Yeah I'm not liking the new store setup. Good if you want to get something local but my local store doesn't stock any spare parts and are even limited in what printers they sell so i normally go straight to UM.
Interesting hot the upgraded the website and forum but kept the old store look at shop.ultimaker.com
good find! just placed my order 
yeah, seems like you can't get there through the site.. hoping we get a response from Ultimaker 
Hi Korneel,
Hope you had a good time celebrating Christmas. (I hope everyone did!)
Just saw your message, might as well just reply here so we all know whats going on.
First of all, an official Company Update will come this week with similar information.
Anyway, Ultimaker's goal is to service all of our customers locally, in their own timezone and language, with all the accompanying advantages. It is much more comfortable to order from one of our partners in your own area, supporting you in your own timezone and being able to deliver you the parts in a shorter period of time for much lower costs than we could ever offer.
When 2015 was progressing less orders came through our own webshop, which was the (desired) result of the efforts we put in creating our distribution network. Less, but still alive, we had to maintain our webshop and logistic department. You can imagine that the workload and schedule of a logistic department varies greatly between a couple of large expected orders, or a lot of small personal orders. That ratio didn't compliment either side of the spectrum.
For those reasons we move forward closing our own webshop and put our entire focus on our established distribution network.
We put a lot of effort in selecting the best partners, so you can be assured that every partner will be able to give you the proper service and support.
You can continue to visit shop.ultimaker.com until approximately 31-12-15.
For those of you, for example @Labern, who's reseller is not yet represented on the map, or doesn't stock spareparts, a form is presented to you in which you can inform us what parts you need. We'll personally reach out to you and make sure you get those parts from the partner closed by. We don't expect to inconvenience a lot of users, since, as our data shows, most purchases and orders where already being done through our distribution network.
@Korneel, in regard of Makerpoint, it can always happen that a certain part is out of stock. Our apologies for the inconvenience. We are working with Makerpoint to establish a reliable stock to reduce the chance of this happening again. Thank you for understanding!
Hi Korneel,
Hope you had a good time celebrating Christmas. (I hope everyone did!)
Just saw your message, might as well just reply here so we all know whats going on.
First of all, an official Company Update will come this week with similar information.
Anyway, Ultimaker's goal is to service all of our customers locally, in their own timezone and language, with all the accompanying advantages. It is much more comfortable to order from one of our partners in your own area, supporting you in your own timezone and being able to deliver you the parts in a shorter period of time for much lower costs than we could ever offer.
When 2015 was progressing less orders came through our own webshop, which was the (desired) result of the efforts we put in creating our distribution network. Less, but still alive, we had to maintain our webshop and logistic department. You can imagine that the workload and schedule of a logistic department varies greatly between a couple of large expected orders, or a lot of small personal orders. That ratio didn't compliment either side of the spectrum.
For those reasons we move forward closing our own webshop and put our entire focus on our established distribution network.
We put a lot of effort in selecting the best partners, so you can be assured that every partner will be able to give you the proper service and support.
You can continue to visit shop.ultimaker.com until approximately 31-12-15.
For those of you, for example @Labern, who's reseller is not yet represented on the map, or doesn't stock spareparts, a form is presented to you in which you can inform us what parts you need. We'll personally reach out to you and make sure you get those parts from the partner closed by. We don't expect to inconvenience a lot of users, since, as our data shows, most purchases and orders where already being done through our distribution network.
@Korneel, in regard of Makerpoint, it can always happen that a certain part is out of stock. Our apologies for the inconvenience. We are working with Makerpoint to establish a reliable stock to reduce the chance of this happening again. Thank you for understanding!
Hi SandervG;
first of all, thank you for your reply.
sure, it makes perfect sense! Having great partners that handle good and reliable distribution seems the best deal for everyone.
It is however handled the same way much of the other thing customer-facing have been handled, which is without any prior notice (need i remind you of the forum debacle or the shipment times debacle?)
look, I'm running one of the more succesfull 3d hubs in The Netherlands. I have 2 UM2s printing full time and looking to source another 1 or 2. the reason i have not bought extra printers is the sheer unreliable actions so far. and it's not just me, whenever i talk to other hubs they love their Ultimakers and are still annoyed by the unreliable way customers are treated. this is not new information and yet still nothing has been done with it.
why would you inform people AFTER the move? why not tell people hey, this is the deal (and let's be honest, your explanation makes perfect sense), over the month of december we are moving to a new distribution system, we'll make sure it's all stocked and ready to go. instead, it was chosen to not do that, but do a switch during the holidays and not explain anything untill someone asked.
