New Shipping Options

[Luuk]

We’ve just introduced a first step towards better pickup and shipping dashboard for our Hubs. This will be the foundation on which we can build more advanced shipping price calculations and integrations with API’s.

Why are we doing this?

Until now customers would only find out shipping options such as delivery time and price after placing their order, which is not a great experience as it leaves them uncertain about when their print will arrive and what the total price will be.

With this new delivery dashboard we’re starting to improve that experience. From early July 2016 customers will start seeing the relevant shipping options for their location in the checkout.

You’ll be able to set up different shipping services, for instance for shipping an envelope or small package with USPS or FedEx, and enable them by region (State, Country, Continent or World) you can also exclude regions, countries or states from specific options. You can use the Shipping Details field to list any information or limitations to weight and size per shipping option.

Setting the price for shipping options can be done in 2 ways, firstly you can give in a Flat Rate if you already know how much it will cost to ship a standard envelope of box to a certain State or country. We’ve also decided to keep the option to set the price on a per order basis, which is identical to the current shipping feature.

We’re planning to roll out this feature to customers on July 3th, but you can already start filling in your shipping options.

Important fact to point out is that you will still be able to change shipping option or its price on an order by order basis, just like you can do today. This is handy if a customer chooses the wrong shipping option or they want to get it faster after discussing with you.

To update your delivery options, follow these steps:

1. Go to your delivery dashboard
2. Add relevant shipping options
3. Save them

Finally, we would like to stress that this is by no means the final shipping feature, but the starting point to make ordering a 3D Print a better experience, by creating more clarity about what a customer can expect from different Hubs that are available.

Tip 1: the legacy shipping option will be removed when we launch the new shipping. If you don’t set up shipping options your Hub will not be shown to non-local customers.

Tip 2: adding continental or world shipping options ensures customers in those regions will be able to order from you

[SOC3D]

Are you saying that we are only able to offer flat rate shipping without taking into account an objects size weight or destination? My rate is between $1.35 to $35 within the same state and postal zone. Be ready for a slew of wtf feedback here. This makes no sense whatsoever. Ups FedEx dhl everyone has shipping calculators with php plugins that can be used. 3d hubs estimates a models plastic and therefore can calculate rates. Hubs should be able to select a carrier and services offered, add a handling fee and show automated shipping costs. Now every customer will be immediately angry that their shipping costs are wrong. After they get over being mad about not receiving a response within the timeframe the automated message says we all have. And after being angry about a 10% bulk discount being some weird square of pi vs 10% Also keep up the good work.

[Jackson_Moody]

Yeah, this seems like it will be a lot more convenient then the old shipping options. I have been wanting more detailed shipping orders for a while, and now its finally here! AWESOME!!

[Peter_Bond_1]

Great, now how do we set this to handle different charging by overall weight?

[SOC3D]

+1 And hopefully it’s not the same way charge for prints by weight (not an option). That would mean we have to buy materials by weight and ship by weight with no way to set prices by weight which would be insane of course.

[PeterMake]

This message is for 3D Hubs:

This new shipping option is WRONG, WRONG, WRONG!!!

You are basically forcing us to use FLAT RATE SHIPPING BASED on SALES AMOUNT.

YOU ARE DOING A DISSERVICE TO BOTH YOUR HUBS AND TO OUR/YOUR CUSTOMERS!!!

We don’t know how much shipping will cost us until we know the following:

• Size of Box
• Weight of Shipment
• Location (address) of Shipment

I ship all around the country.

I DO NOT Inflate my shipping charges to my customers.

I run an honest, fair priced Hub and over charging for shipping is not a way to earn money.

I want to be fair to my customers about shipping charges.

This new option that you want us to start using will be totally unfair to some customers and too cheap for others.

PLEASE, Let Us Calculate Our Shipping Charges On An Order to Order Basis like we have been doing.

Or AT LEAST LET US Choice what method we want to use, the legacy or the new, why eliminate the legacy?

