Some small 3D print-on-demand services encounter unexpected success, but where do they go next?
There’s long been a growing number of small individual operations 3D printing parts and models for the public. That’s what 3D printers do — they make things. Some operators eventually decide to go commercial and start printing things for others.
They often find more demand than expected and sometimes end up on larger platforms, such as Etsy, where huge audiences are available to vendors offering the right kind of products.
If the vendor has correctly identified a useful and attractive set of products, then expansion is the next step. While many start with a single 3D printer, an avalanche of orders can quickly generate a need for more. A dozen or maybe several dozen 3D printers are suddenly on the job producing parts for sale.
But what happens next? Do these operations simply grow forever? How is scaling possible?
An interesting case study from 3DPrinterOS shows one possible path to scaling that was experienced by one of these vendors, Fantasy Pets.
Fantasy Pets began as a simple print-on-demand service, which moved to Etsy as described above. Over time, the service grew, and the company encountered scaling issues.
One of the most important steps was to change the business model. Instead of selling directly to customers, Fantasy Pets shifted to a wholesale model. They would distribute bulk products to gift stores in their region. This simplified sales and leveraged the proven popularity of their products.
To further supercharge expansion, Fantasy Pets made deals with designers to make and distribute their designs. These designers were found on Patreon, MyMiniFactory, and other sites, where it is relatively easy to identify popular designs.
Finally, there were the technical operations of the business. Fantasy Pets found themselves operating over 100 3D printers in a rather inefficient manner.
This is a common problem. It’s easy to manually operate one or a few 3D printers, but when you scale that up, you need far too many operators to run the equipment. Better solutions are needed.
In this case, Fantasy Pets selected 3DPrinterOS as their operational solution. The service provides a cloud-based solution to manage fleets of 3D printers, including job dispatch, tracking, statistics, and much more.
According to Fantasy Pets, they are able to manage their now-116 3D printer fleet with half the staff they would otherwise have required. That’s a very significant metric because the majority of the cost of 3D printed parts does not come from the printer or the materials; it’s from the manual labor required. By automating some of that labor, the cost of parts would significantly fall — and permit price drops or increased profits.
The journey that starts with a single 3D printer and visions of selling parts can be quite long and end up with a major business — if the right decisions are made along the way.
Via 3DPrinterOS