still, i could live with this, it does not make the printers less good and i could have just filed this under the "things that annoy me but i still love my Ultimaker"
this is the portion that is now pushing my buttons
Anyway, Ultimaker's goal is to service all of our customers locally, in their own timezone and language, with all the accompanying advantages. It is much more comfortable to order from one of our partners in your own area, supporting you in your own timezone and being able to deliver you the parts in a shorter period of time for much lower costs than we could ever offer.
and
Korneel, in regard of Makerpoint, it can always happen that a certain part is out of stock. Our apologies for the inconvenience. We are working with Makerpoint to establish a reliable stock to reduce the chance of this happening again. Thank you for understanding!
so the main statements are that
1)local partners would be able to be quicker and cheaper. sure make sense, let's test that:
coolblue: only sells printers. if i buy the UM2 extended in the coolblue (the normal and go are out of stock) it's sold for 2999 euros including shipping. buying it directly is 3032,65. including 11,32 shipping. ok, so coolblue is about 20 euros cheaper. if that's my best price, i would rather buy it direct but ok.
maybe makerpoint is better! wait a second.. it's 2292,95 euros for a um2.. that's about.. 0 euros cheaper than the ultimaker store.
so far not really seeing a big change in pricing. however.. they do state that they are "almost always in stock!" or "with a short delivery time". so sure, i'll give you the shorter lead time.
2)there should be a reliable stock. also makes sense, if i were to cut off my official store, i'd make sure my resellers had stock of the stuff that get's used! unfortunately only makerpoint sells accessoiries, and they sell them for the exact same price as ultimaker. no advantage for me yet.. let's test the stock:
3d solex stuff : more expensive than the original store but in stock
any of the stuff that can break :
Um2 heated bet : not in stock, belts : not in stock, power adapter, not in stock
and now for the things that simply should ALWAYS be in stock:
UM2 heater cartridge : not in stock and unable to place in backorder! i can only reserve this for a physical store..
hot end isolator: same story
glass plate : same story
hot end pack : same story
nozzle + heaterblock : same story
PTFE coupler.. guess what.. same story
but thank god! i can order a bowden tube!!!
thanks to the replies in the thread i went to shop.ultimaker.com and ordered 2 glass plates.. which were shipped to me today...
so SandervG.. i might sound frustrated.. but if you look at my above post.. and place yourself in my shoes, someone who is running your companies printers for 24/7, making money out of them, the fact that you've secretely switched the way i should buy spare parts but then "forgot" or for whatever reason to actually supply them the spare parts.. how would you feel?
1
cool, it doesn't seem to want to tag @SandervG
@SandervG, I feel it would have been a much smarter move to keep the shop but outsource the logistics to a specialized provider, think you're throwing away a huge potential.
One important question, how will you deal with the orders for parts that where never on the web-shop anyhow, but handled thru customer support (I need to order some new linear bearings). Will you handle those yourself or do I need to go thru makerpoint? which will certainly increase the already terrible leadtimes.
1
@SandervG, if Ultimaker would be serious about their customer care they would make sure the prices in each and every country are about the price we got the printers from the Ultimaker shop directly.
In Switzerland e.g. today's cheapest price through the (very complicated and long!) distribution network for an UM2 is EUR 2323.- (w/o VAT). That's 20% more than in the UM shop assuming EUR 40 as shipping costs. So much about local dealers have lower costs...and caring about customers... :(
Edited by GuestHi Korneel and the rest,
Thank you for your detailed reply.
I am happy to hear the concept overall makes sense, good to be on the same page once
For the other questions you raise I must admit you strike some good points.
I'll address those in a little bit, first I would like to clear up the 'cheaper' part.
This may be more true for our customers who literally live on the other side of the globe. I did not mean a big price difference per part, but mostly in avoiding currency changes and reduced shipping costs. For our fellow Dutch this may not always apply.
As for the parts which aren't on the webshop @ultiarjan, you can still source them from the appointed distributor in that country. In the Netherlands that is still us, in Germany that is iGo3D and in France it is Makershop for example. Our customer support won't close so we'll always be open to answer any questions or requests you might have.
@Dim3nsioneer, that is the point. (having a similar price). Could you tell me where they charge that? If I select Switzerland in my country settings I get forwarded to iGo3D and they sell an Ultimaker 2 Extended for €2999 w/ VAT. The difference is only 5 euro's.
I hope you know better than saying we don't care about our customers.
About communications; originally the closing of the shop was scheduled for January 5th, but for (IT-)reasons we (i) did not foresee it was pushed forward to December 25th.
We had a company update scheduled for tomorrow but this was not altered after the change of the shop closing-date. Our apologies for the inconvenience. I'm afraid it's a human / communication error.
The Company Update will have more information in regard of this change.
Oh.. about spare parts, I forgot to address that one.
