BambuLab Japan is Discontinuing Many of its Filament Refills, for Some Reason

Bambu Filament and Accesories Filament
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I checked BambuLab Japan today, and found that many of the refill options are being discontinued for a lot of Matte and Basic PLA colors. Essentially, going forward, BambuLab Japan users will have to buy many of these colors with spools attached, which makes them cost about 600 yen more.

While I understand that it might not be viable to produce some of these colors in both spooled and uspooled versions… why get rid of the refill versions? I assume many customers like myself already have extra spools ready and waiting for new filament as they come in, and if not… well, you can buy spools separately on the store (it’s more expensive that way, yes, but still), and if you’re buying filament, chances are you have a machine that can print spools for you if need be.

Overall, I just want to say that while it’s understandable BambuLab would want to discontinue one of the two purchase options for some of their less popular filaments in a region that might not see as many sales, why discontinue the refill option? As it is right now, I’m going to be forced to pay about 600 yen more per roll in order to get something extra that I will have to deal with disposing myself. In Japan, dealing with bulky waste like that can sometimes prove difficult.

Tagging this with product-request in the hopes that it gets the right people looking at it, but let me know if I can send this message to anywhere else to potentially have my voice heard.

BambuLab Japan should absolutely keep the refill versions of filaments over the spooled versions. Take out the spooled ones if necessary, but please keep the spoolless ones on the store!

Here’s the article notifying of the change on the Japanese site (it’s in Japanese, of course):

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If the rumour is true about bambulab setting up its own filament manufacturing, it may be that the reusable spool will become a thing of the past and they will just come up with a simpler spool and a cheaper price. The single-use spools are recyclable anyway so although it might be environmentally friendly to have come up with a reusable spool it’s not the end of the world if the spools are to be thrown away in the recycle bin.

If that’s the case, why start with Japan, I don’t know.

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From the other side of the world, Bambu Lab EU/DE store. I have tried ordering PLA Basic Grey, White and Black since Christmas, but they are always out of stock.

Is this a common trend, does anybody know what we should “feed our printers” :slight_smile: ?

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It seams like it is a numbers game. I have no insight into this product. Just other products in other industry.

Many newbies it is complicated to print a spool. So they need to keep the spooled version.
If they are not selling enough to make it work stocking the second product and warehousing… It might not be economically viable. and shipping from some other location is excessivly long and/or expensive.

I much prefer the refill spools.

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Yeah, that’s all I can think of, but given it’s less common colors and getting it spooled isn’t too difficult to do even for beginners… not sure why they would do it this way.

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The short answer is to buy other companies’ colors, for better or worse!

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Yeah, who knows. I think the reusable spool is the best for sustainability–less plastic, smaller packages to ship, etc. Maybe Japan is a less popular market, so they want to cut the fat here first.