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Hello again 3D Hubs community!

Today I have a bit of a unique thread to post. Recently, I’ve been getting more and more customers that (in my opinion) are using the system incorrectly, as far as my knowledge leads me to believe.

More and more, I am seeing people who start orders with multiple hubs, upwards of 5 to 6, at the same time. These are not separate orders, but all the same one. Then shortly after spending time talking them through the process, pricing it all out and arranging it, they come up with a reason why they are cancelling their order with your hub, and changing to another one of the 5 to 6 that they requested the order from.

Now this bothers me, as I don’t believe it’s the intent of an ‘Order’. I know for a fact, or at least that in the past, there is a feature for customers to submit an Inquiry or a quote to hubs. When customers consistently Request an order, and then request the hub closes the order for arbitrary reasons it really seems like abuse, especially considering it affects the hub’s rank score.

Just wanted to post this to ask if this has been happening to anyone else, as it seems to be increasing in frequency and severity recently (Some customers having cancelled orders higher then 2, to three, times their completed orders. And at the same time, having over 10 orders currently open all for the same parts), Or for anyone else’s opinions on this. As well as a question for the 3D Hubs team of whether or not anything is being done to either Combat this, or to further educate consumers as to how the process works.

Just to insure I’m clear, I’m perfectly fine with someone dividing up a rather large order between hubs as to insure the order goes smoothly. This is not what I am referring to here. I am referring to someone opening Identical orders with multiple hubs only with the intent to go through with one of the orders.

As well, I wanted to know if anyone had any ideas on how to handle this! It can get quite frustrating when consumers start orders with seemingly no desire to go through with them.

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Maybe a cancellation fee ends this situation.

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True, but I do understand certain circumstances in which I would not agree with charging customers a cancellation fee. It’s only the extreme cases of people starting many orders without intent to go through with them.

I have had cases where upon further explanation consumers didn’t truly know what they were getting into, which I understand. It’s a very new industry and I’m here to educate people on it.

In other situations, I do think some form of repercussion for this behaviour should be in place

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Hi @PepCo_Parker, thanks for bringing this up! A customer submitting the same order to multiple Hubs is common on 3D Hubs. Usually, they do this in order to increase their chances of getting their print on time so they can meet a deadline. As you mentioned in your comment, customers rarely know what they are getting into and are not doing it on purpose. I can understand that this is frustrating for Hubs, but as it is a common occurrence amongst most - if not all - Hubs, in a way it equals out across our entire platform. I hope that answers some of your concerns and I have also brought this to our team’s attention :slight_smile:

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and what happens if its abuse? try and be a bit openminded that someone actually is not as honest as yourself

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We monitor all of these types of orders. If the case is clear that it is in fact abuse, we can eliminate those orders.

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Thanks for the replies. In my post I mentioned I understand when people just don’t know what they’re getting into. I’m fine with that, I know it can take a bit to learn. I’m specifically referring however to people who have been doing this for a while and continue with the same practices. As well, I want to point out that the fact that it is being misused wasn’t addressed. I know for a fact that there are quite or inquiry features on 3D hubs, and if you want to get multiple quotes from multiple sources that should be what you use no? I know that when I order windows for my house I don’t call up 10 places and say I’d like to place an order and then cancel them all, I ask for quotes from them. In my own opinion I do believe starting this many orders in this fashion is abuse. The consumers have had no intent to go through with orders multiple times which can get quite frustrating. When I receive an order I expect it to go somewhere and will do everything in my power to get it there. When I receive an inquiry I understand the customer is just curious or wants additional information. Thanks again for the replies, let me know what you guys think.

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Look at numbers of orders, numbers of completed orders, and number of canceled orders. It shows on the customer and is there for this reason. This will guide you in how much time to put in. In a few cases where I have been suspicous, I have directly asked the customer what the deal is.

One time, I contacted customer support, they contacted the customer, ALL GOOD!

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I actually do believe not responding to an order can hurt your ranking more than if you referred them to another service, but don’t quote me on that one. Just to point out anyone who says this method of ordering is OK, I just received a ‘Quote’ from someone interested in if I could get them a specific type of plastic. This only shows me that there is in fact another tool meant for ‘price shopping’ that some customers either refuse to use or don’t know about. To me, something is broken in the system. Customers need to be educated on the difference between a quote and an order, and I don’t believe that should be the responsibility of the hubs to teach customers after the fact.

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This has happened to me as well. If the system is not capable of automatically identifying multiple concurrent orders for the same object across different Hubs, which I understand could be difficult, then I think the number of cancellations/declines should be removed from the formula determining a Hub’s search ranking. I don’t believe it fair to assume it happens to everyone equally, which skews the rankings against “popular” Hubs that it may happen to more often.

At least one customer made it clear to me that he was price shopping, so I specifically did not accept the order, just gave him the price, which he turned down via text. He did not cancel the order, and I did not want to decline the order (for rankings sake), but then had to wait several days for the order to automatically be removed from my list. I honestly don’t know if waiting for the order to be automatically removed did or did not affect my ranking differently from flat-out declining it, but I wasn’t actually declining the work, the customer was. That should not affect a Hub’s ranking at all.

Imho an Inquiry, as opposed to an Order, should be available, and the Hub should be able to change the latter to the former prior to acceptance.

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I started a thread about this problem almost verbatim a couple months ago. Sadly, I got the same canned responses…

The Quote/Order system IS being abused, and it is broken. Whether it is malicious intent or just the way the system is built that allows it to happen, it IS happening.

Even your window ordering analogy is similar to one I wrote at the time.

I hope something gets done.

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You wouldn’t mind adding a link to your talk forum about it would you? I’d like to read through everything that was said over there and compare if you’re willing.

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Absolutely, some of the responses were fairly constructive too. Some good ideas about possible changes to the system to avoid or restrict the abuse and ‘price shopping’.

Here’s the thread: