Each year the season comes around. Prime Day, Black Friday, Christmas, New Years. The quarter most consumer companies, big and small, look forward to. Sales spike across, Etsy, eBay, and Amazon. 3D Printing companies this time of year often end up expanding their printing capacity by buying a few more machines. An investment of hundreds or thousands of dollars. The trouble is that after the season passes the machines are left idle. So the investment is not fully utilized. Certainly the machines may be "paid off" but profits are often reduced. And Christmas sales don't often correlate directly with business growth. This problem is where services are valuable. They are able to bridge the production gap through the season. Clients are able to ramp up their production capacity using Slant 3D printing farms to complement their own. The benefit is there is no cash outlay for equipment that may go unused. The production is perfectly flexible. And the system is profitable on the first part since larger printer farms are often able to access greater economies than smaller 3D printing operations. This is an especially a good system for small businesses such as Etsy stores. But applies equally well to the industrial sector where sales can spike and production rates need to increase. Out of Darts is a Slant 3D client that utilized this resource in 2019. Normally Out of Darts manufactured Nerf mods that are 3D Printed on their Prusa Farm in Washington, but with spiking demand from the holiday season they did not have the ability to scale up production quickly enough to meet all of the orders. ![]() Out of Darts reached out to Slant 3D to produce Nerf Dart Hoppers, a large part that absorbs a large amount of Print Time. Slant 3D was able to produce hundreds of the parts over a 2 week period in order to help them meet demand until they could scale up. But there were challenges. Matching the same output as that associated with Out of Darts was difficult in the time allowed. Since they were using Prusa's and Slant 3D uses our internal Mason there was a conversion process that could've delay the production schedule. Not to mention color matching and other challenges. This is why it is important to prepare the the spike ahead of the need. Slant 3D can accept quotes today for the christmas season and accept contracts based on need. Sampling and verification can all be completed as well to ensure that everything is ready when it is needed. This helps to prevent delays during the sales spike. Slant 3D operates the largest 3D Printing farm in north america. We have a scale that allows any 3D Printed product company to scale up quickly in order to meet the short term demand. Reach out to us for a quote for your 3D Printed product. And get great for the 4th quarter fun.
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Reduce the Cost of International Shipping by Teleporting Parts Via 3D Printing The internet has allowed the sale of products to anyone in the world. Whether those be consumer or industrial products. But that access is ruined when the products have to cross borders or oceans. Shipping a crate overseas then paying tariff and warehousing fees significantly increases the cost of a product to the end-user. Wouldn't it be great if Parts and products could be "teleported" to the destination country with just an e-mail to save those shipping costs. With Production 3D printing that is possible. 3D Printing allows 3D models to be emailed and manufactured anywhere in the world. The trouble has always been there has never been a formal entity that can print your parts in the country where they are to be sold and ensure they are shipped to customers. 3D Printing services like Slant 3D allow products designed in one country to be produced and fulfilled in another country without the cost of shipping. And Slant 3D can hold your model in our digital inventory and produce it only when it is needed. How it Works
By using Slant 3D you can take your product international and not have to deal with international shipping costs. And you have the huge production scale of Slant 3D. So you know that when demand rises we are able to back you up. This is a great resources of companies and entrepreneurs outside of the United States to send their production to the US without the high cost of shipping. 3D Printing is quickly becoming a best option for production of plastic parts. You have little-no inventory. You can send your parts anywhere in the world for free, and you are able to grow without any high up-front investments. Who is Doing It.Slant 3D already doing this with dozens of companies and entrepreneurs. They include companies like Uncommon, a project call Part Mason, and Etsy stores such as BakersStreetCuters. All of these products are manufactured and fulfilled from Slant 3D. But most of them are designed outside of the United States
3D Printing is becoming a common method for producing parts and toys by small independent creators all over the world. These people often maintain several printers in their home or shop in order to make the products that they have created. But if you are just starting out or trying to grow, the time and expense of your own personal 3D printers can make them prohibitive. Personal printers often cost $500-$3000 which, for a small cottage business is a high startup cost. But with production 3D printing you can just upload you models and have your manufacturer hold them in digital inventory. That is, there is a onetime preparation fee, and then the part is ready to be printed forever. When an order comes in it is pushed to the manufacturer who will access the digital file and print the design. And since companies like Slant 3D support dropshipping you can enter into a monthly plan where you pay a flat fee for each shipment and have Slant 3D print and ship the part only when it is ordered. This means you can create a business for basically zero upfront cost, and only pay the cost of manufacturing on a per-part basis. It is a lot like posting an app to the Appstore. You just create a digital design and it is copied when the design is ordered. An Alternative method to operating on a small scale is to order inventory in small quantities for you to hold and then ship, like a traditional retailer. Again the design would be held in "digital inventory" by Slant 3D, and when you need 10-100 pieces for your stock you just send a message and the pieces will be printed and shipped to you within a few days.
And whenever you want to grow you business or add new products, you basically just send an e-mail. No more affording, maintaining, and operating your own printers. Just design great products without having to pay for them until they sell. |
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