Creality Behaviour - 3D Printer

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Creality 3D Official Store

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  Hybroid on 27/08/2020 - 04:56

  +2

  You know how people say don't pre-order games? Don't pledge on Kickstarter if you expect any of them to keep all their promises or even deliver, as most of the time it's vapourware. Seems you'll at least get it, eventually.

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  jhaley3180 on 27/08/2020 - 08:29

  Ummm…. Okay it's a kickstarter project. Do you understand what Kickstarter is? You're pledging money to a concept proposal. When you pledge in these platforms you're speculating.

  In this case it sounds like the concept has been realised and you are getting something for your speculative investment.

  I agree they should be maintaining communication but postage…. Ooh well.

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  perf on 27/08/2020 - 09:46

  +2

  Creality printers are the best bang for your buck - but you get what you pay for.

  Their customer service is non-existent, shipping is slow (even without a global pandemic) and they are based in China where if something goes wrong there are absolutely no consequences for them or any consumer protections.

  That being said I own a couple of printers from them as do many other people. They sell millions of the things and the collective mind of everyone who owns one makes the risk v reward worth it for people as getting help from other owners is easy if you have issues.

  I will never understand how anyone would think it was a good idea to join a kickstarter of an established company who already sells out any new printer they produce in record time. It was just a way for them to make a lot of coin up front (during a global pandemic) and not be bound to even supply the things in the end. Probably should be grateful that a printer will show up at all as any kickstarter is a gamble.

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  lunchbox99 on 27/08/2020 - 10:03

  I can't believe people still contribute to kickstarter after all the scams and under-delivering on promises.

  • 

    Joku on 27/08/2020 - 14:43

    In a case like this though, where you have an established company known for making exactly these type of devices, it's not the same thing.

    The real startups yeah… as a real product design engineer I was never silly enough to put money down on a campaign. Unfortunately it's pretty clear what the site is about, the genuine startup companies were mostly teams of over-confident noobs/grads, the only real skill on display was their digital marketing skills. The best you can really hope for is that they pull in a lot of money and have enough rationality/humility to quickly learn that they should invest some of that dough in contracting people who actually know what they're doing.

    • 

      lunchbox99 on 27/08/2020 - 15:32

      Why the hell should an established company be using a kickstarter for a new product anyway. That is a scam in itself.

      • 

        Joku on 27/08/2020 - 16:24

        Personally I don't think it is a scam.
        This kind of sale strategy has its advantages in justifying / proving / de-risking R&D project ideas.
        It's potentially a good way to solve managements general risk aversion to investing further in R&D and often conservative/under estimations of the likely payoff.

        • 

          lunchbox99 on 27/08/2020 - 17:41

          @Joku: Is that the intended purpose of Kickstarter - to de-risk product development of established companies? They are passing THEIR risk onto YOU. That is the scam.

          Like they say… a fool and their money are soon parted.

          • 

            Joku on 28/08/2020 - 00:15

            @lunchbox99: Personally I don't really care what Kickstarter's intended purpose is though, just what it could potentially be good for.

            The risk I was referring to in my prev post was more specifically from the perspective of a competent design team who isn't realistically going to fail to design the product nor see a large blowout relative to their estimated timeline and cost. Rather they could use Kickstarter to de-risk their unreliable estimates of the finished products demand/sales, unreliable estimates which might otherwise result in a massive underestimate and thus potentially never see the project get off the ground despite people wanting the product.

            I realise you're looking at this more from the perspective of the average Kickstarter projects dev team failure rate and I agree customers are pretty much getting scammed. Often the scammer doesn't know it though, the trouble I see on Kickstarter is it's full of designers with very little experience and through that also gullible overestimation of their capabilities. I think many of them have genuine intentions it just that they need to go and get a bloody job in these design industries for a few years so they have a better idea what they're promising before taking retail customers money in exchange for those promises.

        • 

          kapone on 28/08/2020 - 12:47

          @Joku: Absolutely. If you ask people if they would buy a product, vs asking them to actually stump up money, you'll get very different responses.

          Many startups thought they were onto a winning thing because people 'told' them they would buy their product service, but after it was built the sales never happened.

          Asking people to pay upfront to validate a product idea is a great strategy. Treating customers like crap after you've taken their money however is a different matter.

      • 

        g1 on 28/08/2020 - 04:00

        Cooler Master recently finished a Kickstarter round. I see why they could have done it. They made a case for Raspberry PI. It's a crowded market. Lots of the market is looking for cheap everything. One of the things that Kickstarter offers is investment viability. It's basically market research and development funding for them. I think it's a useful platform in that case.

        • 

          lunchbox99 on 28/08/2020 - 08:07

          @g1: Oh I get why the established business wants it, there is literally no downside for them. I just don't get why an individual would agree to be co-opted into accepting project risk and financing for a company that you hold no equity in.

          From the company point of view it's genius. From the individual contributor's perspective I think it's moronic.

          I'm just imaging the company's management discussion - "hey that's an idea that we don't think is worth investing our money in, let's go find a bunch of rubes on the internet and get them to finance it. If it pays off, we own it… if it's fails, no loss to us. Profit!!"

          • 

            g1 on 28/08/2020 - 08:26

            @lunchbox99: Cost. It's cheaper to get it on Kickstarter.

            It relies on having trust in the company to deliver on the promise in order to gain a saving.

            I've backed two other projects before and both have been excellent. Neither was from a first time developer. I backed them as the product was unique and I wanted what it offered.

            In some ways I see a lot of non-locally sold products in the same light. If I buy something from overseas what protection do I get, what warranty? None if the company doesn't want to provide anything. It's always a gamble to buy something from outside of Australia. Yes Kickstarter introduces an extra risk, which is you may not get the product at all and you can't claim anything back via a financial institution protection. But really, if I buy something on Aliexpress and the seller sends me a useless broken item that is worth next to nothing then I am not much better off then Kickstarter broken promise.

            It is disappointing to deal with companies that have no regard for customer service. It would be great if all reviews for Creality products would point out how little support will be provided post sale.

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  Joku on 27/08/2020 - 14:06

  Prioritising increasing their sales above making good on fulfilling existing orders is a scumbag move. Not the first company to do it though, and won't be the last.

  The shipping is a bit dodgy but meh, I don't think it would be pissing you off so much if it weren't for the above issue of people jumping the queue.

  Customer support is hard to judge, it's a new printer with issues that will take some time to investigate and resolve, and no doubt they're not responding to many angry messages regarding the above two points.

  I always thought my bogan (ie. average/typical) Australian bosses of the past were insanely short sighted in so many ways, it was obvious why the dumb pricks were still running small businesses, heavily indebted and always reverting back to barely scraping by, after all their years in business. Apparently their kind of attitude is doctrine in the Chinese business world though, they think and are taught that it's the right way to run a business, so sadly you have to expect that you're going to get a lot of this kind of bs when dealing with Chinese companies.

  • 

    g1 on 27/08/2020 - 15:52

    This.

    It's hard to get an understand of how a company operates if there is no information, and no one comments on it. The easier it is to find that information, the better. The post is really an awareness exercise.

    As far as established companies using kickstarter, its not unheard of and some keep their promises as they care about their reputation.

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  Ameowzon on 02/09/2020 - 10:19

  Didn't read the above, but I've been bitten by Kickstarter many times, so I've pledged to not support any of them anymore. I've lost too much money, unfortunately :(

  • 

    g1 on 02/09/2020 - 11:44

    Seeing that Creality is now selling the printers for close to Kickstarter price there really was little point to going via Kickstarter. I think that's my lesson right there; wait for the product to be offered elsewhere.