Does anyone know any 3D filament drop shippers?

I've decided to make a website to drop ship 3d filament. Ive done a little research and have found Jrfilaments.com I was wondering if anyone knows about them or knows another drop shipper. Thanks in advance.

English is not my first language. What is "drop shipping"? Dropping packages from a flying drone to save on costs?

Sorry, but I feel there is quite a lot of competition in the 3D filament supply area already, I fear you may have trouble carving yourself a market.

I for one do not print a lot, so quality from a reputable reseller is my foremost criteria, not price.

I noticed that two months ago you were looking to purchase a Prusa i3. Did you procure it?

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NormandC
English is not my first language. What is "drop shipping"? Dropping packages from a flying drone to save on costs?

Almost. Drop shipping is what people do when they want to have an online store, but not get their hands dirty handling merchandise or paying to keep an inventory in stock. They pay a wholesale seller to "drop ship" the package directly to the customer for them, instead of having it delivered to the seller's business and then having to re-ship it to the customer.

There are books all over the Internet telling people how to set up their own online store on eBay and then have everything drop-shipped from "secret" wholesale warehouses. The problem is that hundreds of other resellers are buying at a higher volume price point from the same warehouse and selling for minimal markup, so it is nothing more than a "get rich quick" scheme that seldom pays the operating expenses never mind a profit.....

Thanks for the explanation. So it's just adding a middleman in the process to take his share of the "loot" with minimal effort.

Sure sounds like something I want as a customer!

The seller finds the customer and collects the money.

The seller pays the drop shipper to deliver the product.

The buyer receives a package that says it is from the seller on the return address label, but really shipped from the drop shipper.

It is a great deal for the seller in theory, as all they need to do is find customers, collect money, and tell someone else to do the work. They do not have to package shipments, or more importantly pay to keep an inventory of items that they are selling.

Because capitalism is involved, the drop shipper is dealing with other sellers at the same time, and they may get a better pricing due to volume. The only person making money on the deal is the drop shipper, since the sellers are cutting each other's throats trying to compete on price.

The customer usually loses, since they have no idea of the original source of the materials being purchased or that half of the stores on eBay are selling the exact same stuff from the same warehouse. Since most drop ship dealers try to hide the source of their merchandise behind their own branding, you cannot shop for the same item with another seller and be 100% sure that you will be receiving the same exact stuff. Plus, the drop shippers themselves usually have retail sites of their own, which compete against all of the other sellers. Obviously the sellers do not want their customers to know this, since it cuts them out of the sales loop.

The worst part for people thinking about selling filament in the USA is that the Micro Center store chain is selling USA-made filament with a manufacturer's paper trail for $19.99, and frequently has it on sale for $15.99. The drop shipper mentioned above starts at $28.00 (including shipping), and links a reseller on their page selling spools for $29.99 shipped. Oh, and their filament appears to be coming from Asia, and their USA "office" address appears to be an apartment complex in San Antonio, Texas:

Google Earth's "ground truth" image

"J&R Filaments is a registered Small Disabled Veteran Business" according to their web site, so I do not want to discourage anyone from doing business with them even if they appear to just be another middleman.....

Vreihen nailed it.

We (Griffin 3d) looked at doing filament along with our printers and every time, we came to the same conclusion, it's too cut-throat. This was reinforced at Detroit Maker Faire, I can't tell you how many people were running around trying to sell and promote filament for us to sell. We could have kept our printers running all weekend just using the samples people gave us. Everyone and their brother is trying to sell filament.


Look at it from another direction, you have an unoriginal product, and only that product. This means you have to compete on price, or a lot of advertising, and someone will always be willing to take a smaller percentage. Now that you have American and Chinese companies selling direct it will be even more of a price war, Microcenter really fired a shot across the bow in that regard. This leaves either advertising, or having something else to draw people to your sales site.

We will probably offer filament, we have the contacts for some original, American made stuff for cheap, but since it's not our primary product, we aren't reliant on selling truck loads of it for pennies on the dollar like a drop shipper is. We also have the advantage of one stop shopping, combined/fast shipping, and the ability to certify that it works with our printers.


$28 a spool was fine 6 months ago, today, that's steep for cheap filament, not only can I get cheap stuff for less, but I've had good luck with the Microcenter stuff, some of which is almost on par with Ultimachine.

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sheepdog43
some of which is almost on par with Ultimachine.

If only I knew where they were getting it.....

They get it from Toner Plastics.
I wonder how it stacks up against 3DXTech. I've only bought "cheap" filament once, but they look refined and clean. Cheap in price, but I'm not sure I would call it cheap.

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Realizer- One who realizes dreams by making them a reality either by possibility or by completion. Also creating or renewing hopes of dreams.
"keep in mind, even the best printer can not print with the best filament if the user is the problem." -Ohmarinus

Not to divert the topic too much, but I have always been a huge supporter of UltiMachine filament, never had problems with their filament, it's always quality. I believe they manufacture it in-house (i.e. it's actually their filament).

Couldn't pass up the MicroCenter deal though. Picked up a few spools at $15.99/spool. Incredible deal compared to what I'm used to. Have had really good results with the Toner Plastics brand from MicroCenter. They only carry 1.75mm at that price though.