If you force this new shipping options on us I will probably leave 3D Hubs and seek an alternative way of offering my printing service.

3D Hubs, please stop trying to improve things when all you really ever do is make it harder of us to do business.

Peter Zacarelli

PeterMake 3D Hubs

[SOC3D]

You should tag @Filemon and @Luuk

[SOC3D]

Test without tagging?

[SOC3D]

Thanks Peter!

I was going to say you should tag filemon and Luuk, it appears the new anti-spam update broke tagging people?

[keebie81]

This seems like a poor idea. There doesnt appear to be a way to base the shipping on the weight or size. A small item can be shipped in a small box using usps first class. But if its heavy then I need to ship some other way which costs more.

You also only give two weeks for this change? Why hasn’t this been sent out in an email to us yet?

Also is shipping time (days) mean how soon we mail it out or how quickly it gets delivered?

[Brian]

Hi Peter, the initial release doesn’t support pricing by weight or size, as most prints are very light and have small size. If it turns out pricing by weight or size is really needed we’ll make sure to support it, for now you can add a brief description to inform customers of extra charges over certain size and weights.

The primary goal of showing shipping times, destinations, services and prices is for customers to be able to better compare different Hubs and better understand when they can expect to receive their prints.

Brian

[Brian]

Thanks Jackson, indeed customers have been asking for shipping time and price indications per country, we’re excited to start showing that in the checkout from July onwards.

Brian

[Brian]

Hi @keebie81 thanks for the feedback. Indeed small and light items can often fit in small boxes, and the bulk of prints on our platform fall in that category. At the same time a really heavy print comes with a big price tag, so you could consider offering free shipping as extra service to the customer.

Having said that we’ll collect all the feedback and we’ll evaluate coming week if we want to add more functionality to support pricing by weight and size. For sure we’ll closely monitor how customers and hubs use the feature to continue to improve it.

As for the email notification, we’ve only notified 10% of our Hubs this Friday, so we can catch any technical issues early on. On Monday and Tuesday we’ll be informing the rest of the Hubs.

Shipping time means the time the shipping takes. Let me know if you have other questions or ideas on how to make it better (besides the size and weight pricing).

Brian

[Brian]

Hi Peter,

Thanks for giving your feedback and thinking along Peter! Of course we’re not trying to make it harder for you to run your business, we’re addressing a painpoint that many customers have expressed to us and is keeping them from ordering on 3D Hubs.

Some of the frustrations that customers experience with the current ‘legacy’ shipping is that they are unable to take shipping costs and time into account when choosing a Hub. Essentially they are comparing apples and pears. The fact that the total price of the order changes after they’ve placed their order isn’t the best experience either.

With the new shipping service we’re allowing Hubs to offer multiple shipping options per region. In the first version we’re not taking size and weight into account yet, as most prints are fairly small and light. However based on the feedback from yourself and other Hubs and the strong demand for weight/size based pricing we’ll get back to the drawing board and see if we can incorporate that, either before launch or after once we’ve collected data on how customers and Hubs are using it. Does that sound fair?

Perhaps allowing you to set max width, height, depth measurements and a max weight per option could solve a lot of the issues you’re describing.

Love to hear your ideas to make the shipping feature better, without making is super complex.

Best,

Brian

[PeterMake]

Brian,

I’m sorry but you do not understand shipping cost!

I could send two orders to different customers in the same city.

One order is for $9.00 but is flat and fits in an envelope and cost $3.95 to ship.

The other order is for $9.00 but is short and round, has to go in a box, now the shipping cost $6.95.

It is all about how the part is shaped not about the sale price.

Customers are very sensitive about shipping costs, if they feel that they are over paying they will be angered and cancel their orders!

The only way to offer free shipping is to up our printing rates, again customers are very sensitive on printing cost and usually go to the cheaper Hubs.

You say we will be able to set shipping prices by location, almost every zip code would be a different price.

Do you realize how many zip codes, counties, cities, towns, etc. there are in the United States?