We are preparing a special shipment for Makerpoint to get everything back in stock.
@Dim3nsioneer, that is the point. (having a similar price). Could you tell me where they charge that? If I select Switzerland in my country settings I get forwarded to iGo3D and they sell an Ultimaker 2 Extended for €2999 w/ VAT. The difference is only 5 euro's.
I hope you know better than saying we don't care about our customers.
That's just first half of the whole story. Yes, iGo3D sells the UM2 family to a reasonable price. But they are in Germany. It's not Switzerland. Switzerland is not member of the EU so an UM2 has to go through customs. Any carrier who delivers goods from Germany to Switzerland has to declare the goods and they charge - well - something. So far it is exactly the same as if we order directly at Ultimaker (there goes the 'local' advantage). So iGo3D is as local for Switzerland as Ultimaker itself. I actually don't know if iGo3D really sells directly to Switzerland. One has to consider the following:
iGo3D has a sub-distributor installed in Switzerland which is called Swissintrading. This company imports the printers and the parts and passes them on to shops in Switzerland (with a significant surcharge). I'm pretty sure every shop in Switzerland is buying from Swissintrading as they have a cooperation with another company called Maroc3D which offers support for all UM machines sold through Swissintrading. Interestingly, all major (web)shops in Switzerland point to this Maroc3D for support (if you want to know more about that support, please ask me in a PM, it's not suitable for public).
edit: This is a link to a price comparison for the UM2 in Switzerland. The first two shops are actually in Germany and sell into Switzerland (support from who?) You may have to calculate the corresponding Euro prices yourself (Switzerland has 8% VAT).
Edited by GuestI'll address those in a little bit, first I would like to clear up the 'cheaper' part.
This may be more true for our customers who literally live on the other side of the globe. I did not mean a big price difference per part, but mostly in avoiding currency changes and reduced shipping costs. For our fellow Dutch this may not always apply.
Emphasis on the maybe part.. I do live literally on the other side of the world and surprise, it has always been cheaper to buy direct from UM. Some times $100 - $200 cheaper and sometimes only $50 (currently) depending on currency changes.
I'm a bit pissed off. I liked and would rather buy from UM direct. A few reasons for this is, It's cheaper. I was able to pre-order my UM2go and get one in the first shipment. My local store doesn't even sell the UM2go. The Olsson added free with new printers. Not sold by my local store,
Spare parts?? nope, local store doesn't list any of these either.
I like the products and brand and I'm kinda loyal to that, not some local online store, If something new comes along, I can pre-order or order it direct and know its on its way (normally 3 days delivery) and not have to wait for another company to get it in stock (if they ever do) then ship it to me.
Edited by GuestOh and the prices above are listed minus the local shipping costs.
I do want you to be sure that you realize, and that you take the feedback of this, that, just like with the forum or the decision to cut dual extrusion or any of the other decisions taken so far, is not in the actual decision itself.
sure it makes sense to have orders fullfilled by a party that specializes in it. i'm sure they could do it cheaper in the end.
however, as multiple examples here show that
1)the switch happened before the suppliers were stocked. the reasoning behind it is irrelevant. (seriously, because IT told you to switch sooner?)
2)there has been little to no analysis on the impact to your customers (see examples from Labern and others)
3)communication has been non existent until someone complained
this happens every single time with every single change. it's not the change that annoys people here, it's the way it;s handled.
by the way, regarding communication around changes, what ever happened to the "compensation" for the dropping of dual extrusion that was being looked into?
anyway, I ramble. I think the general feeling here is that your largest users\consumers\supporters (and yes, i consider myself one of those) will feel the majority of the pain of this unannounced change while the one-time or smaller consumers probably won't notice..
@korneel, to be honest, the information about Ultimaker to stop direct sale is not new:
https://ultimaker.com/en/community/16674-no-direct-sales-anymore
I guess everybody, especially the distributors, knew what's coming.
Edited by Guest@korneel, to be honest, the information about Ultimaker to stop direct sale is not new:
https://ultimaker.com/en/community/16674-no-direct-sales-anymore
I guess everybody, especially the distributors, knew what's coming.
well, I kinda disagree. The topic is about both support, as well as reseller for certain countries. to stop reselling in their own country and cut sales from their own website completely would be something that would be great to have been announced.
also, it's not the fact that it happened that annoys me.. I agree with you, sure, the writing was on the wall and i believe it's a better system. the fact that it just happened over night without prior announcement and then the people who were supposed to step up, the distributors, don't have any stock.. that's a bad thing.
3D systems gave a months notice before closing there store, its a bit more of a drastic announcements but at least they sent out an email to all everyone to announce it.
