New Lower Prices and Change to Shipping Policy

New Lower Prices!

TL:DR  PrintedSolid.com has reduced prices across our E3D , Hatchbox , and colorFabb sample products as well as many items we stock for under $25.  In order to do this, we have started collecting shipping for orders under $25.  Full explanation follows:

Over the past several months, my new co-owner David and I have been reviewing the types of orders people are placing and have been benchmarking pricing against other domestic and international sellers.  Having David on board for these discussions has been great because he was a customer prior to becoming a partner, so he brings some great insight.

We concluded that David and most of our customers who buy things like tools, samples, and replacement parts are usually ordering more than one thing at a time.  For example, if someone needs a replacement nozzle they usually don't just order a replacement nozzle.  They might order 2 nozzles and a thermistor.  

Then we did a little more research and it turns out that much of our pricing, particularly on E3D, was set before some major adjustments to the exchange rate happened.  

So, being the rocket scientists that we are, we decided that we could probably lower some prices, and that maybe we should see if there is a way that we can reward those of you who are ordering several small things in one shot.  

Great!  Now how do we do that...

Free Shipping Isn't Really Free...

In a post-Amazon world, we've all come to expect free shipping on everything, but in reality, there is no such thing as free shipping.  USPS, UPS, Fedex, etc are all businesses and we do have to pay them to ship stuff.  On larger and more costly items, this cost is simply rolled into the product price.  Typically these large items are shipped one or two at a time and the 'rolled in' hidden shipping cost scales with quantity orders.  For these items, you as a customer are still 'paying' a fair amount for shipping even though it isn't called out as a line item on your order.  

For small inexpensive items, this concept begins to fall apart, especially when multiple small items are being purchased.  Historically, we set our prices for small items under 1 lb based on our cost plus margin plus a few bucks to cover part of our actual shipping cost.  OK.  That's fair if you're buying a single item, but is it really fair for the buyer who is ordering a bunch of spare parts?  Our shipping cost remains unchanged, but we're collecting that extra embedded shipping cost for each item even though our cost to ship doesn't change.

So, again, as rocket scientists, we concluded that we need to pull this shipping fee out of the individual items and place it onto the order.  

Charging Shipping to Save You Money?

We have come to the conclusion that the path forward is to reduce prices overall and to start charging a small shipping fee for orders under $25.  Products in the store under $25 are being reduced in price by at least $2 and in many cases much more.  Shipping for items under $25 is set at a flat rate of $3 for First Class orders under 1 lb and $6.50 for Priority and orders over 1lb.  

Even if you don't get to free shipping, you'll still save money with the new pricing on almost all affected products and when you're buying more than one item, you'll save a lot.  Really...  who ever needs just one spare part?  You know you'll want one to replace and one to keep on hand for next time anyways.

In the process of evaluating our prices and making this shipping change, we also concluded that we can reduce prices on Hatchbox filaments.  Single spools will now fall below the free shipping threshold, but purchasing multiple spools will save you some money over our previous prices.  A little trick?  Buy a spool and a spare part or a filament sample at the same time and shipping becomes free :D  Enjoy!