This might work in Europe but not in the U.S.

If you sell on-line with the various e-commerce apps, they will always offer shipping based on size and weight.

In fact, this option is so important to on-stores that some e-commerce sites will charge a premium for the size and weight option for shipping because they know that you need this option to make a profit.

Shipping by price is the biggest mistake in e-commerce and you are forcing us to use the method.

I would like to know how many of the 3D Hubs actually ever ran an e-commerce ship on-line and were happy with charging shipping by sales price.

Your Hubs will end up with a lot of unhappy customers.

Your Hubs may start losing profit.

Why not offer us, your Hubs, a choice!

Why not trust us, your Hubs, with our own decisions.

Your Hubs that are successful is how you, 3D Hubs, earn your money.

If we fail or start to lose money from you policies we will be forced to go else where with our services and you, 3D Hubs, will lose money and perhaps someday fail yourself.

Again, do not force this on us,

Regards,

Peter Zacarelli

PeterMake 3D Hub

[Brian]

Thanks for the feedback Peter, I see and understand the issues you’re describing and we’ll take time to address them! It’s definitely not our intention to force a system on you that makes you lose money or make customers unhappy.

Besides, we’ll still allow you to change the pricing after an order is placed, so we can also think about the wording in the checkout e.g. shipping price estimate.

We’re going to make it work Peter!

[JATMN]

I have never seen this “legacy” shipping option and I have to say this “new” one… is completely worthless to me. As mentioned by others. You can’t have a flat rate shipping for all orders. I have had some that cost only a few dollars to ship “tiny” prints and some prints were significantly larger and had alot of infill. The whole order was around 1.5lbs or plastic. Which cost quite a bit more to ship. Offering a “free shipping” option is insulting to me. As my services are already minimal on margins. Some orders I would take a total loss with free shipping as I accept small order requests. The concept is a start. But I feel it’s horribly executed and honestly most of my customers would hate it too.

[JATMN]

Brian I feel you don’t do very much shipping in general. At least here in the USA I ship all orders USPS as my orders generally don’t need UPS/FedEx handling. Many orders I can ship first-class due to weight and the customer is close enough that first class is still next day service. Some orders weigh too much and I ship them priority mail which is actually also a expedited shipping option. Point is first-class has variable shipping speed and cost varies by the oz. Where priority mail is priced different. Then some orders I can ship flat-rate but it’s not worth the cost unless the order is very heavy, but it’s in a price bracket of its own. All my orders I evaluate for best shipping option for the customer before even accepting the order. While I’m sure there is better ways to do it… the option your showing is not the answer.

[JATMN]

Brian, not to be rude but your completely not listening to Peters concerns at all. Instead your undermining him and I find it quite rude. I echo Peters concerns 500x you need to start listening to your hubs before making changes or your best hubs will be gone. My hub isn’t even a year old and I’m pushing for “Professional” status here in the next month or so. My point I have a very active hub and even self imposed the limits of how many orders come in because I get so many at once at times. If 3Dhubs continues this route with updates. Your going to start loosing hubs and 3Dhubs will be the ones that take the loss not he hubs because the loyal customer will follow the hub. Your changes for address verifications you completely disregarded hub concern’s and it was eventually swept under the rug completely. Pay attention or your going to loose your hubs.

[Brian]

Hi @JATMN you’re right, I’m not very familiar with shipping in the US, thanks for sharing your shipping experience.

I’ll investigate with my team if there is a shipping API we might be able to integrate to make shipping prices dynamic in the US. We looked at existing API’s but there is no service available to has coverage that matches the breadth of our platform (158 countries). Lots of Hubs indicated us that they prefer using local postal solutions over standardized services like UPS as they are often priced more competitively (at least in Europe).

What’s important is that we’re building a foundation that allows us to build additional services on top of and over the coming weeks we’ll learn what it takes to get it right. This is just the first step, and hopefully with the super useful feedback from your guys we’ll make it work.