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Not to divert the topic too much, but I have always been a huge supporter of UltiMachine filament, never had problems with their filament, it's always quality. I believe they manufacture it in-house (i.e. it's actually their filament).

This is incorrect AFAIK. They resell filament made in the US from a reputable supplier. I won't name names since it's not my supply chain.

That said, I only buy filament from Ultimachine. The quality is excellent and consistent. I tried cheap filament and concluded it was not worth the cost savings. It only takes 1 failed print due to mis-spooled filament or diameter swells to more than cancel out any cost savings.

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MrDoctorDIV
They get it from Toner Plastics.
I wonder how it stacks up against 3DXTech. I've only bought "cheap" filament once, but they look refined and clean. Cheap in price, but I'm not sure I would call it cheap.

I have a spool of Toner Plastic (Micro Center) black ABS loaded up on the printer now, and a spool of 3DXtech black PLA waiting on deck. Since black is supposedly the industry's dumping ground for regrinds and floor dust, I figured that it was the best test for filament quality when searching for suppliers. The 3DXtech stuff is packaged so nicely that I'm hesitant to break the seal! Unfortunately, my printer has been going through another revision for a few weeks now, and isn't quite calibrated good enough to test filament right now.....

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isonoob
Couldn't pass up the MicroCenter deal though. Picked up a few spools at $15.99/spool. Incredible deal compared to what I'm used to. Have had really good results with the Toner Plastics brand from MicroCenter. They only carry 1.75mm at that price though.

I couldn't pass up the deal either, and picked up about $300 worth in early July when the sale was on. I twisted my ankle walking out of the store carrying all of those spools in bags like a pack mule, and am *still* not completely healed over a month later.....

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crispy1
This is incorrect AFAIK. They resell filament made in the US from a reputable supplier. I won't name names since it's not my supply chain.

That said, I only buy filament from Ultimachine. The quality is excellent and consistent. I tried cheap filament and concluded it was not worth the cost savings. It only takes 1 failed print due to mis-spooled filament or diameter swells to more than cancel out any cost savings.

I've always been under the assumption they manufactured in-house. After your post I went to their site, seems like you're right

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UltiMachine About Us
Print Materials - We find, test, and contract out the production of high quality 3D printer polymers. We got our start in the industry in 2009 by arranging for the first successful productions of PLA 3D printer filament in the USA. We had help from some all stars in the RepRap community who helped test the different polymers and determine the best one. Since then we have worked with the extrusion factories to refine the tolerances and improve the product.

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vreihen

I couldn't pass up the deal either, and picked up about $300 worth in early July when the sale was on. I twisted my ankle walking out of the store carrying all of those spools in bags like a pack mule, and am *still* not completely healed over a month later.....

$300 worth??? holy chit and i thought i had a problem lol.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/17/2014 10:57PM by isonoob.

Ultimachine tells right on their site who makes their PLA pellets (about page/ PLA), but not who is doing the extrusion.

As for the thread, I think it's lost. Anyone who really knows any drop shippers worth their salt, more than likely won't reveal their source. Even those buying and selling filament won't. It's already cut throat and the last thing you want, is more competition.

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isonoob
$300 worth??? holy chit and i thought i had a problem lol.

I basically picked up one of everything they had, so that I have an inventory of colors in both ABS and PLA to choose from when printing a part. I really wish that they carried orange, since it is a color that I have lots of uses for. Hey, if you want to run with the big dogs.....

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vreihen
The 3DXtech stuff is packaged so nicely that I'm hesitant to break the seal!

Right? It's insane that packaging alone doesn't shoot the price up to Makerbot prices. They definitely know exactly what they're doing, no doubt about that. The ABS I have is so clean and tight in tolerance, same as the ABS/PA alloy. I've never had anything print so clean, warping aside.

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Realizer- One who realizes dreams by making them a reality either by possibility or by completion. Also creating or renewing hopes of dreams.
"keep in mind, even the best printer can not print with the best filament if the user is the problem." -Ohmarinus

While the OP seems to want to not have to manage inventory but an Internet based business like that isn't what defines the term "drop shipping". The practice has been around for decades, it's where the retailer has the item shipped direct from the manufacturer or distributor but not so they don't have to maintain an inventory. For example, most larger machine tools are built to order and are drop shipped so they can go right to the end user instead of freight to the supplier then to the buyer.


As for filament, buying US based wholesale, quality filament from raw material from either Natureworks PLA and Chi Mei ABS starts at about 12kg per color and size. And the break compared to buying retail from someone like Ultimachine isn't that good at that qty. To get enough to get the price low enough to make any money you need to get a minimum of 300 lbs and at that qty the manufacturer requires that each color you want has a 48kg minimum per color, per size. For 5 colors in one size of material it's over US$5000 plus freight and it comes on pallets, not UPS so you better be able to have a dock or fork or get the carrier to provide liftgate service. I use enough material to buy in at the lowest wholesale tier, sometimes up to 4 kg/wk but it's easier for me to just buy from Ultimachine. I can get it a few kg at a time, it's here in two days with Priority Mail and it's great material.