I am new, and I also see this has been asked a couple of time. Feel free to ‘unclutter’ (delete) this post if it is unhelpful.
I have been lurking in the shadows of this community for a couple of months now. I am ready to start doing some serious planning and start buying parts to build a LR2.
From what I can gather the availability of LR2 bundles in the V1Engineering shop is volatile. Is it safe to assume that more will be available as time permits? I am not asking as a demand, more seeing if I should put the effort to source the parts elsewhere. I would prefer to keep it internal to support the project.
Awesome! I figured that was the case. I know these are non-normative times. I will get the ball rolling on getting tubes and setting up a table. Thanks for the advice everyone!
Yeah. Odd times. But Ryan is always cutting it close. Not to get too philosophical here, but if you compare this to something like original prusa.
Prusa has the advantage that you pay for and keep your spot in line. So whoever orders first gets it first. There isn’t any luck involved. But also, you can order a new printer, and not know when you will get it, and it could be months. We also don’t know how that money is managed and at any moment, they could throw their hands up, and anyone in the queue is at risk of losing their money and getting no printer.
Ryan’s system means he takes the risk, by preordering parts, investing labor to sort and count them into kits, and then managing the quantities carefully. As soon as you buy one in the store, it ships (same day, but not guaranteed). But the downside is, if demand is exceeding supply (which has happened in the best of times), it is luck of the draw to see if you catch a kit when you check. It is more honest, but maybe not as fair.
Some other stores operate similar to Ryan’s but you can drop your email to get a reminder if there is new stock. I can see this being useful. Because Ryan might have a better guess at how many sales are “ready to go” and the emails going out could be first in-first-out, and rate limited. So if 20 people wanted to know about new supply, and he had 10 new kits, he might email the first 10 people and then email the next 10 after they have had a chance to buy, or when there are 10 more kits. I have no idea how the store software works though, and if it could support this kind of thing.
Okay…it took this long to get an in stock notification to get installed. Unfortunately it does not limit the emails, so if I stock 1 everyone will get the email. I had one with a wait list function but it would not work…and it was really expensive.
I am a software developer, and may be able to help with the wait-list or notification plug-in (depending on your site architecture). PM me if interested
Thank you for the offer. Let’s see how this one works out, normally I will be adding large amounts of inventory at a time so it will be okay. But those times I add just one…is gunna cause issues.
Some Shopify plug ins are just sketchy, this one seemed very easy and worked quickly.
Well that sucked. I got a canceled order and one went into stock automatically…it sold in minutes…then I got a flood of irritated emails saying they can’t buy it.
I am going to give it one more chance and if that happens again that is a waste of my time.
@vicious1 Bummer. I saw the email, but was probably way too slow.
It is managing the expectation of “Back in Stock” vs. Nope, not any more. I know I am possibly a minority as I didn’t send an irritated email, but I think the system is fine. I signed back up when I saw that it was out. I get that the availability is limited for lots of reasons. I also think you should do whatever is the least stress for you.
Thanks for trying something new! Still excited to start making a table in the mean time.
It’s all a learning experiment for me. I know there is value in it, but testing to see what I am willing to pay for an how much is no fun for a penny pincher like me with little time to mess around. Shopify is a great platform but there are a few basic functions I am not happy that I have to pay for “apps” on top of the already high monthly and percentage (at best 2.6% + 30¢) they take from every transaction.
The one I have now works super fast and is $5 a month, but no actual list. The next one I will try is $15 a month and looks to have a list, but I need to make sure it is not a paid item wait list just a notification list. The rest are like $50/month and a few cents per waiting customer…no, just no. Probably doesn’t sound like much but all the charges I pay per month really really add up. I times like this I get really nervous about fixed costs.
It’s robbery to tell you the truth. I’ve written lots of work software, and that’s high by almost any standards, let alone for a small feature like that. I hope you get it figured out
Once and a while some of the features get integrated into shopify, but I am paying more than that for the new system that lets people “make a bundle” or have it ask if they want to add an SD card when buying a LCD. Solid bummer.
@vicious1 Got the most recent “In Stock” email. Placed an order. Things look good from this end. Only the smallest of inconveniences given the larger current mess of global shipping and supply. Thanks for everything! I am looking forward to the build, I am sure you will see me around and I fumble through all of this.
Awesome, glad to hear it, and thanks for the support! I tried to set up another wait list system, it did not work so I enabled the old one, glad to hear the emails still went out. My shipments are all messed up so after these batches inventory is gunna be slim on everything for a while…bummer.
I hope to get it all out tomorrow, but it could be Tuesday since about half of the wait list seems to have bought one today.
Got mine a few days ago and received a shipping notification today! Glad to be on board guys, once I get 'er built, I hope to contribute to the firmware/interface/etc since software development is my field of study. (well, I also teach college level machining)
I just received all my parts, for the Low-rider 2! Thanks for the Fast shipping! I can’t wait to get it all built and running. this is my first CNC, and I am going nuts with it. I ordered a Laser and a 3D printer head for it. can’t wait to start making things!