If UM is going this way then they should have some set rules for re-sellers to keep up there image, It would be nice to have all products available but it should be to make sure they have set list of spare parts listed on there store and as Korneel said. time should be given to allow re-sellers to build up some stock.
Unfortunately, the official company update had to be postponed but I have been given permission to share some more information with you in an attempt to answer any questions or concerns you might have.
Ultimaker in your area - closing our webshop
2014 was when we set up a collaboration with FBRC8 to establish a professional and customer focused level of service for the USA which served as an example for 2015.
In 2015 we emphasized our European network of partners to offer a similar level of service and support in all European countries. We put in a lot of work in selecting only the best dedicated partners who share a similar vision and passion towards the field of 3D printing. In our efforts we have trained over 50 people who are part of this network to ensure they live, breath and execute the Ultimaker experience. Every hub in our link of partners has at least 1 certified member of our pro-team to offer technical support, which is the highest rank within the Ultimaker academy.
The benefit of having such a network is that our customers can receive local service in their own timezone and language. It also means our partners can offer shipment faster and cheaper than we ever could.
In 2016 we will continue to roll out this chain of dedicated partners and certified pro-team members worldwide, to ensure an similar Ultimaker experience for everyone.
The first training has already been scheduled in January. In Singapore.
As you can see we have already made the necessary steps in preparing for this next step to make our network as conclusive as possible. In regards of connectivity online we are dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s to link our website to our partner’s.
In case you stumble upon such a yet-to-be-made connection a form is presented through which we’ll personally put you in touch with your local partner to fulfil your needs asap.
Pretty soon it will be like nothing ever changed, except it got better!
Offline - maintaining and updating website
To complete the transition we have to do some work on our website. This also means that our beloved forum will be closed on January 5th from 9am to approximately 5pm CET.
If you have any questions on January 5th our support department is ready and waiting for you.
If you need any technical support our partners in your local area are set and ready to get you back on track.
Kicking off 2016 - stay tuned
Besides these improvements on the business side of things we understand our users are also waiting to be entertained and eager to get their hands on something. Stay tuned for more information!
@Labern, obviously our intentions are far from anyone being disadvantaged by this change. For a short period of time we'll be in a transition period, in which you can count on us to help you out and make it as smooth as possible. If there is an unreasonable difference in price we'll have a look into it.
Like stated above, besides us there is also a professional and customer-focused chain of partners ready to help out.
If you are in need of any parts the form is probably the best way to get connected with a partner close to you to fulfil your need. Every partner is selected to ensure the Ultimaker feeling is maintained and through time this will only grow and evolve.
@Korneel, dearly noted. Unfortunately, I have not been able to succeed in creating support for an appropriate compensation. But rest assured, it has not been forgotten.
If you have any further questions, feel free to send me a DM or what you feel is appropriate.
Thank you!
- Oh, the note about the forum closing on January 5th will also be mentioned/featured on the dashboard itself to notify our users.
Edited by GuestThanks Sander for the update.
I understand that this is a good way to go for the business. Its just nice to have UM as a good second option.
Also, the company update prior to changes like this or even a note as you enter the store with a bit of warning would be good.
Not everyone likes change but you should have learnt from last time that a warning first makes the transition a bit easier.
Hm, wow. @Korneel, shit always happens to you first man.
@SandervG, really? Again no communication before stuff happened? Accompanied by the fact that stuff wasn't really ready when launched?
Sadly it's always this way arround and not like there will be an Ultimaker 3 in my room printing, a few days before the announcement comes.
May I add to the discussion:
-The up- and downsides of the printer @coolblue note: " Printen met 2 printkoppen is op dit moment nog niet mogelijk. ". Is this saying it is coming, but was the announcement delayed?
Same goes for UMO: " De printer is uit te breiden met onderdelen zoals een wifi-module of extra een printkop. "
- Makerpoint says for UM2: "Connectivity: SD Card, WiFi printing ready (future upgradeable)"
Wifi? 
Wait whut?
-What's up with coolblue also selling leapfrog and other printers. Is that a good or a bad thing?
Edited by GuestUM2: "Connectivity: SD Card, WiFi printing ready (future upgradeable)"
Wifi? :OWait whut?
This was advertised by UM back when I got my UM2. I'm Still waiting for the upgrade. 
This was advertised by UM back when I got my UM2. I'm Still waiting for the upgrade.
I think we meant "You can slap a doodle3d or octoprint on it" by that.
This was advertised by UM back when I got my UM2. I'm Still waiting for the upgrade.
I think we meant "You can slap a doodle3d or octoprint on it" by that.
Yeah I had guessed that. The doodle 3D was in the store at the time also.
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Afaik you can still buy on shop.ultimaker.com
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