Home Depot and MakerBot have joined up to bring 3D printing to select retail locations in California, Illinois, and New York. Select Home Depot locations will be showcasing MakerBot’s newest Replicator printers and their Digitizer 3D scanner.
At participating stores, there will be specially designed kiosks where trained MakerBot retail staff will provide 3D printing demonstrations and will offer printed samples for customers to take home.
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Participating Home Depot Locations:
East Palo Alto, CA
Emeryville, CA
Huntington Beach, CA
San Carlos, CA
West Hills, CA
Wilshire/Union, CA
Manhattan 59th St, NY
Manhattan West 23rd St, NY
Lincoln Park, IL
Naperville, IL
North Avenue, IL
South Loop, IL
Home Depot has also recently started carrying MakerBot products online.
Buy Now(via Home Depot)
First Thoughts
A couple of months ago, a marketing research rep from Craftsman and Sears called me up to pick my brain about a few things. He kept circling back to ideas about in-store demonstrations and displays that centered around 3D printing and CNC products. It looks like Home Depot beat Sears to the punch.
Honestly, I don’t think this is the direction retail stores need to be heading. Instead of focusing on selling 3D printers, they should focus on selling 3D printing services, similar to what UPS is testing out at 5 retail locations.
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Pundits like to tell how consumer desktop 3D printers are getting better and better, and how they’re getting cheaper and more affordable, but things aren’t quite to the point where you can get a “plug and play” printer at widely affordable prices.
A few weeks ago I purchased a Printrbot Simple Metal 3D printer. I liked the design and construction, but it failed to produce a usable print. A lot of tinkering and tweaking with settings and adjustments, and it still wouldn’t output anything usable. I ultimately sent it back.
Judging from what I have seen, less expensive 3D printers can produce decent quality, but users should be prepared to become 3D printing enthusiasts in order to make that happen. There seem to be few – if any – sub-$1000 3D printers that require as little attention as 3D printer sellers would have you believe.
Inexpensive printers still require much coaxing to get things just right and turn-key printers require deeper initial investments.
MakerBot, under new Stratasys ownership, has made their newest Replicator printers easier to use than ever, but they’re also more expensive than ever. The 2014 edition of the Replicator is priced at $2900. Even the “mini” model, which is smaller and with lesser specs, is nearly $1400.
If my local Home Depot offered 3D printing services, such as with an internet-connected vending-machine-sized help-yourself display, that’s something I would definitely take advantage of.
John
Hmmm. Naperville, IL Home Depot is 10 miles from my current jobsite. Might be time for a sidetrip after work some night.
mike
hrmm i gotta through bay area traffic to look at one,no thanks 😉
Dennis
What percentage of Home Depot’s sales are home improvement/construction projects? It’s gotta be around 95%. I mean occasionally somebody wanders in and buys some cleaners, or light bulbs, or a candy-bar, or what have you. But the rest of their sales are strictly materials and tools. I understand that a 3D printer is a tool, but it’s still years before they are used in construction in any meaningful way. Devoting what looks like a good amount of space to at this point hobbyists, seems more like a PR move to get their brand in the media as opposed to actually trying to drive any real sales. I would expect this more from Radio Shack.
Stuart
According to a couple of online sources, Home Depot has said that contractors make up 3% of their customers, but that this accounts for 35% of all sales.
That still means that 97% of customers are consumers.
Dennis
I didn’t mean that the people doing the project were contractors or general consumers. I meant that a vast majority of things purchased at home depot were for construction or home improvement, not “tinkering”.
Stuart
Even so, what probably matters to them is the number of eyeballs of all those consumers. MakerBot is trying to push that 3D printers can be used for toys, doodads, and random household and lifestyle accessories. Home Depot seems to be a logical place to do that.
Jason O
Redbox needs to start “Printbox” 3d printers on every corner, at every walmart or gas station! “I’ll be back, I need to run down to the Walmart and print an AR15 lower.”
Dan D
This is such a great idea, I’d love to pick up a 3d printed phone case or adapter on the way. I agree with article why buy a 3d printer when I’d only use it 10-20 times a year.