Up until earlier this month, the Global store serviced New Zealand. Within the last few weeks, it no longer ships to NZ.
Nothing. Not just printers, but no filament, no accessories, no Maker Supply kits. There’s been no announcement or anything about this. You go to place an order… and it tells you it can’t ship to New Zealand. (The ‘Click here to place your order’ link directs you to authorised resellers in the country, which obviously don’t accept MakerWorld gift cards)
However on MakerWorld, it still tells you to exchange your gift card to the Global store explicitly including New Zealand as an option. Both these screenshots were taken today, within 10 minutes of this post going live.
This is super frustrating for a number of reasons. I now have gift cards I can’t use; points I get for people downloading and sharing my models are now essentially useless as I don’t use the AI systems; not all of Bambu’s filaments are available here via our resellers, there are a large number exclusive to their site; and there was no communication about any of this, you only find out when you go to check out.
Hopefully this helps alert some people to the change and maybe if we’re lucky we can get some answers from Bambu. I know we’re only a small country at the bottom of the world… but could you at least give us access to the Australian store if the global is too hard? Just, something?
I hope this is down to their low level shipping company having pulled out of NZ ?
Beginning around June this year many Australian shipping services changed their terms and conditions, especially for non-standard sizes and heavy items.
For example my supplier for laser plywood struggled for over 3 months to find working shipping arrangements for the large sheets.
A small lathe I ordered only arrived after I agreed to pay half on the extra shipping costs the seller got slammed with sine I ordered.
Rural areas are a real pain now and NZ is considered more than rural by international shipping services.
I have people in NZ and some rural AU areas that order models and printed parts from me at times.
Had to basically give up on that and recommend they use a print service for the models as shipping larger ones now costs me more than printing the model.
Noticed similar for other companies until I saw this problem now affects Bambu as well.
Some it certainly comes from recent changes NZ implemented, like higher tariffs on imported goods and more restrictions.
In a few days quite a lot of things will be harder to get in NZ and with that their price will go up even further.
Somehow I think Bambu did not apply for the free trade conditions and also failed to secure a shipping service offering a working solution for those in NZ…
I’m so angry about this! I used to use the gift cards to buy filament but decided to save them up and get an AMS. Just got enough and went to buy the AMS and saw they have stopped shipping here to NZ. I’ve now got $240 USD of cards and no way to spend them! WTF.
I think everyone in NZ is angry about this, I use my Bambu for engineering prototypes and products not just “dragons” and none of the NZ retails carry what I need so to put it simply I am F**Ked, just got approval to start printing a huge prototype and went to order all the filament I needed and…NOPE.
I think it is a disgrace that there was no warning or anything they just cut us off like we don’t matter, FFS allow us to be supplied from Australia rather than China, the shipping will be cheaper as that is what they a Bi*ching about, the cost to ship from China to NZ!
Bambu are linking through to the NZ resellers but they are so much more expensive. An X1C/AMS combo is $1,900 NZD though Bambu direct to Australia, all the NZ resellers are asking for $2,900 here!
I was going to buy the rumoured new dual head Bambu printer if it comes out, but definitely not willing to pay 1/3 above Bambu direct pricing.
Bambu were using FedEx and DHL which are eye watering expensive and almost no-one uses here. They could have found a much more economic shipping solution rather than just cancel it altogether!
I checked with a friend who is in NZ and who was able to provide a tiny bit more insight here.
All major shipping companies provided rather drastic price increases for ‘bulky items’.
Despite the various trade agreements in place this had a big impact on local businesses already which rely on imported products.
Right now the only feasible option is to order in huge bulk quantities to use shipping containers, rather than several smaller orders spread out.
Then there is this weird business model that was set in place.
NZ businesses are fine but ‘imported’ businesses face extra taxing.
So the old concept of just having a big distribution warehouse and postal head office no longer works.
Who is to blame here ?
Of course we can blame Bambu to some extent as it really is not nice to just dump your customers like this and without any announcement or Email notification.
But we also have to look at the NZ and AU governments and how their trade and other deals affect people and businesses on the lower end.
For Bambu it makes a lot of sense to drop out of the direct market and to switch to authorised resellers only.
Sadly they make this move long before their dealer network is up to specs and able to also provide the required technical support.
And well, what good is it for the customer to see something listed by the company that costs significantly more through the reseller ?
It is insulting as the reseller gets the volume discounts but forwards all costs plus extra profits to the customer - knowing they have no other options left.
