One phenomenon that is deeply disturbing as well…China's labor cost for hiring English /German/Spanish speaking remote marketing people inside China itself has dropped drastically. What that means is for the cost of 10 marketing and social media people in 2018 they can now hire 16-20 people. A lot more people in China learnt foreign languages during the pandemic.Why do I bring this up? When a local reseller used to mention or repost one of their customers videos on socials and if the customer was buying 100 -120 kgs a month they were small fry for Chinese marketing reps. They would be completely ignored and the local producer/reseller could carry on selling. Now even a customer whose monthly cart is 60-70 kgs is fair game for poaching. Because their salaries are so low, the sales targets for these fresh grads are also low.They will now poach a 800-900$ order by looking up social posts. Crazy times!
Not sure about your influencer vs small business argument. When I started printing five years ago there was ONE local place to buy filament & that's a national US chain: Microcenter. Now I have three! Microcenter, Printerior & 3DSHQ. Only Printerior is making their own filament. Unless you mean local as in "not China" then we have more filament manufacturers than you can shake a stick at.
I understand your argument. Now try to respond to this:
Today, I spoke with one of the largest filament manufacturers in Europe. He told me about the number of tons they produce annually and how much is produced in China. He knows this from various sources. The information is confidential, so forgive me for not providing specific numbers.
However, these three pieces of information are certain and can be shared "in an open channel":
1. There are fewer than ten "significant" filament manufacturers in Europe; there is a huge gap between the top three and the rest.
2. Compared to Europe, there is no "significant" filament manufacturer in the USA.
3. The weakest filament producers in China produce as much than the best in Europe; the largest in China produce multiple times more than all European manufacturers combined.
This difference in scale is why prices are dropping so drastically. Low prices lead to low margins. In Poland, a three-person filament sales business used to need to sell at least 1.5 tons per month to be profitable. Today, even 3 tons is far too little. Demand for filament has increased, but most buyers now purchase directly from manufacturers or large distributors.
So, in the best-case scenario, local resellers are selling the same amount of material as before but earning two to three times less per spool.
And as for 3D printers—well… What kind of margin can you get on a Creality Ender 5, as described above? $50? How many can you sell per month? 100? Will that cover the costs of running a store?
One phenomenon that is deeply disturbing as well…China's labor cost for hiring English /German/Spanish speaking remote marketing people inside China itself has dropped drastically. What that means is for the cost of 10 marketing and social media people in 2018 they can now hire 16-20 people. A lot more people in China learnt foreign languages during the pandemic.Why do I bring this up? When a local reseller used to mention or repost one of their customers videos on socials and if the customer was buying 100 -120 kgs a month they were small fry for Chinese marketing reps. They would be completely ignored and the local producer/reseller could carry on selling. Now even a customer whose monthly cart is 60-70 kgs is fair game for poaching. Because their salaries are so low, the sales targets for these fresh grads are also low.They will now poach a 800-900$ order by looking up social posts. Crazy times!
Not sure about your influencer vs small business argument. When I started printing five years ago there was ONE local place to buy filament & that's a national US chain: Microcenter. Now I have three! Microcenter, Printerior & 3DSHQ. Only Printerior is making their own filament. Unless you mean local as in "not China" then we have more filament manufacturers than you can shake a stick at.
I understand your argument. Now try to respond to this:
Today, I spoke with one of the largest filament manufacturers in Europe. He told me about the number of tons they produce annually and how much is produced in China. He knows this from various sources. The information is confidential, so forgive me for not providing specific numbers.
However, these three pieces of information are certain and can be shared "in an open channel":
1. There are fewer than ten "significant" filament manufacturers in Europe; there is a huge gap between the top three and the rest.
2. Compared to Europe, there is no "significant" filament manufacturer in the USA.
3. The weakest filament producers in China produce as much than the best in Europe; the largest in China produce multiple times more than all European manufacturers combined.
This difference in scale is why prices are dropping so drastically. Low prices lead to low margins. In Poland, a three-person filament sales business used to need to sell at least 1.5 tons per month to be profitable. Today, even 3 tons is far too little. Demand for filament has increased, but most buyers now purchase directly from manufacturers or large distributors.
So, in the best-case scenario, local resellers are selling the same amount of material as before but earning two to three times less per spool.
And as for 3D printers—well… What kind of margin can you get on a Creality Ender 5, as described above? $50? How many can you sell per month? 100? Will that cover the costs of running a store?