Tag Archives: stock

Winning for losing

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The poor guys over at MakerBot just can’t win for losing.

People just begged for pre-orders.  Now people are upset they have to wait because of pre-orders!  Without pre-orders everyone would be guaranteed a longer wait time.

  • When you place a pre-order you get a place in line.  Otherwise you just have to be the fastest clicker when they post the new kits.
  • When you place a pre-order they can use those funds to get your parts, get parts for the next batch (while they work on yours), or, heaven forbid, eat.
  • When they get to use your funds to get parts for the next batch, that means they used the funds from the prior batch to get your parts.  This means your wait time was shorter because of pre-orders!

If you pre-order a MakerBot it may feel like you’re waiting a long time for your kit – but waiting on a pre-order is so much better than waiting for a sold out product to be placed back in stock.  In the meantime, there are so many ways to get ready, participate, and contribute.

Seriously, get started right now!  There’s not a moment to lose!

Patience grasshopper

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Patience grasshopper, patience

Patience grasshopper, patience

Recent posts to the MakerBot Operators group show some people’s frustrations with this growing company. 1  Yes, they’re out of stock of electronics and other parts, but they’re also doing their best to crank out as many kits as possible.

Overall, I’d rather have them churning out robot kits than keeping spare parts in stock.  The plans for all of the electronics are open and free – you could have someone else fabricate them or build them yourself.  Still others have started up businesses selling lots of replacement parts and even upgrade kits.

We might be impatient for our kits, but they’re literally devoting their weekends and free time to getting these kits to us.  In fact, it’s their feverish dream to get a MakerBot kit into your hands.  You’re just not going to get this kind of devotion and service anywhere else.

I have one piece of advice if you’re waiting for your kit to arrive or replacement parts to be back in stock:  start designing stuff right now.  You already know what you want to build.  Just create a library of things you want to churn out.  Upload them to Thingiverse, get feedback modify, and improve them.  Heck, improve designs posted by others.

Your kit will be here before you know it and you’ll be happily (and woozily) sniffing ABS fumes too.  :)

  1. Photo courtesy of changhg [↩]