My friend is badly affected here as he builds custom housing for things like speakers, electronics and such, relying on the supply of parts in small volumes.
He said that right now it is often cheaper to order linear actuators and such from Europe or the US rather than China or Australia - because they still offer cheaper postage that local services.
On a larger picture it falls in line with the global move to weed out the reliance on imports while strengthening the local economy.
No more on-demand-production, back to warehousing and hoarding while the consumer forks out the costs.
One would think that if two country make dedicated trade agreements that they would consider the shipping problem…
Super disappointed by this as well, after doing all the research and then getting the printer for Christmas to find that the store can no longer service NZ for parts, filaments, accessories etc is rather frustrating. I sincerely hope this is reverted back.
Further I note the local resellers are only stocking a fraction of the available filaments, and always in the less eco Spool+ rather than refill only…
@MakerWorld it would be great to have some clarity on what’s going on. We’re a country full of adventurous pioneers who love to design and build unique things and your products and services were something we rely on every day.
Indeed, the gift card redemption still states that they are redeemable for purchases to New Zealand, so you’re legally obligated to either sell us goods or transfer them to one of the overpriced “authorized resellers” here. I wouldn’t be particularly happy about it, but it would be a solution.
I also note that New Zealand is still included in the countries you ship to according to your shipping restrictions section of your shipping policy.
I feel extremely disappointed and hurt that we’ve been excluded from all Bambu Lab stores. It would be good to have some direction and clarity of what’s happening and why, but failing that at least let us redeem our gift cards as many of us still have purchases that we have been saving up for for a long time and don’t want to pay an extra 30-100% extra to buy locally.
It’s bad enough these poor hobbit loving people* are left off more maps than any other country, leaving them off being able to purchase these printers is just wrong.
The filament selection (not to mention the pricing disparity between the bulk pricing here vs resellers) is very lacking locally and this seems like a very backwards decision on Bambu’s part.
They’ve never offered A1 series, and in December axed the shipping of P1S/P1P to NZ and the X1C was the only option - I ordered a printer last week, but now you can’t even get those.
I would suspect because it’s such a small market and marvle3d and pbtech may have wanted exclusive distribution.
Am gutted for getting parts for these machines, being able to get obscure parts within a few days will now be horrible going through these retailers as they don’t range them - this sucks
Just got a filamenet order a few days ago. Very disappointing as resellers in NZ are really abusing on pricing and shipping. It was way cheaper and faster to order from Bambu. Curious to learn more about the reasons of the changes and see how reselling market will evolve. Does anyone started to look at importing containers?
Doubly horrible to reward them with purchases for setting up this non-compete agreement which made it more expensive for consumers in the first place.
I think they should re-instate shipping to New Zealand. If shipping cost is increasing, perhaps raise the minimum value free shipping threshold to a more suitable amount to make sense for Bambu.
Not only does this new arrangement with resellers make it more expensive for kiwi hobbyists (consider we already pay a huge premium on printers), this excludes New Zealand from taking part on Makerworld’s incentive program.
I am sad and disappointed to see this change and angry at the resellers.
I ABSOLUTELY love Hobbits! As a matter of fact, I keep one under my 3D printer and it does all my filament swaps for multicolor prints. The little guy saved me almost $800 buying an AMS from a local reseller! People say he’ll cost more in food in the long run but I simply don’t feed him so that’s not going to happen, hah!
Next on the cards is to figure out how to get him to speak like an Australian (with heaps of extra vowels in every word and ending every sentence sounding like a question) so we’ll be able to buy stuff from the Ozzie Bambu Lab official store now that Kiwis are being treated like bastard children. Maybe we got excluded because we weren’t on the map Bambu was using and they decided by committee that we don’t actually exist?
Another Kiwi here who just bought a Bambu printer for Christmas - got a P1S with AMS and already ordered several rolls of filament and some parts before this happened, and I was literally going to place another order tomorrow for some more - so I am so angry now. I ordered a bunch of reusable spools to be able to order refill filament and how great it was that I could order direct to Bambu, and now this. Region exclusive distributorships are a thing of the past in today’s global era and tech savvy consumers - such as people who are into 3D printing will just find other options. For me, it will be switching to another cheaper brand or getting my dad to bring spools over when he comes from overseas a few times a year.
I tried to reply on this because I am also upset about it being a new purchaser from NZ, but it was instantly hidden as “spam” saying the community has flagged it. Smells dodgy to me.
Not sure how my post was spam, perhaps the person who flagged it can let me know?
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