately solutions) to the problem.

[NoNaym]

Seriously disappointed in what is happening with 3D Hubs. Just goes to show how little they care about this issue (or the Hubs that got them to this point in the first place); They just want to make you feel like it is your fault for not getting any work (since the changes THEY made).

This response is full of incorrect (read BS) assumptions: The first assumption in this response is that I have not received any jobs yet… ummm wrong!!! I have had over 50 print jobs from 3D Hubs, and had been receiving at least one (1) print job (sometimes more than 1) per day/night before the sudden drop to ZERO print jobs. The next assumes that I have a poorly filled out Hub page (or my own poor marketing in general)… wrong again!! I’ve spent a good amount of time uploading plenty of clear pictures, writing a helpful description of my business and services, and I even have the order widget on multiple pages of my website (but I’m pretty sure all my previous orders were directly from 3D Hubs’ website). The last one assumes that I just have no idea what I’m doing basically… wrong dammit!!! Like I said, I’ve had over 50 (successful) orders, and I always do whatever I can to help customers with difficult orders instead of declining them right away.

How about you guys stop dancing around these issues and actually address them directly?? I doubt I speak only for myself here when I say that I am getting a bit fed up with your company and its tactics.

[gabriela3d]

Hi guys, let me just say that we are hearing you. We are in no way dismissing your concerns about the drop in your orders, nor ignoring them.

Truth is, during the past few months, we’ve seen some (non-HD) Hubs maintain the same level of activity, others thrive, while others, you, experience a drop in the number of orders. I had a look at your Hubs orders and your decline in orders is a fact. As Filemon mentioned though the significant growth in the FDM orders on the platform is also a fact.

That being said, it’s difficult for us to pinpoint a single problem as the cause of this . Most opportunities come wrapped up as problems though, so coming next year, I’ll personally reach out to each of you to see how we can tackle this.

To get some perspective, I’ll also reach out to other members in your local community, Hubs that haven’t experienced a drop in orders. I think the key here is focusing on questions that result in actionable insights. It would be interesting to see for example what are other Hubs doing to increase revenue, inspire repeat purchases and appeal to new customers.

• What was the most successful thing you did this/last year to entice customers into your Hub?
• How do you find your customers?
• Why do you think you managed to maintain a constant level of orders?
• What’s your top How to Hub tip?
• Are there any specific actions you take to encourage existing customers place more orders at your Hub?

One other thing worth noting is that we’re all operating in a price-driven market and this is something that can definitely work in your favor. Of course, things are never that simple, but it’s important to clearly pinpoint your 3D printing business differentiators when looking at the bigger picture.

There are many ways to tackle this and we’ll do that step by step.

In the mean time, any input is much appreciated.

As I see it, you, our Hubs are the new face of entrepreneurship. As a Hub however this means managing every aspect of running a business, including marketing, bookkeeping, and customer service. This is a lot, which is why working together and sharing experiences, good or bad, is extremely valuable at this point. We are in this together though.

Cheers,

Gabriela

[NoNaym]

While we have been waiting for actions from the 3D Hubs admins (or for you to “personally reach out to each of [us] to see how we can tackle this”), I’ve spent some time working on my Hub to make it more competitive with other local Hubs as well as added some updated photos. I already had a pretty well marketed Hub that has had over 50+ successful orders, but figured since I still haven’t had any new orders since late November that it was time to make some adjustments (also made these adjustments according to your recommendations).

After adding some new print photos, and really aggressively adjusting my prices… I’m still seeing ZERO work coming in, while other local Hubs are still clearly getting a lot of business even though I have better prices and delivery times. THIS MAKES VERY LITTLE SENSE!

What makes even less sense is the way that Hubs are listed by default when clicking “BROWSE LOCAL PRINTERS” on the 3D Hubs home page. By default, Hubs are sorted by the supposed “Best Match.” If I punch in my Hub’s exact address with the default “Best Match” sorting option, my Hub shows up as the sixth (6th) result! Again, THIS MAKES VERY LITTLE SENSE. My Hub has the lowest prices out of all (except one) of the top results; My Hub also has the most (all positive) reviews out of all (except another different one) of the top results; My delivery time is even on par with the other top results as the fastest speed available… Oh, and did I mention I searched using the exact address of my Hub?!?.. sure searching by distance brings it to the top, but it really should not be getting buried when switching to the “Best Match” sorting option.

My question to you now is (not only about why we are not getting any business, but also) why is one of your top Hubs in San Francisco being buried in the default search results, when it is just as good if not a better match than the results above it??!!

I’m starting to wonder if you guys keep a secret black-book of the Hubs of your choice(s) to be blocked from receiving orders… but fortunately this part of my rant is pure conspiracy theory for now.

[NoNaym]

Just wanted to follow up to say that maybe a week or so after posting my last message, I’m happy to report that not only has my Hub jumped back up to the top results when searching for “Best Match” hubs in my area, but I have also started to received orders again.

I’m just assuming something was done on 3D Hubs’ end (at least for the search results issue), for which I thank you. Will definitely post back here if I notice any other unusual patterns related to these issues.

[stevec121]

As the initiator for this thread I would like to commend the actions of 3D Hubs recently with regard to a recent job. They assisted in a very difficult situation with a client and saved the day - my sincere thanks - I was significantly impressed.

That said and done I have not received any new jobs for the last 3 weeks or more - which seems strange considering other members seem to be enjoying an increased level of opportunity. I, like so many others, look forward to the close of the HD promotion which I cannot help think is removing opportunity from the regular mortal like myself. If, 3D Hubs, you have the power to do so please push a little my way. I would like to return the professionalism demonstrated by members of your administration team.

[NoNaym]

I’m back again just to report that business seems to have picked up substantially and steadily again, now that the dreadful HD promo is over. Curios to find out if anybody else has noticed more orders coming in again since the HD promo ended a week or two ago.

I really hope future promos do not have such negative effects on our Hubs like this HD promo may have…