3D Printer Resellers, Or Not?

In the battle for personal 3D printer supremacy, the leading manufacturers seem to have chosen different approaches to sales. MakerBot, 3D Systems, PP3DP, BotMill and others

 

MakerBot, BotMill and many of the smaller participants tend to sell directly to clients from their websites. Perhaps this makes sense as these smaller companies don't yet have the reach and volume to warrant sales through a comprehensive network of resellers, although MakerBot does have one European reseller at this time, Robosavvy. 

 

3D Systems normally sells their large-scale industrial printers through resellers, but for their personal BfB line of 3D printers they sell direct from their website as well - although the BfB can apparently still be purchased from reseller A1-Technologies.

 

PP3DP is interesting; this small Chinese manufacturer (Delta Micro Factory) sells not only on its website, but also via a small network of resellers, even though they have relatively small volumes like the others above. Perhaps it's difficult for a Chinese manufacturer to reach clients in the West directly? PP3DP currently has three resellers, based in Australia, Japan and the United Kingdom. 

 

As the market grows more competitive, we suspect we'll see some of the smaller manufacturers opt into reseller networks as well. It's a simple way for them to grow a sales force. 

 

But really, our fantasy is to see a row of 3D printers on sale at Best Buy. 

getitmade!

You've designed something ultracool for your 3D printer and want to sell it. But how? One way you might consider is getitmade, a site kicking off new ideas:

 

getitmade is a new kind of marketplace where anyone with a product idea can test the market and use social networking to generate pre-sales and get the product made. Using getitmade allows Innovators (designers, inventors, companies and ordinary people) to take their product ideas to the production stage by pre-selling on getitmade to raise the money.

 

Your idea goes through a "Kick-Off" stage, in which you receive feedback before you produce the item. After some product tuning, you'll move to the "Pre-Sales" stage, where buyers reserve a unit for themselves. When you have sufficient orders, start making! 

 

What's the catch? getitmade will take a whole ten percent of your sales - but only after your pre-sales target is reached, which could be quite high.  

 

Not a maker? You can still use getitmade by simply picking products of interest and buying a copy for yourself - and there's some very interesting items for sale right now. Check them out!

 

Via getitmade

RapidToday For Sale

We were contacted by fellow 3D print blogger Barnaby Wickham, owner/writer of the popular RapidToday blog. Barnaby says:

 

I am selling www.rapidtoday.com, the rapid prototyping and 3D printing site I own and have edited for the past 2.5 years.  I thought one of your readers might be interested in it. RapidToday has developed good search engine status (Google PageRank of 4) and web visibility (about 6,000 visits a month).  

 

The site is also very well ranked among relevant search keywords in the rapid prototyping space. 

 

We're sorry to see Barnaby leave, as he's published many interesting and detailed articles on topics of great interest to Fabbaloo readers. However, we understand how change is sometimes necessary, and wish him well in future endeavors.

 

The site could be continued on as is, or perhaps used by a manufacturer or service to expand their branding. If you're interested in acquiring the RapidToday blog, please contact Barnaby at the Rapidtoday site.

 

Via RapidToday

Trade Up to ProJet?

Commercial 3D Printer manufacturer 3D Systems has a special offer underway: trade in your existing Stratasys, Dimension, Objet, Z-Corp, Envisiontec or older 3D Systems printers and they'll credit you "up to US$15,000" toward the purchase of a new 3D Systems ProJet 3000 or 5000 model. 

 

If you're interested, you'd better get started as the promotion closes 30 June 2010. 

 

Via 3D Systems

A Little World Idea

We're checking out the new iPhone app from "Little World Gifts", which is a rather cool idea. You browse a series of 3D "gifts" via your iPhone - and browsing means viewing in 3D using rotations, zoom, etc. Once you've selected something, you can pick one of your contacts and purchase the item to be sent to them. 

 

The recipient (who's also running the app) places the gift on a virtual shelf with other gifts they've received. Watch the video to see how it works. 

 

Interesting, but what does this have to do with 3D printing? We think this approach is one that hasn't been done yet by 3D print services: an iPhone app to browse and select printed objects. These objects won't just show up on your phone - they'll show up in your mailbox! 

 

One can easily envision an app that provides simple abilities to modify the model in basic ways (color, size, options, etc.) and then connect to the appropriate service for final printing and shipping. If you're a 3D printing service, you might consider this approach. What better way to bring clients to your service if you tie it directly to a smartphone? 

 

Oh and we can't forget to mention: LWGifts pulled an April Fool's day prank in which they tweeted:

 

SO EXCITED to announce our new 3D printer iPhone accessory with dock connector...now you can *really* play with your gifts!

That was not real, of course. 

 

But it could be. 

 

Via Little World Gifts

ProMetal's Experience

ProMetal is an innovative manufacturing company that uses advanced techniques such as additive manufacturing to get an edge. In a wide-ranging interview and analysis, RapidToday profiles ProMetal and their recent challenges:

• Identifying the right sales channels to meet the market
• Enabling customized versions of products
• Keeping consumer costs low

It seems that selling 3D items to consumers is not straightforward.

Meanwhile, it turns out that ProMetal is developing ways to print glass items with 3D printing. We've written about this before, but according to RapidToday, "none appear to be as far along as ProMetal, which has been working on the process for over a year." Check out the glass vase above (hand glazed).

Finally, ProMetal is developing their own 3D printer, the M-Print, intended to be released this year. The M-Print is intended for low-cost metal 3D printing, including iron and bronze and should be far less expensive than high-end competitors who focus on specialized materials or processes.

Via RapidToday